The Fugitive (TV Series) Everybody Gets Hit in the Mouth Sometime (1965) User Reviews

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 7/10 · 1 January 2007]

Kimble works for a trucking company run by Gus Hendricks (actor Jack Klugman). Gus is a poor businessman and is in financial trouble. In addition, Lucia (actress Geraldine Brooks) is always asking for a handout. Gus feels responsible for her and her children because of the circumstances under which her husband died while in his employ.

Gus is tempted by an offer from sleazy criminal Ernie Svoboda (actor Michael Constantine) to commit insurance fraud. At the same time, an insurance company investigator is bothered by Gus's claims record and is poking around. Gus is being squeezed on all sides, and Kimble is caught up as well.

The fugitive couple.

[kennyp-44177 · 7/10 · 27 August 2021]

Its clear that David Jannsen enjoyed working with some guest stars more than others, and in this episode its Jack Klugman again. Two greats really working well together. Some excitement with the truck chase too.

Klugman shows his chops...again

[jeffstonewords · 9/10 · 1 May 2023]

The good doctor takes a no-questions-asked job as a dispatcher for a troubled trucking company. Gus Hendricks (Jack Klugman), the owner, has a long-standing reputation for disregarding safety rules and is under increased regulatory scrutiny because one of his drivers has died in an accident-one that presumably could've been prevented.

Hendricks feels internal pressure to support the driver's widow and her two young children, who are constantly getting into trouble. Their physically attractive mother, Lucia Mayfield (Geraldine Brooks), seems unable and/or unwilling to control them without a male authority figure and seductively suggests as much on at least one occasion to Dr. Kimble. She is also constantly asking Hendricks, who's already struggling to pay bills, for money-which only increases the guilt Hendricks feels and the pressure he puts on himself to make life easier for the widow's family.

Hendricks is further conflicted when acquaintance Cleve Logan (Barry Atwater as G. B. Atwater) proposes a lucrative opportunity involving insurance fraud. Hendricks initially refuses the offer categorically. However, the pressure increases and drives Hendricks to drink with dire consequences when little Jimmy, Geraldine's son, needs $300 in dental work.

Ultimately, a series of events put both Hendricks and Kimble in a terrible predicament. Kimble's strong sense of loyalty inevitably pulls him into the fray with Hendricks, forcing him to risk his own freedom.

This is arguably one of the darkest and most bitter episodes. It brings to mind a line by Tolstoy about the illusion of beauty and by Bellow about good intentions being worse than malevolence when they lack understanding. In a show filled with trouble, there's even more trouble beneath the surface.

There are hard truths, jagged consequences, and complicated characters with no easy resolution. As usual, the great Jack Klugman (who also appeared on the 1963 episode "Terror at High Point") is fabulous.

3/9/65 "Everybody Gets Hit in the Mouth Sometime"

[schappe1 · 16 June 2015]

Jack Klugman returns, again playing a grouchy small business operator, (See "Terror at Highpoint"). Here's he's running a trucking company- and paying through the nose to the self-involved widow of a driver killed on one of his runs. He's known for bending the rules to keep his small-time operation afloat and the authorities are looking over his shoulder, which means they are also looking over the shoulder of his dispatcher, Richard Kimble, (also a similar job to one he had in the earlier episode). A sleazy crook played by Michael Constantine has a possible solution to Klugman's problems: set up a high-jacking for a cut of the proceeds. Klugman eventually gives into him and decides to drive the rig himself. Kimble finds out the authorities are onto the deal and have set up a trap. He jumps into another truck and an exciting chase results along a dangerous mountain road.

The final scene has a rare light touch. The widow's bratty kid hits him with a slingshot. Kimble turns around and spanks him, before moving on to William Conrad's deep dramatic, narration.

Doc Kimble, a hero again.

[chchurch · 9/10 · 1 May 2023]

Not a bad episode with Klugman and Brooks hamming it up a bit. Jack was unbelievably hostile to the doc who was helping him out the entire episode. The doc was tempted by a sexy Geraldine Brooks who skillfully evolved over the hour into a cheap harpy playing on the Klugman's character's conscience. The small town trucking company operations seemed pretty authentic. I did like the ending where the doc spanked the bratty kid...but he did not punch the kid as another reviewer claimed. I feel the second season was always the best considering the stories were more inventive and good actors were more likely to work on a well established dramatic show..

