EPISODE GUIDE
'The Champ'
Season 2, Episode 2
CREDITS
Written by Richard C. Okie
Directed by Bruce Kessler
Created by Stephen J. Cannell
Produced by Lorenzo Lamas
Theme by Mike Post
Starring:
Lorenzo Lamas as Reno Raines
Branscombe Richmond as Bobby Sixkiller
Kathleen Kinmont as Cheyenne Philips
Tiny Lister as Marvin
B.J. Jefferson as Janet
Ryan Bollman as Ted
Christopher Darza as Larry
John Cripptrog as Jerry
James Kaler as Stanton
Jeff Anderson as Reporter
Greg Davis as Guard
Colleen Kendall as Reporter #2
Duke Stroud as Commander Burns
Merritt Yohnka as Jeff
Richard Gant
Mark Metcalf
First broadcast in America on 20/9/1993
PLOT
'Marvellous' Marvin Montgomery is a
dangerous man. The former heavy-weight champion of the world,
this huge man was arrested three years ago for the man slaughter
of two children whilst drunk in command of a vehicle. As our tale
begins, he is being transferred to another prison. Unfortunately,
the prison transfer service have seemingly had to cut costs by
employing drivers with poor reaction times. As another car pulls
out in front of the van, the driver swerves the van right into a
boat (what are the chances!) which not only destroys the boat,
but also flips the bus over and knocks both guards unconcious -
but not Marvin. Escaping through a winow, Marvin (still with his
feet and hands chained together) flees into the countryside as,
already, police sirens sound.
The driver of the other car having pulled away, the police
seemingly decide that Marvin planned this escape and manged to
knock out both guards and overturn the bus himself before
escaping. One policeman takes a particular interest - Mr Russell
- the man who first put Marvin away. He holds a press conference
announcing the escape of a dangerous man, offering a massive
reward. However, his press conference is interrupted by Mr
Prince, Marvin's manager, who claims that Russell's persecution
of Marvin is merely a continuation of society's prevailing
attitude of oppression towards the black community.
Of course, these social-political issues are of no interest to
Bobby Sixkiller as soon as the concept of 'massive rewards' come
up, he decides that he is the man to bring Marvin in. And by
'he', of course, he means 'Reno'. Reno is less than convinced
(somehow, guaranteeing Bobby an appearance on Oprah as 'the man
who bought in Marvin' in just isn't enough to get him excited),
but he agrees to go after the man in any case.
Marvin himself, meanwhile, is a man who seems to wish no harm on
anyone. He is identified in a hardware shop whilst attempting to
free himself from his manacles, and as a result, is forced to
knock out the proprietor and steal his car, but only under
sufferance and at the insistence of the shop assistant. Of
course, Reno finds this car on the road long before the police.
He stops Marvin in the street and attempts to arrest him. Marvin
wants no trouble - just the chance to go free. However, Reno
refuses to give up, and instead goes into combat with the former
heavyweight champion of the world. Even Renegade has to have some
grounding in reality, so Reno is too knocked unconcious. Marvin
flees, leaving Reno in the road to be found by Bobby and Janet -
Marvin's former rehabilitation counsellor who is convinced Marvin
didn't plan any kind of escape.
Reno goes after 'The Champ' again after recovering, and tracks
him (somehow?) to an open air restaurant (yes, open air - by this
point, we're getting the impression that Marvin isn't very
bright!). This time, Reno arrives to break up a fight - three men
have decided to make an attempt on the reward, but they are no
match for Marvin, even together. In fact, Reno only prevents him
from killing one by ringing the bell at the checkout, presumeably
triggering an automatic urge in him to stop. The presence of
Reno's double-barrelled shotgun is, this time, enough to
encourage Marvin to abandon his escape attempts, and Reno brings
him in.
They spend a night at a motel during which the two talk. Reno
begins to feel that something about the case doesn't add up. They
talk about the night Marvin was arrested, and it transpires that
he cannot remember the details of the night. He'd just won a
champion fight, and had been out celebrating with Prince, getting
extremely drunk in the process. Prince had let him drive his car,
and then he had hit the children. Reno begins to wonder why
Prince would let Marvin drive the car in such a state. He calls
in Bobby and Chey to look up Marvin's file.
Chey goes to Russell in order to draw him from his office.
Claiming to be a reporter, she removes Russell from his office in
order to go to lunch, leaving Bobby free to break into the office
and dig out the file. Marvin's file contains a signed confession
by Marvin, claiming responsibility for the whole situation. Bobby
lets Reno know, and Reno becomes more peturbed.
