The Psychic

He distracts her until The Weasel can grab hold of her, and drag her, shrieking and struggling to the back of the van.  The gardener still goes about his work…

HEARING AND SEEING NOTHING. 

Piggy threatens DK's life.  Which makes me like him even less.  Eddie, whose two thighs are as big as one of mine (True!  Sad.  But true!), tries to calm Piggy down, reminding him no one is supposed to get hurt.  But Piggy will have none of it.  He pulls his gun and threatens Eddie before ordering him into the van.  I arbitrarily decide Piggy has a very small dick.  This makes me feel much better, but does nothing to comfort DK or Eddie.

PIGGY HAS A TEENY WEENY PENIS, YOU GUYS!!  THAT'S WHY HE'S ALL BOSSY AND VIOLENT.  HE'S OVERCOMPENSATING.  MOCK HIM TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT!! 

(Only don't let him hear you because he has a gun.)

The disreputable-looking powder blue panel van peels away.  DK's scattered schoolbooks are the only souvenir of her presence.

While this tragedy had been unfolding, Starsky & Hutch had headed for what appears to be a late breakfast at a local fast food stand.  Welcome back, boys!  We've missed you.  For reasons that are not entirely clear, Starsky is already in the car with his food, while Hutch is still picking his up.  He returns to the Torino, both hands full and napkins clenched between his strong white teeth.  He's humming too.  That guy can really multi-task!

Starsky does not seem to appreciate Hutch and his multi-tasking abilities (he may not appreciate him now—but wait till later!).  In fact, Hutch has to ask his partner twice to get the door before Starsky pays attention.  And even then, the curly-haired one takes his own sweet time.  He seems miffed.  Have they had a lovers' quarrel?  Is he still annoyed about the red sauce?  Did he not get any the night before?  Why isn't he enjoying his food, if nothing else?

These are important questions.  Please discuss amongst yourselves.  I'll wait.

Back?

Good.

Starsk finally gets the door.  The two of them have a weird exchange:

H:  Do you mind holding that for me for a second?
S:  I've only got two hands.
H:  Well, put one of them down.

One of what?   His hands?

Boys, the key to building a strong relationship is good, clear communication.

I can't tell if Starsk has had the opportunity to change clothes.  While his jacket appears to be the same, he's got a napkin tucked into his shirt.  Which would lead me to believe, he must have done something.  Otherwise, why bother?

He didn't seem all that annoyed about the incident in the kitchen to begin with, but between Welcome House and now, someone must have pissed in his orange juice, because Starsky is not happy.  His food is greasy.  His partner is messy.  There's just no pleasing the boy.  Hutch accuses him of being immature, or maybe hostile.  It's never really made clear (again with the clear!).  Regardless, Starsk gets even angrier.  It's almost a relief when the radio goes off.  Except Starsky yells at the dispatcher. 

So, Hutch takes the mic.  He is politeness personified (though, admittedly, he's laying it on a bit thick for Starsky's benefit).  They learn a dead body has been found at J & C's Café.  They're told to ask for a man named Huggy.  Starsk seems taken aback that Huggy would be involved.  Hutch warns him not to blame their skinny friend.  Starsky asks Hutch to hold his drink.  Hutch gets a little of his back by replying, "I've only got two hands."

We see the Huggster in a greasy spoon we've never seen before.  He is smoking and drinking a beer (for breakfast?!), resplendent in a sherbet green leisure suit.  It occurs to me I should probably mention that Starsky is wearing jeans, a blue t-shirt and a brown leather jacket (it looks like he may have indeed gone home to change—before, he'd had on jeans, a blue t-shirt [that was darker than the new one] and a blue denim shirt).  I'm wondering if something interesting happened in the interim—like perhaps a full body tackle of his partner on Starsky's part.  Because, even though there was absolutely no need for it, Hutch has changed clothes too.  He went from that enormously collared royal blue sweater he also wore in Silence (I think…) and brown cords to black pants, a green t-shirt, and a plaid flannel shirt. 

Anyone want to venture a guess as to why the costume change?

Starsky asks Hug where the dead body is.  Huggy's response makes it sound as if what he'd been smoking a moment ago might have been just the teensiest bit illegal. 

"Dig—Where giant happy wheels climb to the sky, and pretty dead horses grazing in the sun.  That's where you'll find the last of the remains."

It sounds like a riddle to Starsky.  So you can imagine how happy that makes the poor guy, given his current grumpy state.  He demands that Huggy make some sense.  But Hug doesn't get rattled.  He tells the pair that while he doesn't know where the body is, the guy puttering around in the kitchen does.

It's worth pointing out that during this entire conversation there's the weirdest background music playing from what I assume is a jukebox.  It's a jangly banjo tune that sounds as if the musical geniuses behind it were those scary inbred types from Deliverance.  And it's utterly out of place in our urban jungle setting.

But I digress…

Huggy tells them that he doesn't know any more, but that the guy in the kitchen—formerly known as The Amazing Collins, aka Joe Collandra, soon to be known as Collandra the Great—could no doubt fill in the blanks for them.  Remarkably (or perhaps not), Hutch remembers hearing of The Amazing Collins.  But surely that slovenly, haunted-looking man in the kitchen couldn't be him, a noted psychic?

Could it?!

It could! 