A couple of uncharacteristic moments for the doc

[jsinger-58969 · 8/10 · 5 February 2023]

Dick is working for Jack Klugman again, this time as a dispatcher for Jack's trucking company. The company isn't doing so well and Klugman is pretty stressed. Adding to that is a widow named Lucia, whose husband died while driving one of Jack's trucks. Lucia is always coming to him for money for something or other, and goes ga ga when she sees Dick for the first time. She finagles him into giving her a ride home, and although Dick doesn't want to go in, they soon start making out by the door. Really unlike Dick to do that with a woman he just met who is obviously not his type, but he has his needs. Who knows where it would have gone if her bratty kids hadn't broken it up. Anyways, crooked Michael Constantine offers Jack a way to make some easy money by having a shipment hijacked and collecting the insurance. Jack decides to do it so he can give Lucia enough to move away and stop bothering him. Meanwhile, a guy from the insurance company is suspicious of Klugman's shady practices and of the new dispatcher for some reason. So Jack takes the soon to be hijacked load to the designated spot and Kimble finds out what's up. Only Jack has gotten sick and is barely awake when he's driving. Dick follows him and the authorities, who have been tipped off, are waiting. There is a lengthy chase to the drop point, but Jack finally falls asleep and crashes his truck. Dick heroically pulls Klugman away from his truck before it blows up, but Jack is done for. He tells Dick to give what little money he has and the keys to his car to Lucia, and then expires. So Dick does, and when Lucia complains about how little it is, he wonders how he could have ever made out with this woman. As he walks away, one of her brats shoots him in the back of his head with a slingshot. Dick turns and starts punching the kid repeatedly in the mouth, hence the title of this episode. Good to see Dick have a couple of human moments in this one.

An odd one where, for once, Richard Kimble seems to make the wrong moral decision.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 April 2017]

So often in the episodes of the old "Fugitive" TV shows, Richard Kimble is forced to make choices--choices that often put him at risk of being arrested. But, since he's a fundamentally good and just man, you can rely on him doing the right thing....but not in this episode! I was surprised that Kimble's sympathy for his boss, Gus (Jack Klugman), is very misplaced.

Gus owns his own trucking company and barely can make ends meet. Because of this, he often breaks the law and has his drivers drive longer than the rules allow. Surely someone or some group of people are going to get killed because of Gus' actions. But through it all, Kimble is strangely loyal. Even when Gus becomes mentally unstable and violent towards him, Kimble is loyal. Even when Lucia (Geraldine Brooks) is very demanding and pushes Gus to make more flagrant violations of the law, he is loyal.

Overall, an interesting but morally suspect episode...one that left me confused since the writer seems to have violated an unwritten law concerning Kimble. Additionally, the ending is incredibly grim and downbeat...making this a less than thrilling installment in the series.

Hotshot

[Christopher370 · 6/10 · 21 July 2023]

This is an average episode to me so I don't really have much to offer in my review. I did learn why Gus kept calling Kimble "Hotshot" throughout the episode though.

At first it confused me why he kept calling him that because Kimble's quiet demeanor doesn't make one think of a "hotshot". But through the powers of Google I discovered that Hotshot is actually a trucking term. Here's what I found:

"Hotshot drivers' primary job duty is to carry loads and make deliveries at an expedited rate. Drivers may also perform the following duties for their job: Load and unload cargo onto trucks for a client. Keep records of cargo and mileage."

I haven't seen anyone else here mention the nickname so maybe i'm the only dork that never knew what a hotshot was in regard to trucking. But if there's any other dorks out there like me who were wondering too, I hope this clears up why Kimble was constantly being called that.

Every time Gus said it, I kept picturing a boastful person and wondered why he would think that about Kimble. Now I know lol. I enjoyed Jack Klugman's performance here as he was a very good and likable actor and the final scene with the well deserved spanking from Kimble provided a rare laugh out loud moment in the series.