311 Runaway

I like this episode. It was the first episode dealing with feminism. I can relate to having a big sister torturing me.

I thought the scenes with Sam and the older sister were inspired. It's really too bad, though, that the real Butchie didn't get to pet the Buffalo Chimps - he'd been looking forward to it for so long!!!

I thought it was an excellent episode,until the last 5 minutes of the episode...the last scene in the episodes - Sam revenging at Alexandra was a waist of time,exactly like Sam revenge at Buddy in the last minutes of Deborah pratt episode - "what the price Gloria." So unecessery!
Except this i thought the twist in the end of the episode -when Al find out Butchie's mother died and didn't run away,like he assumed was so hmm...too hard to believe. and what was the deal with the rope sam used to save butchie's mother that almost got torn up?
In the bottom line could be excellent but wasn't...

I guess it depends on what you consider "unnecessary" - I thought it was a very good ending, for the same reason I thought the ending to "Gloria" was fitting - both Alexandra and Buddy deserved the shock to the system that Sam gave them.

I thought the twist - where the mom DIDN't run away was excellent - it showed how Al's assumptions and prejudices based on his own life experiences can lead him astray and was a good use of a plot twist.

Fraying rope = suspense.

I'm curious - how would you have had the episode play out?

cookiemom6067 said:

I thought the twist - where the mom DIDN't run away was excellent - it showed how Al's assumptions and prejudices based on his own life experiences can lead him astray and was a good use of a plot twist.

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That the thing...isn't Ziggy supposed to figure out what's sam mission and not Al?so...If Ziggy is such an advanced computer how could he missed it?!

cookiemom6067 said:

Fraying rope = suspense.

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But the rope didn't torn up in the end,so why Paul Brown decided he just have to put it in his script?! It was juch an unnecessery Cliche!

cookiemom6067 said:

I'm curious - how would you have had the episode play out?

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I would cut off the frying rope and wouldn't write the "revenge" scene - first of all - Butchie Could never done anything like that in his age to Alexandra. he just didn't look strong enough to do something like that and it's pretty much expose that Butchie is not really Butchie,and Sam doesn't suppose to do it,Does he?!
ohh...and i would give Alexandra a few more lines to say.

isz said:

I thought it was an excellent episode,until the last 5 minutes of the episode...the last scene in the episodes - Sam revenging at Alexandra was a waist of time,

and what was the deal with the rope sam used to save butchie's mother that almost got torn up?
In the bottom line could be excellent but wasn't...

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I loved the ending, but i must admit the thought that he wouldn't have been strong enough to do this DID cross my mind.

I do agree with you about the rope, but remember it was in the 80's so they did tend to overdo the suspense thing.:hair .

This episode was very well done. However, my daughter and I both have an issue with the last scene where Sam holds Alexandra over the well. We both feel that this is too dangerous and not something that Sam would do, being the sweet guy he is. Sure Alexandra was a pain to him. But doing that was too risky unlike in What Price Gloria at the end where Sam gets his revenge on Buddy. Nothing dangerous about any of that.

Also, there's that scene where Sam runs into the street to stop Bill driving away in his car. Al shows up and apologizes to Sam saying he thought that Emma was with Bill. But did we see Al telling Sam where Bill was? We didn't. It seems that there is a deleted scene there.

Despite these couple of issues we think it's a good episode.

I liked this one a lot. It did make a good statement about not taking things for granted and listening to what others are trying to tell you. I thought poor Sam leaping into a 13-year-old and having to bite the bullet and put up with his big sister's tormenting was funny. While I do understand the concerns about the scene at the end, part of what made the show fun was that the people whose lives Sam leapt into didn't see him as he really was. Sometimes the people Sam had contact with did need to be taught a lesson and deal with the shock factor of having the person he had leapt into do something they normally wouldn't have been able to do. I was cheering for him when he beat the crap out of the creeps in "What Price Gloria" and "Raped" who believed he was a female. Surprise, surprise. :-D

isz said:

That the thing...isn't Ziggy supposed to figure out what's sam mission and not Al?so...If Ziggy is such an advanced computer how could he missed it?!

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If I remember correctly, the mother's body was never found, so how could she have been reported dead? The husband merely assumed that she had walked out on the family, and so might not have declared her dead (or even missing for that matter)...

Lightning McQueenie said:

If I remember correctly, the mother's body was never found, so how could she have been reported dead? The husband merely assumed that she had walked out on the family, and so might not have declared her dead (or even missing for that matter)...

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Yes, exactly. Her body wasn't found until many years later (as it came out toward the climax of the leap when Al got that info from Ziggy) so the husband and the kids did assume that she had walked out on them.