Yet Joe (can I call you Joe?) denies having any special powers.  He calls Huggy "a two bit hustler, trying to make a fast buck."

Hey.  When you're right, you're right.

Joe tells S&H that if they want to eat, they're welcome.  Otherwise, get the hell out.

But Gordo and the Blintz are made of stronger stuff.  They go nowhere.  In fact, Hutch strikes his best psychic pose and pulls forth from his noggin still more information about our would-be Kreskin.  Four years ago, the Amazing Collins had helped the Atlantic City police find the body of a missing boy.  While Joe doesn't deny this, he also doesn't embrace it.  He tells everyone that playing psychic was another part of his life.

Starsky hears only what he wants to hear, and says Joe is a phony.  That he, in fact, had just admitted this (which he hadn't…).  Hutch isn't quite so quick to dismiss Joe's abilities, and in fact warms up to him a bit more when Joe refers to Starsky's beloved Torino as a tomato.

Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe. Toh-ree-no, toh-mah-toe.

Of course, seeing as he is referring to the Torino as a tomato while at the same time telling S&H that two neighborhood kids are trying to steal the car's tires, the conversation wraps up rather abruptly.  Starsky runs out the door to deal with the kids.  Hutch follows close behind to deal with his partner, and support Starsky's efforts to capture the young hooligans.  This is done with a minimum of fuss—the tires remain on the car, and the two boys (the tire thieves, not our boys) are let go with only a warning.  Everyone is happy.

Except Starsky.

"Why aren't they out playing football or something?"

Boy.  He doesn't get in a bad mood often.  But when he does, he is no fun at all!

Huggy, who has wandered out as well, suggests that perhaps the lads were stealing the tires to try and raise money for equipment.  Starsky is not amused.  He warns Huggy that Hutch has labeled Starsky hostile.  Huggy doesn't seem too worried.

Starsky just wants to get the hell out of there.  He is not having a good day.  But Hutch isn't yet ready to dismiss Joe's vision.  He asks Huggy to go over it with him again.  Huggy obliges and Hutch realizes, approximately five minutes after most of the viewing audience at home has figured it out, that what Joe was describing could be an amusement park.  He tells Starsky they should check it out.  Starsky, who is listening to Hutch while simultaneously taking his much abused car off the jack, thinks it's nonsense and has no interest.  Hutch persists.  And after nearly closing Hutch's fingers in the trunk just for giggles, Starsky at last gives in.

Interesting throwaway conversation:

S:  "And you tell me I do some weird things."
H:  "Well.  You know I had this dream one time..."
S:  "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

Hmm. 

What weird things?  What dream?  Starsky obviously already knows about it.  So what does he want to talk to Hutch about?

Could be a fascinating conversation.  Fic, please!  Por favor!!

Off they go to the creepy deserted amusement park.  What is it about places like circuses or gymnasiums or amusement parks that can make them go from centers for fun and play to eerie and ominous at the drop of a hat?

They drive right in, because apparently no one is afraid of crime in this part of town any more than they are in DK's neighborhood.  

They must not watch the show. 

After cruising around for a bit, Hutch makes them stop at the merry-go-round (with its "pretty dead horses").  But it's Starsky who spots the disreputable-looking powder blue panel van. 

When our intrepid detectives wander up to the back of the van, Starsky asks if Hutch has a handkerchief.  Hutch doesn't answer yea or nay.  He wants to know Starsky's intentions (as any good father of the handkerchief should).  Starsky, whose patience is not exactly at an all-time high, tells him it's so he doesn't disturb any fingerprints and proceeds to unbutton Hutch's shirt and try and use it in place of a hanky.

Maybe that's why Starsk is so grouchy.  He hasn't had enough Hutch touching yet today, and he's going through withdrawal.  The poor guy has to make due with just touching his partner's shirt. 

And that's just plain sad.

What's even sadder is that Hutch doesn't realize how dire the situation is.  He takes his shirt out of Starsky's hand and proceeds to open the disreputable-looking powder blue panel van's doors on his own.  A dead body greets them both.

No one is surprised (with the possible exception of the victim) to find that Eddie is the corpse they've been looking for.

Yet Starsky is still not convinced that Joe might be a psychic.  He believes that Joe only knew about the body because he was somehow involved in the crime. 

But before we can investigate that avenue, the scene shifts to a junkyard—more specifically a battered red truck in a junkyard with a rose painted on the side of the truck along with the words "Rosa's Tamales."  We quickly realize this junkyard is one of those where old cars—and trucks!—are compressed into squares of flattened metal.

Will that become important?

As Chekhov said (Anton—not that guy from Star Trek), "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it."

Think of that compressing device—let's refer to it as the squisher—as the proverbial loaded rifle.

Piggy and The Weasel show up.  Piggy is carrying a now bound and gagged DK.  He complains, "She's strong, man."  All DK is doing is swinging her feet.  I want to tell Piggy that not only does he have a teeny, tiny penis, but he outweighs his kidnap victim by about 150lbs and he should just stop whining.

But I don't because this review is already eight pages long and I'm only about halfway through.

Doh!

Piggy puts DK in the red truck, and tells The Weasel to "keep an eye on her."  The Weasel has some weird sexual energy going as he holds the struggling girl.  It makes me feel unclean.

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