The Fugitive (TV Series) May God Have Mercy (1965) User Reviews

Strong acting, above average script

[MissClassicTV · 8/10 · 5 October 2015]

David Janssen can always be counted on for a strong performance. This time, he has a number of very good supporting players. Carol Rossen, Telly Savalas, Norman Fell, and Jud Taylor are great in each of their roles.

Anne Leonetti (Carol Rossen) spots Kimble in a hospital and inadvertently discloses it to her husband Victor (Telly Savalas), who hates him. Kimble is shot and captured after Anne tries to help him escape. Kimble is brought to the hospital for treatment, but is in a room with bars on the windows. Toby (Jud Taylor) the orderly has some funny dialog with Kimble. Toby thinks that Kimble snitched on him for goofing off on the job and Toby enjoys seeing Kimble captured and incapacitated in the hospital bed. Norman Fell plays a police lieutenant who has to deal with quite a lot - Kimble's arrest, Lieutenant Gerard, Mr. Leonetti's confession.

Some of my favorite scenes in any episode of The Fugitive are the ones where Dr. Kimble drops his scared, worried look and gets to say something funny or sarcastic. So the scenes I like here are 1) his exchange with Toby - Toby says "Welcome back, Killer ... You're here for keeps" and Kimble answers "I hope you're not." 2) when Gerard talks to him about Leonetti and Leonetti's daughter - "He blames you for her death." Kimble: "Have I been convicted of that one too?" 3) when Gerard asks him his opinion of Leonetti's state of mind, Kimble says to Gerard, "I am in no mood for a psychiatric ..."

Although Jud Taylor is absolutely hilarious, this episode isn't really light-hearted. There's a lot going on here: guilt, terminal illness, and the ever present threat of capture and extradition by Lt. Gerard back to Indiana.

Did Gerard know?

[mjf-12295 · 9/10 · 18 January 2021]

This is an exciting episode, with lots of twists and turns. I really enjoyed it.

One question I have. Kimble, under arrest and hospitalized for a bullet wound, escapes while down for an X-ray. When he exits the hospital, a linen truck is finishing up loading up laundry. Kimble jumps on before he pulls out but is unable to close the back door. The driver gets out and closes it. A local detective and Gerard come running out of the hospital. They ask the driver if he'd seen an escaped prisoner. The driver says no and gets back into the van. Gerard looks at the van and watches it pull away.

Now why didn't he look in the back of the van? It's plausible he didn't because the driver would have no reason to lie. However, as it's the case here, Kimble was able to sneak on without the driver knowing it.

And the way Gerard looks at the back door...I wonder if Leonetti's false murder confession and saying the one-armed man was a witness caused some doubt in the man's mind.

I haven't watched all the episodes to know if there are times when Gerard was a little less than studious in his attempts to capture Kimble. Or other times when he let something go. I am not sure, but I'm going to keep my eyes out for any other possible examples.

Although a bit tough to believe at times, a very good episode.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 15 April 2017]

In this episode, Richard Kimble has taken a real risk. This is because instead of doing the usual unskilled work, he's gotten a job in a hospital as an orderly...and the chances of someone realizing he's actually a doctor are pretty high. Not surprisingly, he's soon discovered and is shot in the process of escaping. Now he's not working at the hospital but is a patient! In the meantime, Mr. Leonetti (Telly Savalas) has learned that he is dying....but also has a deep hatred for Kimble as the Doctor killed his daughter...or so he believes. He loves the notion of Kimble being sent to Death Row...until his wife informs him of all the things Kimble did years before to try to save their young daughter. Then, Leonetti does something very strange...

This is a very interesting episode...well written and acted. My only complaint is seeing Mr. Leonetti change so fast at the end...that IS a bit odd! But well worth seeing nonetheless.

The Fugitive at its best

[tavasiloff · 10/10 · 18 January 2021]

Excellent episode. Drama at its finest with exceptional acting. Savalas, Rossen, Morse and of course, Janssen demonstrate why The Fugitive was one one of the all-time best dramatic series in TV history. Add to the mix the supporting cast who round out the episode.

3/16/65 "May God Have Mercy"

[schappe1 · 19 June 2015]

Now we get the return of Telly Savalas, (last in "Where the Action Is"). Here he plays Victor Leonetti, owner of a construction firm that built the Kimble's house back in Stafford. He's also the father of a young girl with a heart condition who died in Dr. Kimble's care. Now he's dying himself and is full of anger- especially when he sees Kimble working as an orderly in the hospital, (in Michigan) where he is a patient. He calls the police. His wife, (played by Carol Rossen, who had a very different role in "Tiger Left, Tiger Right") , warns Kimble, who she doesn't blame for her daughter's death. He gets wounded trying to escape and winds up a patient in the hospital. The local police lieutenant, (Norman Fell, who must have set a record for the number of cops he played), sends for Gerard and it appears Kimble's goose is finally cooked.

