kolchak: the night stalker -- episode 20: the sentry
welp.
this is it. the last one. we did it, people. 20 episodes of this show and we ... well, i don't know what exactly we did here. but it was sure something, wasn't it?
i really thought about how i'd start the final recap. whether i'd have some sort of fond wistful remembrances of these past few months. if i had the time (and, y'know, actually cared), i would have put together one of those oscar-type "in memoriam" montages of all the people and monsters who died on this show.
someone who is totally not me should totally do that for game of thrones.
update: the internet will never let you down.
honestly, i did have a twinge of sadness when carl kolchak's warbling whistle set off the opening credit sequence. this was the end. i might kinda miss these.
then the episode happened. whoo boy. let's go.
kolchak is driving. in a golf cart. down a hallway. quickly. away from something.
and he's driving.
and he's driving.
and he's driving.
this goes on for nearly a full two minutes at the start of the episode. it's all very dramatic. the driving. the music. carl looking back over his shoulder as though he were trying to see if that highway patrol officer really did get off the freeway.
you: but marcas, what's chasing him?
me: shut up and eat your beans.
we don't actually know what's chasing carl. but he drives through hallways and into some cave that looked like a leftover set from land of the lost where he pants out the dying screed of a wild-eyed man facing his own personal apocalypse.
but before we can see the instrument of kolchak's presumptive demise, we must go back. way back. back into time.
back ... to yesterday.
that's when seismic expert dr. james verheyden and his pal howard kemper were digging around in a cave looking for seismos (that's what seismic experts look for, right?) and apparently found some in a big rock they dug up. that's fun for james. he gets to scurry off with a rock full of seismos.
howard doesn't get to join in any seismic reindeer games. instead, he gets a face full of fright which was apparently connected to the rubber reptile foot we see stomp down on the ground.
i'd like to take a moment to pour one out for haruo nakajima -- the man inside the rubber godzilla suit for the first 12 movies of the series. your work is an inspiration to millions. i count godzilla: king of the monsters a marvel of visual storytelling, of which you were a large part. thank you for your contribution to film.
howard kemper would soon have company in killed-by-rubber-suited-reptile valhalla. larry coogan, electrician and erstwhile monster patsy was busy electricating when a poorly-lit crocodilish thing started busting light bulbs and advancing on its slow-witted and slower-footed prey. thanks for playing, larry.
all of this has fallen in the lap of lt. irene lamont, the first female detective we've seen on the show. immediately she's accused of using her feminine wiles to move up through the ranks. which isn't exactly how i'd describe it. she had a certain charm about her that would probably be considered folksy were she an older, southern ben matlock type. but when you're an attractive woman, lonely crime reporters think it's flirty.
flirty doesn't work with kolchak, the eternal bachelor. so she just stonewalls him. mostly. before giving up that she's on her way to coogan's autopsy. that's all the opening carl needs. he books to the hospital and impersonates a doctor (aka, putting on scrubs and a mask) to weasel into the examination room. it's not long before the other doctors suspect strange things are afoot and kolchak hightails it -- but not before learning that both victims appeared to have puncture wounds made by giant reptile teeth.
you know carl's news erection is starting to wiggle. it points him in the direction of merrymount archives -- a giant underground storage facility that was the site of the two deaths. he meets jack flaherty (tom bosley!), vice president of combination locks (or something like that). posing as a harried executive from a precious metals company, kolchak talks his way into the vaults and gets some useful information.
the vaults are more than 10,000 feet underground, which is about 1.6666666666666666666666666666666666667 times as deep as the grand canyon. which ... okay. also that merrymount stores a lot of top secret government data. which makes me wonder if they know about the part time summer job i had with the city of vallejo when i was 17. in particular the day i did nothing but sit at my desk and make a paper hat and sword that i wore jauntily later that night while playing poker with my buddies. it seemed like a comic parody of the stereotype of a city employee and i wonder if maybe the government preserved it as a monument to excellence. or maybe even as a warning.
i don't really care if i'm goofus or gallant. i just want them to remember it.
i'm kidding.
both goofus and gallant were terrible.
alas, there's plenty of discontent in the merrymount basement. a tall, angry union guy is towering over and shouting at flaherty about his men wanting more money if they're going to continue working in fear. then there's dr. verhyden, who's raving about wanting new locks on all the doors. IT'S MADNESS!