Reno confronts The Champ whilst they are camping at night in the
open air (for some reason). It transpires that Marvin cannot
read, and was unaware of what he was signing. Reno puts it Marvin
that Prince was driving the car on that fateful night, and simply
pulled Marvin into the seat when the accident had occured. The
scales fall from Marvin's eyes (as it were) and he knows it to be
true. However, before there is a chance for him to respond,
lights come on on a dozen police cars circling the two men. In
the resulting confusion, Reno is bought in, but The Champ
escapes.
Bobby uses his wiles as a cunning master of disguise to free Reno
from the police, and the two head for Prince, knowing that Marvin
will have done the same. Having entered Prince's gym, they
confront and defeat various champion boxers (like you do) until
they finally confront Marvin and Prince. Marvin is hanging Prince
off a building, ready to drop him at a moment's notice. However,
Reno appeals to his better nature, and Prince agrees to tell the
whole truth. Marvin relents, and all these things come to pass.
At the inevitable press conference, Marvin announces his
retirement from the world of boxing, and also thanks 'a stranger
who knows who he is'. The stranger, of course, has ridden off
into the night...
CLASSIC QUOTES
"Prince is a blood sucking
parasite." - Russell lays it on the line.
"I'm the walking talking solution to
all your problems." - Bobby introduces himself to Russell
for the first time. How the man ever gets hired (let alone
respected) is beyond us.
"I ain't got no beef with you
man!" - Marvin to the shop owner. Pure poetry.
"For your community, for your kids,
for you." - the end of Bobby's truly sad infomercial.
"Pretty impressive, huh?" he asks Chey
"Well it certainly makes an impression!" she replies.
So true.
"All I wanted was my keys!" -
Marvin to Reno after smacking him in the face.
"Do I sound like an IDIOT,
Stanten?" - Bobby whilst rescuing Reno. The obvious answer
would be yes.
NOTES
You can sense the thought processes of the
writer during the opening scene. "Hmmm," he says.
"Let's set the scene of Marvin's escape along a beach. This
won't add anything to the plot, but it will give us the
oppurtunity to fill the first five minutes of film with long
close ups of scantily clad women. I mean - I know we always do
that, but I think in this epsiode, we could probably surpass even
ourselves with our gratuitousness."
His thought processes, obviously, followed though, and these
things came to pass.
Cost cutting in the prison transfer
services make the front of the prison van fall off before it
impacts the ground. Slightly worrying, I would think.
With the police on their way, Marvin heads
for the highest spot on the landscape. Yet we are informed later
on that he's not the brightest of chaps.
As Reno is laid out by Marvin, the boxing
sound effects are certainly worth mentioning. Not tacky at all -
oh no.
It's also worth mentioning the Marvin's
knock out punch to the face leaves no mark or bruise on Reno at
all. Maybe he heals exceptionally quickly. On coming 'round,
however, he may have wanted to ask why Bobby had left him by the
side of the road for him to wake up, as opposed to, say, moving
him to somewhere comfortable, rushing him to hospital or
something.
Russell's reaction to Chey when whe enters
his office is simply laughable. I mean - has he never met a woman
before - it's as though he can hardly believe what's happening -
and it's not as though she's even leading him on! She only asks
for an interview, and she actively turns down his dinner
invitation.
The police surrounding Marvin and Reno must
have arrived very quietly to get so many into a position so close
without being noticed.
Bobby claims to have a chopper waiting
outside when he speaks to the idiot policeman on the desk. Maybe
the man was used to following orders blindly, but even though
Bobby shows no ID, surely an alarm bell should have rung in his
head somewhere to say - "If there was a helicopter outside -
how did I not hear it?"
OSCAR WINNING MOMENT
Lorenzo Lamas, as ever, displays quite
stunning acting here. There are various facial close-ups in all
episodes that are worthy of a mention, but the long profile
close-up wins this episode's crown. Now I come to write this, I'm
not even sure when it was, but if you watch it, you'll see what
we mean.
REVIEW
"What can I say? This is one of the
best I've ever seen. True entertainment." 4.5 / 5
"The plot and premise of Reno chasing
The Hound seems to have been abandoned at this point for some
ungiven reason, so the season is thrown open to its first stand
alone episode. And what an episode it is. Great characters abound
- Marvin, Prince and Russell must have taken literally seconds to
concieve and develop, and the plot is simplistic to say the
least. Add in an extremely cheesy ending, and you have a classic
Renegade epsiode"
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