The reason why Leonetti blamed Kimble for his daughter's death is that Kimble was out of town when she had her attack. Kimble explains that he was in New York convincing the top heart surgeon in the country to take the case but they got back to late. Mrs. Leonetti makes a comment that "no one in Stafford thought he was guilty", which obviously was not quite true but Leonetti gets convinced that the good Doctor is innocent of both deaths. He now feels guilty for the position he's put Kimble in and his solution, since he's dying anyway, is to confess to the murder of Helen Kimble. He knows all the details of the crime- and of the house he built - and convinces Fell but not Gerard. Leonetti, (ironically, he's dressed exactly like Kojak), dodges all the verbal traps Gerard sets for him. He even says he saw the one-armed man! His motivation was his hatred of Kimble. But could it be true? Could both Kimble and the One-Armed Man be innocent?

It results in another discussion between Gerard and Kimble. Gerard isn't convinced, although he seems to be at least confused. He plays on Kimble's conscience, suggesting that he won't want Leonetti to take the blame for a crime Kimble committed. That doesn't work- precisely because Kimble is innocent- and you wonder if some doubts are starting to worm their way into Gerard's mind. He's introduced into the episode when he gets the ball from Fell in the middle of the night and he seems reluctant go on another wild goose chase. Is he getting tired of this? But they've still got two seasons to go!

I watch a lot of 60's shows and Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey are two of my favorites. Casey was an ABC show. A cross-over might have been fun and this episode could have been it. Jud Taylor, who plays the snarky intern who resents Kimble for blowing him in for spending too much time with a pretty nurse, played Doctor Thomas Gerson, a member of the staff on Dr. Kildare, 17 times in this period.

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 8/10 · 26 October 2006]

While working as an orderly in a Michigan hospital, Kimble is recognized by a woman from Stafford, Anne Leonetti (played by actress Carol Rossen) and later by her husband Victor Leonetti (played by actor Telly Savalas). Leonetti blames Kimble for the death of his daughter back in Stafford, and reports his presence to the police.

Kimble is shot and captured, and housed in the hospital where he worked as orderly, where he has conflicts with another orderly, Toby (played by actor Jud Taylor). Lieutenant Gerard shows up, and it looks like the end for Kimble, until Victor Leonetti takes surprising action that might just get Kimble off the hook.

Who loves ya, baby?

[jsinger-58969 · 10/10 · 7 February 2023]

Dick is working as a hospital orderly when he is recognized. Nothing new about that, but this week's recognizer is a former Stafford resident whose husband is in the hospital for some tests, ulcers he tells her. Telly Savalas is Victor Leonetti, who has been given 10 months to live, better than the usual 6 that most terminals are given. His wife doesn't know this, and mentions to Dick that Vic is in the hospital for some reason. She knows Vic hates the doc because he blames him for the death of their daughter. The wife, on the other hand, doesn't blame Kimble at all. He don't know Dick, because Dick is like the most compassionate guy and doctor ever, and was, in fact, in New York at the time trying to get the best heart guy in the country to come to Stafford. When Vic hears about this, he decides to confess to Helen's murder. By this time, the cops have shot Dick, one of the most serious of his 8 bullet wounds taken on the show. Gerard has arrived by now, and he tries to trip Vic up on the details of the killing, but Vic has done his homework and knows just what happened. Now, the story at this time was still that Helen was strangled and not hit with the lamp, as what was eventually decided as the method of her demise. Anyways, Dick gets sent to X Ray as it's easier to escape from there. He does this by rubbing the thermometer on the sheet vigorously and hitting his wounded shoulder with a water bottle when the nurse takes a break. She is concerned when she sees his temperature is 114 when she comes back and he is sent to X ray, where he makes his escape by clobbering the annoying orderly Toby. He gets into the unlocked back of a convenient laundry truck just before Gerard gets there, and the brilliant lawman doesn't think to look in the back of the truck. Thanks, Phil. So the brilliant lawman, sent to pickup his helpless adversary at the hospital, has to return to Stafford empty handed once again. Is anyone in Stafford surprised? Vic recants his confession and he and his wife make the most of their final 10 months together. And Richard Kimble, wounded as he is, who has skipped out on yet another hospital bill, remains.....a fugitive.