The Grenade

Decades later Columbine and Sandy Hook have made this episode ring true. A disturbed teen starts out by throwing acid at a fellow student while at a movie theater; later a search of the boy's room turns up a 45 hand gun and a semi-automatic rifle and a live hand grenade. And when an additional grenade is missing, Friday and Gannon know they need to find the suspect. By today's standards, the acting is stilted and the action slow, but the story has become too familiar.

This episode is about a kid who is seriously disturbed. However, despite tons of warning signs, his parents are morons and live in a constant state of denial. At first, his behaviors are dangerous but he always seems to have an excuse that the parents buy quickly. Even when Friday and Gannon get involved, the parents continue to insist that their little angel is just 'misunderstood'. Eventually, this culminates in much more serious behaviors such as pouring acid on Jan-Michael Vincent's clothes as well as his threatening a group of kids with a live hand grenade--and Friday and Gannon jump into action to save everyone. Finally, the parents realize they have a problem on their hands!! While it's way too easy to blame parents for all a kid's problems, this show is a wonderful example of a mentally disturbed kid whose parents are just incompetent boobs. Very, very informative, entertaining and tense. One of the better episodes.

Joe Friday and Bill Gannon met their share of troubled teens during the run of Dragnet. Most of them were just little punks who thought the rules didn't apply to them and that they'd get off easy. This time, however, they run into one kid who's a budding psychopath.

Gerald Paulson (played by Mickey Sholdar, one of Webb's go-to actors for punk kids) is a real prize. They first encounter him after he pours sulfuric acid (!) on the back of one of the BMOC's at his high school at the movies.

When he's called on it by Friday and Gannon, he pulls the 'gee, I'm sorry' routine and offers to buy him a new jacket, but Friday hits him with a wham line..."Suppose some of that acid got in his eyes...would you buy him a new pair?"

That leads to a discussion between Joe and Bill, and Bill remarks that 'some kids are just born sour'. But when Paulson runs off from home with a live grenade, how 'sour' is he then? He's now a threat to the entire city, and he's crashed the cool kids' party and is out to make them pay for rejecting him! What ensues next is one of Joe Friday's best moments, a rare moment where he gets to be a real action hero, aided by some of the best film editing ever, not to mention a very loose electrical plug. Gerald will have to face a judge--without the grenade, as Friday points out--and eventually a long stay in a mental hospital.

And if you're looking for future stars in this run of Dragnet, look no further than this episode, which features '70's stalwarts John Rubinstein (as probably the one friend Gerald has), Jan-Michael Vincent (as the jock who's the victim of the acid attack) and Heather Menzies (as the jock's girlfriend).

Well, the opening episode of the second season certainly had a dramatic ending For me, for some reason, the highlight of the half-hour show was one of those cop-to-cop talks "Friday" (Jack Webb) and "Gannon" (Harry Morgan) had in the car, the discussion being why some kids turn out bad. Morgan is more in favor of the environment causing kids to go bad while Webb just thinks some kids are born bad. It's a very interesting talk and would be a conversation piece for anyone.

Anyway, the story is about a teen - "Gerald Paulson" (Mickey Sholdar) who is an outcast and seems to be one of these "troubled" kids. While in the a movie theater another teen gets acid thrown on the back of his jacket by "Paulson." That kid (the acid victim) by the way, turned out to be a fairly famous actor: Jan Michael Vincent.

What happens after that, I'll let you watch as this "Paulson," who sounds like "Eddie Haskell" when he's first confronted by Friday and Gannon, begins to cause far worse problems.

This is one of my favorite episodes of the show as well as season openers. I like the issue this episode deals with which unfortunately has gotten worse today with incidents of mass shootings along with serial killings both perpetrated by people so young. Shame, Gannon and Friday don't really exist because we could really use their help on these matters.

The episode feels like your classic time bomb thriller, as it's suspenseful from beginning to end.

The perpetrator Gerald we do get a little into his psyche which underneath that nice exterior there is bad chemistry going on. The guy is an outcast in some form or another, in a way the clothes this guy is wearing kind of reflect that though also his frayed psych, as his outfit is obviously kind of dated like something you'd see from the 50's and old TV shows like "Leave it to Beaver". It could me a lot of things or nothing but that look you could say shows he a person that not quite up to the times but also that it's the innocent boy mask he constantly puts on.

We never truly know his true motives probably doesn't even have any real ones. It's true that he's been a victim of bullying and having few to no friends but those aren't root causes for his awful acts as their more the catalyst of them. His psyche profile is that of someone despite highly intelligent has a bit of low self-esteem or an inferiority complex; but is also emotionally disturbed and unstable.

And of course, throughout the episode we discover the red flags which I'll admit are a bit chilling and hit too close to home but show how deeply frayed his psyche truly is. When we see that he's purchased weapons and of course one of those are a couple of grenades that are live. What makes it worse and makes the situation scary is Gerald has one of them in is position and you already know he's not going to use for target practice.

I really love this dialog scene between both Friday and Gannon in the car. From Friday saying how sometimes some kids are just born bad. Which I believe is true, there sometime really isn't any legitimate reason as to why people so young can do heinous inhumane things like serial killings and mass shootings, either their wired badly, circuits aren't firing in the right places, wrong chemicals mixed together, but also, their just plain evil.

Gannon gives a little monologue on modern society and kids growing up too fast in it. Which I think is true as this isn't any different right now as it seems like kids are allowed to be kids and grow at their own pace and time. I personally don't think is right because like the plants and seasons in nature you can't rush things, they're not meant to be; if you want flowers and plants to grow you have to give them the patience to let the sunlight, come for them to grow.

It all comes down to a really tense stand off which to me is probably one of the most suspenseful moments ever. Can Gannon and Friday find and defuse this loose grenade on time, you'll just have to wait and see.

Rating: 4 stars.