Dick is trying to dump his casual girlfriend Laurel when this one starts. Laurel, played by fuge familiar face Carol Rossen, responds by clawing his face and driving off. Laurel goes missing and the sheriff, JD Cannon, aka the coward Lloyd Chandler from the finale, brings Dick in for questioning. Laurel's sister and brother-in-law are also involved. The sister never wanted Laurel to date Dick, who she thought was a worthless drifter. Anyways, Laurel is found and it's implied she was raped by doctor Jimmy Doohan. That is, Doohan was the one who implied it. She claimed she can't remember anything. Dick is arrested and fingerprinted, so he knows he has to clear himself before the prints get back. He gets the cops to let him talk to Laurel, but she still unconvincingly claims amnesia. Meanwhile, the sister has somehow figured out that her husband was the one who raped Laurel, and he starts feeling guilty about it. She tells him to shut up and let Kimble take the rap, since the prints came back and he is, after all, a convicted murderer anyway. By this time, Dick has been handcuffed but escapes by hilariously knocking a deputy over a railing. He is running around the grounds of the sister's impressive estate and it really looks like the end is near for him, when the sister for some unknown reason decides to help him. She hides him in the basement but then reluctantly tells the cops where he is. Confusing. When the cops run to the basement, they see a window open and the brother-in-law standing there. So he also, for whatever reason, is motivated to help Kimble. Also strange is the fact that on the hottest day of the year, Dick continues to wear his sport jacket. Laurel then says that she was mad at Dick for dumping her, so she picked up the first man she saw and asked for it, and then it was too late to stop. So the brother-in-law was apparently walking around that part of town late at night when this happened. He seemingly doesn't face any consequences for the rape or for letting Kimble escape, and Richard Kimble somehow frees himself from handcuffs that restrained his hands behind his back to remain.....a fugitive.
Review of Middle of a Heat Wave
