Amazon sez: “A man kills a young hoodlum who has just robbed a liquor store.” Ya know, if that’s the whole story, it’s enough for me. The bigger crime this week is how riddled with commercials Amazon has become. But I digress . . .
Gerald Clarke pulls into America’s cleanest alley and enters an immaculate liquor store. He grabs a six-pack. The elderly clerk says she can’t break a five, but was a seven during the Hoover Administration. She offers to let him settle-up later, but he refuses. In the background, we see the aforementioned hoodlum emerge from the storeroom.
Said hoodlum jams the gun in Clarke’s back causing him to sweat profusely. The clerk tells the kid he has the loot, so skedaddle — and, for God’s sake, take some of that Zima display with you! The kid runs out, and the clerk reveals she had a pistol but was too scared to use it. [2]
Clarke grabs the pistol and runs after the kid. He sees the getaway car getting away and fires two shots into it. The car crashes into a wall. Clarke fires 2 more shots just to be sure. Dude, you have 2 more bullets!
At the police station, the cops are pretty sympathetic to Clarke. Actually, they are very sympathetic. I mean, I’m a law & order guy, but sadly you’re not allowed to chase the bad guy down and kill him, even here in Florida. They say the robber was 18 year old Jimmy Philips.
Clarke explains why he panicked when confronted — or even conbacked — with a gun.. When he was in Germany during WWII, he saw a man get killed. It was not even combat, but an argument over a Fraulein. Since that day, he has broken out in projectile sweating, heart palpitations, and extreme nausea every time he even sees a pistol or a Spätzle. [3]
Sgt. Schwartz says Clarke is free to go. The detective assures him, “A man has a right to defend himself.” You know, from a crashed car with a dead driver.
A woman in the waiting room mistakes Clarke for a policeman. She begins crying and Clarke hands her his handkerchief. Given the buckets he was sweating an hour ago, I have to think he is doing her no favor. She talks about her little angel Jimmy, raising him as a single mother. She can’t understand why he was killed for waving around an empty gun. Tell it to MSNBC, baby! Hearing the gun was not loaded further flusters Clarke.
Clarke goes to Jimmy’s gravesite for the service. Strange that for all the dead bodies on AHP, we don’t see many funerals. I’m sure the fact that she is a single blonde chick — and, hey! — suddenly without kids had nothing to do with it. He approaches a man who turns out to be Mrs. Phillips’ boss. Clarke wants to pay for the funeral, but the boss has already taken care of that. The man tells Clarke not to worry too much, that this was all Jimmy’s fault. Say, no wonder they made this guy the boss!
Mrs. Philips tracks Clarke down at work. He says they can meet at his place to talk.
[FREAKIN’ COMMERCIALS]
Mrs. Philips masterfully interrogates Clarke as brutally as O’Brien grilled Winston Smith in 1984 or like Megyn Kelly destroyed Jake Tapper in 2025. [2] She goes through the whole sequence of events. Clarke nervously tries to justify why he took the clerk’s gun, why he chased Jimmy into the parking lot, and why he kept firing after Jimmy was hit and the car was crashed. He says he panicked with that gun stuck in his back. When he turns back to face Mrs. Phillips, she is pointing a pistol at him. Ach du Lieber, how many gats does this family own? Golly Moses, naturally he’s a punk! [4]
Even more so than in the liquor store, Clarke breaks out in panic. This was very well shot to highlight his beefy sweaty face, glistening like the end of a Porn-Hub video. He pleads with Mrs. Phillips to put the gun away. He says this will solve nothing, it will just ruin her life.
She puts the gun down and gets her coat from the closet. When she turns around, the profusely sweating Clarke is pointing the pistol at her. Why do these chowderheads keep turning their backs on people with guns?
He shoots her and she collapses on the floor. Then he gives her a John Wick double-tap, blasting her again. He screams, “I told you not to point a gun at me!” Dude, you have four more . . . OK, that’s probably enough.