after wandering away from the tour, kolchak finds Disgruntled Union Guy No. 1 and chats him up, pretending to be a safety inspector. DUG1 seems all too eager to dish on poor working conditions and something about verhyden getting some big rock stolen from him on a dig in utah. i'd tell you to put a pin in that. but i don't think it ever comes back again.
kolchak snags a golf cart and heads over to sector m, where coogan was killed. it looks like no one got around to cleaning the place up since there was still broken glass all over the floor. but hark! strangeness is in the air. a poorly-lit yet still obviously rubber critter approacheth! carl hops back in the cart and leads us on one of the more confusing chases you'll see which leads to him nearly running over a man in a rubber croc suit and ends with him running into the arms of the cops.
as carl is being led out of the building in cuffs, the police are stopped by a phalanx of men in "water department" uniforms. which is weird because i've never seen the d.w.p. guys in los angeles line up in formation. must be a chicago thing. the two agencies argue over who gets to hold and interrogate kolchak. the cops win because ... law enforcement?
after getting bailed out of jail and lightly scolded by tony vincenzo (how much do they spend a year on bail for kolchak?), carl decides that he needs to get back into merrymount. so he turns to a former informant who is chock full of bad reptile jokes and apparently knows how to smuggle things. although locking kolchak into a giant wooden crate doesn't seem like a particularly rare skillset.
once he's back 10k feet under the ground, kolchak hops out of the box and snoops around. i feel i should point out a couple of things.
- there was nothing in the crate besides kolchak but at no point did the guards comment on its uneven weight.
- there was nothing securing the lid as evidenced by how easily carl popped out of it.
- the guards left it in a hallway. in a facility that prides itself on handling corporate and government secrets, they left a random crate sitting unattended in a hallway. this is how penises get spray painted on walls.
carl finds his way into dr. verhayden's office where he's confronted by the good doctor, who is already high-strung but turns the angst to 11 when carl starts handling some special rare geological specimen. before the doctor can blow a gasket...
MAN IN RUBBER REPTILE SUIT BURSTS THROUGH WALL!!!
the creature tosses the lab and runs out into the hallway, where the "water department" is stationed and armed to the teeth. (man, chicago, you really need to do something about your water issues.) croc-man absorbs a few bullets, seems no worse for wear and escapes.
turns out, the "water department" isn't what they claim to be. unless water departments have guns. and dog tags. and colonels. or maybe that's just how they roll in chicago. before the colonel can blow a gasket...
MAN IN RUBBER REPTILE SUIT BURSTS THROUGH WALL!!!
by now, it's mayhem at merrymount. Disgruntled Union Guy No. 1 leaves the basement in a panic. kolchak keeps on snoopin'. he comes across a big rock filled with shiny blue lizard egg-type things. and wouldn't ya just know it? a lizard man appears.
it's back in the golf cart for kolchak and he's on the run.
this is where we came in. armed with a makeshift torch, carl drives to the caves in sector r of the merrymount underground wonderland. before long, the rubber reptile finds him ... and the egg-filled rock he carried with him.
why, carl? why did you take the egg-filled rock?
turns out, that's all the creature wanted. after doing a weird fire joust dance with carl, godzilla-lite takes the eggs and slinks back into the shadows.
no critter. no eggs. no authorities talking. no record.
congratulations, carl kolchak. you were a robust 0-for-20 in reporting over the course of the show. our last image of him is dashing hurriedly from the end of a subterranean tunnel.
never change, carl.
reporter's notebook
something about the title of this episode bothered me. all of the other ones seemed to make obvious sense. in this case, calling it "the sentry" gave me the idea of some military type bad guy. having it turn out to be a lizard just threw me all off. the title wasn't incorrect because of how the creature acted in the end. it was just ... misleading.
remember monique? those were the days.
after seeing this, it's pretty obvious why the network execs cancelled the show before the final 2 episodes aired. by now, it's become a slog for just about everyone involved. it was best to let this die.
by the time of this appearance, tom bosley had put togther a pretty solid television resume. not a ton of big roles but a steady stream of work dating back to 1960. happy days actually hit the air a year before bosley's kolchak cameo. why am i telling you this? you have imdb. look it up.
updyke update: neither ron nor miss emily even appear in the episode. tony barely showed up himself.
quote of the week
"don't tell me what to do with my mouth." - tony vincenzo
*giggle* *snort*
***INSTANT REPLAY WILL RETURN***