I liked this episode. It was suspenseful and there was a lot that was touching about it. They did a much better job dealing with feminism in this episode than they did in the later Women's Lib episode, which I don't like at all. This was a little more subtle and just handled better, in my opinion.

I spent the whole episode waiting for Sam to finally get even with the bratty sister. But the way he ended up doing it did seem a bit disturbing and out of character for Sam.

The thing I really like about this episode is how it reminds me how talented Scott was at emulating the body language of whoever he leaped into. There's a scene where he's standing next to his "mother" while she talks to her old high school flame, and he's shifting and fidgeting just like a kid that age would. I noticed it right away and chuckled. Sometimes, he really does become the person he's leaped into.

It's the middle of the third season... and here come the "downers". Almost in the vein of the episode "Camikazi Kid", another Paul Brown episode, "Runaway" is yet another average work. Not as enjoyable as most of the previous episodes, but still much more enjoyable than the very next episode, "8 1/2 months". Again, as much as I liked it, because I truly do (in fact it's one of the episodes I play the most), that wasn't enough to distract my attention from the problems I had with it.

Unlike "Camikazi Kid", I liked most of the characters here... but they were all so one-sided and self-centered I begin to wonder: "Where those times really this way? Or is it maybe only Paul Brawn's writing that suffers from these little cliches?" Here we have the complete cast: the macho but good-intentioned husband, the frustrated "feminist" housewife (but also good-intended), the bully, pain-in-the-bottom, yet harmless big sister, the successful long-lost friend with some "antagonizing" moments, his serious, well-educated daughter whose job is to stare awkwardly most of the time because she wants help understanding what the adults are talking about, and, just because he wasn't there, but Butche, the kid nobody ever listens to just because he's too young to have a real point about life.

This episode deals with many topics at the same time: family, bullying, women liberation, jealousy, jealousness, advantage, marriage and love itself. It has a way of dealing with all these topics with a very light touch, almost as if I was watching a generic Lifetime melodramatic TV production. Something I got to give to this episode is how, even when they were a very dysfunctional family, they cared for each other in the end. It had to be with the worst of situations, but still. Another thing I liked was how Hank and Alexandra show fears, concern and defense at some point. That in itself is what gives them dimension as human beings and not just cartoons. The friend was still very one-dimensional, and I can't help viewing Emma as the "damsel in distress". That's what she was all along and nothing changed in her. She talked about liberation but she constantly wanted to and had to be saved by others. The "antagonist" friend (because he wasn't really a bad guy) running away at the end when he sees there's potential trouble was a cop-out to me, but it was expected from him.

What I liked the most: All the final act. Things play out like in crescendo until the suspense explodes, like with those fireworks, haha! Very well played out, the suspense, and I have to admit that it still keeps me on the edge of my seat. A bit over-the-top with the rope (very cliched even for the early 90's) and all the screams, but it was still very good.

M favorite part: Hank was always bullying Butchie about his reflexes, and when he wants to slap him, Butchie repels the attack. Of course it was Sam, and in a very tense situation, but that finally shut him up.

Another favorite part: At the end when, no matter what, Alexandra still calls him a twerp. She will always be the big sister, and nothing will ever stop her about teasing his little brother.

My rating: Average.

You really didn't like 8 1/2 months?

Lightning McQueenie said:

You really didn't like 8 1/2 months?

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Liked parts from it... but overall I found it so unsettling. I'll review it later to go into details about it.

The flow of good to excellent episodes grinds to a halt here, with a bang average story. Runaway is one of those episodes that I find enjoyable enough while watching, but then afterwards just forget all the details.

There are certain things about this episode that I enjoyed. I did like Hank. Yeah, he's annoying, but the character is well written enough for viewers to find things to like about him. I also liked the idea of Sam leaping into a kid, and his interactions with Butchie's mum were nice. I also really enjoyed seeing Sam fix Hank and Emma's marriage. The scene where Hank throws the book away is probably the best one in the episode.

Unfortunately, I think the episode is dragged down by a couple of things. First of all, I just hated the big sister. I know she's meant to be a brat, but honestly, every time she was on screen I was annoyed. Lol. At the same time, I do think Sam went overboard at the end and acted out of character in punishing her. I also didn't like the ending, with the truth about what happened to Emma. The fact that the project didn't know about Emma's remains been found is hard for me to swallow (even though we do get some explanation about that from Al). So yeah, the ending on the cliff face seemed tacked on just to shock and thrill the viewers.

My rating. Average. A bit better than Fair, but a very average, forgettable episode.