This reminds me of the very first episode of AHP (not covered here). It is such a shock and so brutally callous that it is exhilarating! Kudos!
Other Stuff
- [1] The kid, perhaps erroneously, flees out the same door he emerged from. [UPDATE] I saw that mentioned as an error on another site. In reality, he was hiding behind the door. That’ll teach me to believe some idiot blogger.
- [2] Seriously, you will see what a worthless waste of oxygen 99% of “journalists” really are.
- [3] Would also have accepted Sülze (Head Cheese), but Spätzle seemed more uniquely German. Plus, sounds like pistol !
- [4] OK, as any heterosexual who can stomach only this one musical [5] can tell you, the link above goes to America, not the quoted Gee Officer Krupke. While Krupke is also a masterful hoot, I can’t watch that supercut of America without reloading 3 times.
- [5] Would also have accepted The Blues Brothers.
- Robert Paget (Jimmy the Hood) is credited as “Auditioning Hitler” in The Producers (1967). Boy, that guy really played some bad eggs.
- As usual, a better write-up of the story and production can be found at bare*bones e-zine.
Smoke on your pipe and put that in.
After being mocked by less-attractive classmates, Susan takes the walk-of-shame home, unwisely taking the shortcut-of-shame through the woods. She stops at a small lake and looks at her reflection (which would be impossible from her position, BTW). After hearing voices telling her she is a nothing, she throws rocks at her reflection (actually, it would be the reflection of the camerman. Acting!). Voices tell her to make herself important. She tears a few pieces of her clothing and goes running, screaming out of the park.
While in prison, he saw her picture in a magazine. Sadly, since it was in a Reader’s Digest [4], it was not large enough to cover a hole like the one his cellblock neighbor 
When Crystal gets the gas card from the glove compartment, Tony sees she has kept his old gun . . . in the glove compartment . . . for 7 years apparently. She eggs him on to take it, but he says he doesn’t want it. Hunh?
Meh. I didn’t like the leads, the motivations were not dumbed down enough, and it still seems a simple matter for Crystal to get away with it. The cops might not find her connection to Tony. It’s not like there was a laptop full of incriminating emails and pictures already in the hands of the authorities that would certainly be used as evidence immediately if there was one honest law enforcement officer in the whole food chain.
Rutherford reminds her he is worth $11 million, and this is back when that was a lot of money. [1] His ex-wives have been taken care of, and not in the usual AHP way. They have been paid off so a new Mrs. Rutherford would be his sole heir. He puts his hand on her leg and says she is a lucky gal. He estimates that because of his bad heart, he has only a few months to live. With no heirs, she would get his entire estate rather than, say, leaving it to that depressing Children’s Hospital down the street. [2]
I love the economy of these 30 minute episodes. There is a quick cut to soon after the the Rutherfords’ wedding. Rutherford gives his wife a necklace with a single pearl on it: “A token of an old man’s love and gratitude for sharing his last days.” He says he regrets that he won’t be around to give her more.
He enters the main room of his apartment above the casino, wearing a tuxedo shirt, a bow tie, and a fabulous robe. He sits down, and his servant John kneels and removes his shoes. What the heck? I’ve watched twenty-eight seasons and two boring, boring movies of Downton Abbey, but I’ve never seen Mr. Barrow tying anyone’s shoes; although he did seem do a lot of kneeling in front of dudes.
Turns out the high-roller — Hunter Combs — comes from big money as his father is president . . . of a railroad, I mean. Meyer’s concern is not all humanitarian. He worries that if the father knew his son was wasting his life gambling, whoring, banging his sister-in-law, and smoking crack that these establishments might get the wrong kind of attention. You know, unless the kid was also funneling $10 millions of graft from the Communist Chinese into the family coffers.
Fine is distressed to hear that the man was killed when he only wanted him roughed up a little. He meets with the other club managers and talks about this business they are in. He says the death was not what he intended. They are interrupted with news that the hothead who shot Combs was just killed in a drive-by.