David Banner(Bill Bixby) is sleeping on a park bench in California one night when he is arrested for vagrancy and put in a police van with another man named Tom Wallace(played by James Wainwright) who is mentally unbalanced, believing himself to be writer Ernest Hemingway having undergone electro-shock therapy and thinking both David and his wife have betrayed him. After escaping from the van, David becomes determined to track him down, and prevent him from committing murder, as he suspects another cause for Tom's madness... Intriguing episode has a good performance by Wainwright and costar Sherman Hemsley. Amusing scene of David picking up redeemable bottles to pay for a phone call is the type of realism that was most appreciated.
2 Reviews
Madman Freed
flarefan-819061 May 2017
After seeing the opening scene of this episode, I figured I was in for another winner. This time David apparently has no luck on the job front, and is picked up by the cops as a vagrant. They stuff him in with a guy named Tom who proves to be a dangerous psychotic. When Tom attacks David, he changes into the Hulk and busts loose - setting the psycho free as well.
It's a great setup. Stories where the Hulk is the cause of the problem are important (and in this series, all too rare), in part because it starts to feel like too big a coincidence when David Banner just keeps bumping into problems by chance, but also because the tragic destructiveness of the Hulk is an intrinsic part of the character. In this case at least, it also means that guilt and responsibility serve as convincing motives for David to play hero.
But as it turns out, for the first time this season we have two dud episodes in a row. Certainly "No Escape" has far more redeeming value than "The Disciple", but there are a lot of plot holes, most of them involving David being able to find Tom with no explanation. Also, one of the supporting characters is a supposedly sane man who chooses to harbor Tom. His stated motive: Tom's delusion is that he's Earnest Hemmingway, and he thinks this delusion will make Tom a famous author too. Riiiiight. There's more problems with that than I can fit in this review.
Beyond his delusions, Tom has a number of real world parallels with Earnest Hemingway, and this episode at times feels uncomfortably like Hemingway fanwank, a fantasy in which Hemingway is saved and lives happily ever after instead of committing suicide. There are plenty of good points; most notably, McGee is here and makes good use of what he learned in "Mystery Man, Part 2" to be more of a problem than ever. Overall, though, this is not great viewing.
It's a great setup. Stories where the Hulk is the cause of the problem are important (and in this series, all too rare), in part because it starts to feel like too big a coincidence when David Banner just keeps bumping into problems by chance, but also because the tragic destructiveness of the Hulk is an intrinsic part of the character. In this case at least, it also means that guilt and responsibility serve as convincing motives for David to play hero.
But as it turns out, for the first time this season we have two dud episodes in a row. Certainly "No Escape" has far more redeeming value than "The Disciple", but there are a lot of plot holes, most of them involving David being able to find Tom with no explanation. Also, one of the supporting characters is a supposedly sane man who chooses to harbor Tom. His stated motive: Tom's delusion is that he's Earnest Hemmingway, and he thinks this delusion will make Tom a famous author too. Riiiiight. There's more problems with that than I can fit in this review.
Beyond his delusions, Tom has a number of real world parallels with Earnest Hemingway, and this episode at times feels uncomfortably like Hemingway fanwank, a fantasy in which Hemingway is saved and lives happily ever after instead of committing suicide. There are plenty of good points; most notably, McGee is here and makes good use of what he learned in "Mystery Man, Part 2" to be more of a problem than ever. Overall, though, this is not great viewing.
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