Watching Mannix is like watching some strange time capsule. If I hadn't grown up in the 70s, I would think the clothes, decor, hairstyles, etc were all made up. Not to give too much of the plot away, suffice it to say a gang of goons mistake Peggy for another black woman played by Kim Hamilton, who is trying to escape from the goons. Kim's character is Get Christie Love! Sort of interesting, but unfortunately perhaps too much, so she's only present for half of the story. Or maybe she had plastic surgery so was present the whole time, but none of us recognized her the 2nd half of the show, which is devoted to Mannix trying to find kidnapped Peggy. Thinking she's dead, the police give Mannix Peggy's bullet-holed red coat that she had recently purchased, because there's no need to keep evidence of a murder, right? Based on Peggy's handwritten clue of her general vicinity on the lapel of her coat, Mannix almost immediately finds the house where she is holed up in what looks like a bomb shelter in the basement. Because the house housing Lonnie (which had to be for sale, so Mannix pretended to be a buyer), Lonnie had apparently ordered from the drugstore a lifetime supply of Peggy's favorite lipstick, so Mannix knew something was amiss. In any case, kidnapper Lonnie decided to store Peggy in this shelter rather than kill her. Besides a bathroom, lipstick, and a cup of tea, what more could Peggy need? He gives Peggy photos of her son, who he found by looking up Peggy in the phonebook. This "act of kindness" surprisingly didn't freak out Peggy. Ultimately, we discover that Lonnie has migraines, mental health, and mommy issues. Still, he somehow formed a plot with a skipper who never made it to Gilligan's Island, to take Peggy to another island outside of the USA. But first, there's a Quentin Tarantino-like gunfight in the living room. Lonnie's been shot, and as he gives his final speech to Peggy in the shelter room, he confuses her with his mother, and based on his speech, it seems he may have killed his mother. Peggy thinks she's a gonner when WHAM-it's Mannix to the rescue! Of the Peggy-centered episodes, this one's not so bad. I was never bored, despite the recycled plot.
Review of Walk on the Blind Side
