Sam leaps into a familiar location, his hometown of Elk Ridge, Indiana, but he leaps right into the middle of a bank robbery-with Sam's character, Willie Walters, one of three brothers in the process of robbing the local bank. He spends almost the whole episode trying to make sure he and his brothers aren't killed escaping-which is the history that Al provides. He also tries to get proof that their family farm, foreclosed on recently, was part of an evil scheme by the banker to gain control of many farms so a mall could be built-which, Al tells us-it will be some two years down the road.
The vast majority of the show takes place while the brothers are holding many hostages inside the bank, which forces Sam to keep going to the men's room to talk to Al. There are subplots about rivalries amongst bank employees, and Willie and older brother Neil having a big argument about who was/wasn't there when their deceased father needed them to help run the farm. And, as expected, Sam gets another chance to hug his own father, who seems puzzled that this young man he barely knows wants to hug him on the street.
This seemed like a tired, old, much-used plot-evil banker talks farmer into taking out a loan for modern equipment to save his farm, but when farmer cannot make payments, farm is repossessed and banker makes fortune from selling it. The reason it seemed that way is obvious-it has been done, and done to death, by so many Hollywood productions over the years.
Of course, there are plot holes a mile wide. In this one, the banker was seeking to foreclose on several mortgages over time to sell to the mall-building people. I guess this early 1970s mall was going to be the size of Minnesota's Mall of America because most regular size big shopping malls are not nearly as big as one regular Midwest-sized farm. And those farmers could easily have sold their farms to the mall developers and paid off their mortgages with the farmers and developers coming out ahead and the banker getting nothing. From the show, the agreement he had was only in effect if he obtained these properties.
Any business can be a gamble in that you don't know how things will be years into the future. This includes farming, a TV repair shop, a video-rental store, and so-many other places we've seen over the years. When's the last time you saw a Fotomat store? There used to be over 4,000 of them in the U.S.
My point is, a farmer then, or now, is running a business. He/she has to decide how to make the business prosper. The added burden is knowing how bad weather can destroy your profits for a year. There is nothing inherently crooked about a bank giving a farm loan-they do it all the time-knowing that the farmer may or may not make a profit regularly enough to pay back the loan. The bank is taking a risk on getting the loan back, as is the farmer on whether the loan can be paid back. Not every business that fails is victim to a dishonest banker, but in Hollywood productions it would seem that all bankers are crooks.
This episode also has a rather sad part of the ending that I won't spoil here. This brings the score down from a 5 to a 3. The plot didn't go anywhere-what with Sam being confined inside the bank most of the time-and the whole thing being a simplistic tale of an evil banker that we've seen just too many times.
The vast majority of the show takes place while the brothers are holding many hostages inside the bank, which forces Sam to keep going to the men's room to talk to Al. There are subplots about rivalries amongst bank employees, and Willie and older brother Neil having a big argument about who was/wasn't there when their deceased father needed them to help run the farm. And, as expected, Sam gets another chance to hug his own father, who seems puzzled that this young man he barely knows wants to hug him on the street.
This seemed like a tired, old, much-used plot-evil banker talks farmer into taking out a loan for modern equipment to save his farm, but when farmer cannot make payments, farm is repossessed and banker makes fortune from selling it. The reason it seemed that way is obvious-it has been done, and done to death, by so many Hollywood productions over the years.
Of course, there are plot holes a mile wide. In this one, the banker was seeking to foreclose on several mortgages over time to sell to the mall-building people. I guess this early 1970s mall was going to be the size of Minnesota's Mall of America because most regular size big shopping malls are not nearly as big as one regular Midwest-sized farm. And those farmers could easily have sold their farms to the mall developers and paid off their mortgages with the farmers and developers coming out ahead and the banker getting nothing. From the show, the agreement he had was only in effect if he obtained these properties.
Any business can be a gamble in that you don't know how things will be years into the future. This includes farming, a TV repair shop, a video-rental store, and so-many other places we've seen over the years. When's the last time you saw a Fotomat store? There used to be over 4,000 of them in the U.S.
My point is, a farmer then, or now, is running a business. He/she has to decide how to make the business prosper. The added burden is knowing how bad weather can destroy your profits for a year. There is nothing inherently crooked about a bank giving a farm loan-they do it all the time-knowing that the farmer may or may not make a profit regularly enough to pay back the loan. The bank is taking a risk on getting the loan back, as is the farmer on whether the loan can be paid back. Not every business that fails is victim to a dishonest banker, but in Hollywood productions it would seem that all bankers are crooks.
This episode also has a rather sad part of the ending that I won't spoil here. This brings the score down from a 5 to a 3. The plot didn't go anywhere-what with Sam being confined inside the bank most of the time-and the whole thing being a simplistic tale of an evil banker that we've seen just too many times.
