Escape into Black

One of my favorite's, all the main characters are in it, and we have Kimble's flashbacks trying to restore his memory. What I find most interesting is his emotional turmoil at the end of the episode, where he doubts his innocence, and believes the right thing to do is turn himself in.

This is Season 2's version of "The Girl From Little Egypt", only it's a better version of it. One weak point is the accident that renders Kimble vulnerable: he's in a diner in Decatur, Illinois, where he's heard the One-armed man might be working in a restaurant when a fire breaks out in the kitchen. Everybody flees except Kimble, who tried to stop the fire by fiddling with the controls of a gas stove that he obviously doesn't know how to work. There's an explosion and he winds up with the script writer's best friend, amnesia. Why didn't he run? The interesting thing about this sequence is that David Janssen is clearly not doubled when there is a major flair-up of the fire to suggest the explosion. Janssen recoiled backwards and falls. Obviously, he wasn't as close to the flames as it appears but it still seems a risky scene to put your star in.

Anyway, Kimble winds up in a hospital, not knowing who he is. He gets flashes of a dead woman, a one-armed man, etc. But he can't add it up. The hospital staff and the local police try to help him find out who he is, which is the last thing he would want- if he knew who he was.

Meanwhile there's a conflict between the doctor caring for him and the social worker who is trying to find out who he is. The doctor long ago decided he could be a better doctor if he took no personal interest in his patients. The social worker is a bleeding heart advocate for everyone whose case winds up on her desk. They've clashed before and are now jousting about what to do with Kimble. Kimble, searching for the truth of his life, agrees with the doctor's plan to use sodium pentothal to pull Kimble's hidden memories to the forefront and we again see the flashbacks to the night of the murder and the subsequent trial. The doctor now knows who Kimble really is. He convinces Kimble he's really running from his own guilt.

When Kimble finds out he's a doctor who killed his wife, he thinks he may be guilty of the murder. He even goes to a library and looks up the old newspapers and decides the case against him is pretty strong. Meanwhile the social worker finds the one-armed man, who denies knowing Kimble in an unconvincing manner. The man then calls the police to report that Kimble is in the hospital. He escapes but decides to call Gerard to turn himself in. He takes a train headed for Stafford. But on the way he looks out the window and sees his reflection- which becomes the reflection in the original opening credit sequence, which then gets repeated, allowing Kimble's memory to come back.

The social worker is played by old time song and dance gal Betty Garrett, who was familiar with men in dire straits, having been married to the blacklisted Larry Parks, who got off the blacklist by naming names and thus winding up with the contempt of both sides in that era. The doctor is played by Ivan Dixon and that's significant because Dixon was black but there's no reference to that in the script. One break through is to get roles as black characters in stories about racism. But the greater breakthrough is to be considered for all roles with color not being an issue. Unfortunately, that didn't happen enough for performers like Dixon, who wound up taking the insubstantial role of "Kinchloe" in "Hogan's Heroes". Eventually he turned to directing, where it didn't matter what color he was.

Ironically, at one point Garrett, discussing Dixon's impersonal attitude, sarcastically says "You wouldn't want to stain your lily- white coat, would you?" Dixon points out that he could lose his license to practice if he allowed a convicted murderer to escape and says "You wouldn't want two defrocked doctors would you?" Apparently, he thinks of himself as a priest more than a doctor.

This episode had a strong, interesting story line. There was tension throughout, especially when Kimble called Gerard to turn himself in. I enjoyed the flashbacks and they were effective in enhancing Kumble's plight. Both the doctor and social worker displayed empathy toward Kimble and gave the story a degree of warmth and compassion.

When the episode begins, Richard Kimble goes into a diner to get a bite to eat. The kitchen soon catches fire and he tries to help...and the oven explodes in his face in the process. When he awakens, he's in the hospital and he is a mess. His ear drums were ruptured, he has brain damage AND cannot remember who he is. His hands are also burned...so getting fingerprints is difficult. The social worker at the hospital (Betty Garrett) works hard to try to straighten all this out and one thing she and the other hospital staff notice is that this John Doe has medical skills. As for the social worker, once Kimble starts to recall who he is, she goes in search of the one-armed man.

This is an excellent episode for someone who isn't familiar with the series as it pretty much goes through the old case bit by bit. It's also entertaining and worth seeing.

Kimble arrives at a restaurant announcing he is looking for his one-armed friend who he heard works at a local restaurant. Kimble is injured in an explosion and loses his memory.

At the hospital, Dr. Towne (actor Ivan Dixon), a neuropsychiatrist, tries to treat Kimble's amnesia. Meanwhile, social worker Margaret Ruskin (actress Betty Garrett, in an outstanding performance) tries to figure out who Kimble is, his identification proving to be false. Dr. Towne is intelligent, clinical and uncaring, while Ruskin cares deeply about everyone.

Ruskin travels the town showing Kimble's photo to one-armed men, one of whom turns out to be Fred Johnson, the real murderer of Mrs. Kimble. Though she does not know which of the one-armed men is the killer, she knows it must be one of them, because the police get an anonymous call advising them Kimble is at the hospital.

When police inform Dr. Towne who Kimble is, and say they are on the way to make an arrest, Ruskin has to convince Kimble he is a convicted murderer who must escape to save his life. Kimble, fighting to regain his memory, goes to the public library to read old newspapers to learn about his wife's death and the trial, but this is inadequate to restore his memory. Kimble faces severe danger when, in his confused state, he phones Lieutenant Gerard and says he is taking a train to Stafford to turn himself in.