User Reviews

By pure chance Mathews stops in a small town diner for breakfast. The waitress is very nervous and then tells Mathews that she can't fix his breakfast because her stove broke down and also tells him that a restaurant down the road may be open - which it isn't. By now Mathews is getting a bit suspicious and even more so when even the county medical officer acts odd. The whole way this story unravels is very well done - it's logical and understandable. And the ending which for me was unexpected, beautifully, albeit sadly, wraps up the whole story. This is one of those episodes where a couple of the faces looked so familiar but the names wouldn't come. In this case it was the actors portraying Charlie Barrett and the doctor. I won't remember their names again but I will remember their faces. This was a superior episode. Crawford's ending was a repeat of the somewhat gruesome admonishment to "leave blood at the Red Cross not the highway."

Excellent episode of Highway Patrol has a lot going for it, including a nicely developed mystery, refreshing rural, small town setting, suspicious behavior of the townsfolk, and a frustrated but coolly driven Dan Matthews (Broderick Crawford) trying to make sense of this "wall of silence" that he receives from everyone seemingly harboring a secret that needles at his curiosity. Ultimately there's this cover up involving someone harmed, possibly killed as townsfolk conceal and act elusive to Matthews, just wanting him to leave their town. However, Matthews is a trained Highway Patrol officer (and a cop with considerable authority and experience) who knows when something's not right: and the behavior of those in this little desert town certainly warrants his staying put and investigative probe. A stolen car, hurt elderly man claimed to have a broken leg, dangerous bank robber on the lam, members of the town stores (like a general store owner, diner waitress, town physician, and farmer) all working in concert together to keep the plot's mystery under wraps, and Matthews' gradual investigation turning up clues that helps him solve what is going on (calling on a local patrolmen who passes through from time to time, knowing the townspeople having met them numerous times, to help fill him in on their typical behavior) really builds to quite an effective resolution. I thoroughly enjoy a good show that has a lead character out of his environment, stumbling (as Matthews does here, basically driving through to get some grub and a pack of smokes) literally into a criminal situation that has tight-lipped locals adhering to a quiet code to protect one (or more) of their own. This kind of plot allows the police investigator to work extra hard to get at the truth as he must break down the barrier protecting a crime. Because the locals of this episode aren't criminals, forced into a bad situation unwanted, Matthews would eventually get answers: they aren't trained crooks who can keep their yaps shut when the vice is squeezed. I like how the plot isn't black and white because of what happened, and Matthews is confronted with a question on punishment when the crime might have been accidental. Just a really well executed episode that builds a plot restricted to a half-hour format expertly.

**SPOILERS** Nixon, that is. When the cure is what kills ya. I watched it in wonder. The guy who was dead is a lifelong bad guy on the run for bank robbery and murder. We don't find this out until the end, but in finding out it is revealed that the bad guy was killed by way of self defense. So what is it that they are covering up? Well, they couldn't cover up their own stupidity, could they? Especially the waitress, who only had to serve a breakfast to a cop, and probably exchange pleasantries for a little while. Instead, she's a dummy; a lame excuse, and then more lame excuses from the others. It goes on until Mathews trips them up on their own lies. Much like Richard Nixon and Watergate. The chips fall where they may, and it blows over, or..... we know the rest, don't we?

Dan is seen in his patrol car driving into an isolated town, stopping at a diner for breakfast. The waitress is happy to serve this man in a suit until she notices his car outside is a highway patrol car. Now I have always wondered why Dan normally drives around in a patrol car instead of an unmarked police car, the way virtually every other plain clothes police officer does. Today was the answer: He would have never become involved in this mystery if his car was unmarked.

The waitress tells Dan her stove is on the blink and she can't serve him. She recommends two other places and Dan soon learns they are also closed. We see her phoning someone and telling him about the policeman in town. They are nervous but all we know at present is it concerns someone named "Walker."

There is a general store across the street from the diner where three older men are gathered in the back. With a "CLOSED" sign on the door, Dan only walks up, reads the sign, and is intrigued by a physician's decal on a car parked outside. He finds a man nearby in his yard but the closed-mouth man just does a precursor to the Sgt. Schultz routine with Dan. Then the doctor emerges but tells Dan nothing useful.

Because everyone seems to be keeping a secret, Dan does some digging via his radio, including speaking to his patrolman who regularly goes through this town, identified as Larchmont.

We see the men in the store with one telling another to take the car that's out back and drive it away somewhere. Dan is nearby and he asks the old man who tells him he bought the car three weeks ago from someone. As he takes off, Dan notes the license plate and phones in, later learning it was stolen much more recently.

This leads to Dan confronting the small group who are concealing something, and he finds out the truth about why all these otherwise law-abiding citizens are hiding something big from the police.

Since other reviewers here have revealed much of the ending, it won't hurt if I spoil it a bit too. Probably, you've seen enough "reverse plot" shows like this, such as on Rockford Files which regularly featured shows where the big mystery is what in the world is going on, made that way only because the script cleverly reveals little by little as we go along, keeping the viewer in the dark.

The townsfolk are shown to be hiding someone, apparently Walker, but we don't know if he's dead or merely wounded until late in the show, and even later, we learn how he died-he attacked Wilkins, the man who ran the store, and Wilkins killed him, accidentally, in self defense. Even though they knew this man, who had stolen the vehicle in Yuma, was wanted and had a $5,000 reward out for him, they were just going to bury him in an unmarked grave and forget about any reward.

I'll leave out the one "surprise" point, but will say I did guess it. But it truly didn't answer the question: A known fugitive comes in and when he attacks Wilkins and is killed as described, why not just phone the police? You're honest, he's wanted, all of the physical evidence will back up a story of self-defense.

I had figured something similar only thought the man had brought with him a huge sum of stolen money the people were planning on sharing and THAT was why they didn't want to report anything. OK, I saw that exact plot on Remington Steele one time in a story that almost had to have been written by someone who saw this episode.

But there was no stolen money, nothing illegal anyone was attempting other than not reporting the death and, technically, the possession of a stolen car. Hey, they could have driven it to some other town and just left it to be found.

I think the rather interesting plot of this show was dragged down by nobody having any decent reason to hide this death. Nobody had any illicit plans. Even the secret Wilkins only revealed at the end doesn't explain at all why he'd want to hide such a thing.

If only the waitress wasn't so stupid and had just served Dan some food, he would have driven on and never known what happened in Larchmont. Like most reverse plot stories, it truly hinges on the story really coming together at the end. As good as it seemed early on, the finish was quite disappointing, forcing me to only give this a 5.