This entry is not without interest but it is, unfortunately, without credibility. The writers were always putting Kimble in fascinating situations and giving him amazing dilemmas. Here the idea is to put him in the embassy of a foreign country in Washington, where the police cannot apprehend him but they know exactly where he is and his presence there creates a diplomatic crisis. The idea should have produced a great episode but not enough thought went into this one and they came up considerably short of greatness.
Kimble has come to Washington because there is a lawyer there who thinks he could engineer a successful appeal of his conviction if only they could come up with some new evidence. Kimble tells him there is none but, as Ed Peterson points out in his book on the show, there have been several new pieces of evidence that have been unearthed over the course of the series: - In "The Ivy Maze" Johnson confessed to the murder to Dr. Simmons and said that he wiped the lamp base off with Helen's dress. - Barbara Webb, the reporter in "Wife Killer" witnessed another Johnson confession. - Captain Eckhardt, in "Trial by Fire" saw the one-armed man running from the house. But the attorney needs time to search for new evidence and needs Kimble to hole up somewhere where the police can't get to him while he does it.
Conveniently, Kimble is present when a diplomat, (played by Ivan Dixon) collapses in the street. Kimble helps him up and the grateful Dixon reveals he's an ambassador from an African nation and invites Kimble to dinner. There we find out that Dixon is a Mandela-like character and he and his wife, (Diana Sands) have been persecuted by a previous regime. In Dixon this creates a sympathy for Kimble's plight, (which they find out from a book he's carrying written by the lawyer). In his wife it creates anxiety because she is protective of her husband who has been through so much and is now dying of a brain tumor he hasn't been told about. She considers Kimble a threat to her husband and wants him out because of the adverse publicity and stress his presence there would create.
She goes to the extent of deciding to relocate the embassy so Kimble can no longer use it for asylum. Gerard knows he's there and is waiting outside with a battery of police. (One thing that seems to have lapsed over the course of the series is that Gerard used to acknowledge that he did not have jurisdiction and that he needed the co-operation of the local police. Here he seems to be in charge of the DC police department.)
Spoiler: As the embassy is being moved, boxes are being put on a large moving van. It pulls away while Gerard is talking to Sands. One of the staff comes out with an armful of clothes that were supposed in be in one of the boxes. Gerard and his cops zoom off after the van, leaving a couple guys at the embassy. Kimble is informed that the one covering the back has come to the front and he can get out the back way.
Firstly I doubt any ambassador is going to grant asylum to a convicted murderer, regardless of the amount of sympathy he might have for him. And it seems amazing to me that the location of an embassy could be determined by the wife of an ambassador. But beyond that, this situation, even then, would have been a cause celebe. The place would not only have been surrounded by police but also by the press. Kimble could hardly have "snuck out the back way".
Kimble has come to Washington because there is a lawyer there who thinks he could engineer a successful appeal of his conviction if only they could come up with some new evidence. Kimble tells him there is none but, as Ed Peterson points out in his book on the show, there have been several new pieces of evidence that have been unearthed over the course of the series: - In "The Ivy Maze" Johnson confessed to the murder to Dr. Simmons and said that he wiped the lamp base off with Helen's dress. - Barbara Webb, the reporter in "Wife Killer" witnessed another Johnson confession. - Captain Eckhardt, in "Trial by Fire" saw the one-armed man running from the house. But the attorney needs time to search for new evidence and needs Kimble to hole up somewhere where the police can't get to him while he does it.
Conveniently, Kimble is present when a diplomat, (played by Ivan Dixon) collapses in the street. Kimble helps him up and the grateful Dixon reveals he's an ambassador from an African nation and invites Kimble to dinner. There we find out that Dixon is a Mandela-like character and he and his wife, (Diana Sands) have been persecuted by a previous regime. In Dixon this creates a sympathy for Kimble's plight, (which they find out from a book he's carrying written by the lawyer). In his wife it creates anxiety because she is protective of her husband who has been through so much and is now dying of a brain tumor he hasn't been told about. She considers Kimble a threat to her husband and wants him out because of the adverse publicity and stress his presence there would create.
She goes to the extent of deciding to relocate the embassy so Kimble can no longer use it for asylum. Gerard knows he's there and is waiting outside with a battery of police. (One thing that seems to have lapsed over the course of the series is that Gerard used to acknowledge that he did not have jurisdiction and that he needed the co-operation of the local police. Here he seems to be in charge of the DC police department.)
Spoiler: As the embassy is being moved, boxes are being put on a large moving van. It pulls away while Gerard is talking to Sands. One of the staff comes out with an armful of clothes that were supposed in be in one of the boxes. Gerard and his cops zoom off after the van, leaving a couple guys at the embassy. Kimble is informed that the one covering the back has come to the front and he can get out the back way.
Firstly I doubt any ambassador is going to grant asylum to a convicted murderer, regardless of the amount of sympathy he might have for him. And it seems amazing to me that the location of an embassy could be determined by the wife of an ambassador. But beyond that, this situation, even then, would have been a cause celebe. The place would not only have been surrounded by police but also by the press. Kimble could hardly have "snuck out the back way".