The Fugitive (TV Series) Cry Uncle (1964) User Reviews

Even an excellent series can have the occasional bad episode...

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 14 April 2017]

"Cry Uncle" is not a great episode of "The Fugitive"...mostly because compared to other episodes, this one is a bit tough to believe.

When the show begins, Kimble is at a laundromat when the police come roaring by. No, they aren't looking for him...but Kimble isn't taking any chances and hides out in the back of a parked car. Soon the driver and the two children with her (including Ron Howard) return and drive back to the orphan home...and don't see Kimble in back of the car. Later, after he leaves the car, a young boy notices him and decides to use Kimble. Sean is an angry young man with little sign of a conscience...and insists that Kimble stay and pretend to be his uncle...or he'll turn him in to the police! Why does he want an uncle? The kid's been in a lot of trouble and is hoping the social workers might send him home with his 'Uncle'...and then Sean can do what he wants in life...or possibly stay with Kimble and have adventures. As for Kimble, he cannot just leave and sticks around because he is alarmed at the boy's sociopathic tendencies.

This is not a terrible show but the ending is a big letdown. While the kid shows many troubling signs, we are expected the believe that the boy is somehow cured thanks to the help of Dr. Kimble! Enjoyable, just not especially realistic.

12/1/64: Cry Uncle

[schappe1 · 10 May 2015]

Another strong dilemma for Richard Kimble. He escapes from the police in the back of a station wagon, only to find himself at an orphanage, where he's discovered by a group of three kids: a troubled teen, a young girl who loves him and a younger friend, (the latter played by Ronnie Howard, taking time out from playing Opie on the Andy Griffith Show). The troubled teen, (Donald Losby, who had played Vera Miles' son in "Fear in a Desert City"), wants Kimble to pretend to be his long-lost Uncle, who abandoned him when his parents died. The staff has nothing but contempt for this Uncle who never shows up, especially when Kimble announces he's going to have to leave again. The kid then runs away, the last straw in a series of transgressions that could result in his being sent to a mental institution, (per Ed Robertson's book on the series, the writer originally had in mind a reform school, which makes more sense). Kimble risks his own freedom by going after him and bringing him back.

The beginning is a little weak, (the police are not after Kimble- they are after some robbers at a nearby store: why does Kimble decide to run?), and the ending a little too pat, (the staff suddenly likes "Uncle Pat" when he brings back the kid, even though they've figured out that's not who he is), but it's a strong episode anyway because of Kimble's relationship with the kid and his desire to prove that people care about him.

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 9/10 · 3 November 2006]

Kimble is at a laundromat speaking with two children (one of whom is played by actor Ron Howard) when police sweep the area to catch armed robbers who committed a killing nearby. Kimble escapes in the back of a station wagon belonging to an institution for children, similar to an orphanage, where his new friends reside.

At the institution, Kimble relies on the help of the children, but faces problems when the kids call in the assistance of a young teen, Sean (played by actor Donald Losby). Discovered by staff with Kimble, Sean thinks quickly and introduces Kimble as his Uncle Pat, come to visit. Sean, hurt by a series of events where he was abandoned and unfairly treated, has a bad attitude and conduct problem. Staff are threatening him with transfer to Big S, a state mental hospital, if he does not straighten up in time to appear before the Committee and make a good impression by Monday.

Fearing the worst, Sean blackmails Kimble to force him to help Sean escape. Kimble must straighten out Sean and placate the director of the home (played by actor Edward Binns), who learns Kimble is not Uncle Pat, before he can make his own escape.

Kimble risks everything to save a kid

[Christopher370 · 9/10 · 4 July 2023]

I love this episode mainly for the last act and how far Kimble went for the kid. In the first three acts I thought Sean was just a little Demon Seed and that Kimble should have ran far away from him at the first chance he got. As the story evolves however, we learn both his parents are dead, he wasn't even allowed to go to their funeral and his only surviving relative, an uncle who is a drunk and doing time in prison. He's angry at the world and has lost all his faith in people assuming everyone is a "double crosser" and only out for themselves. With a life like his, you can kind of understand it.

When he accuses Kimble of being the same thing when he tries to help bring him back to the school, Kimble takes it very seriously and knows that this kid is most likely bound for a destructive life, and probably a short one at that. The only way to bring this kid back from the edge and restore his faith in others is to show him that someone else cares, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice for him in the process.

Sean thinks Kimble is only risking being caught by the police and receiving jail time, completely unaware that he's actually risking his very life since he was on his way to death row. Still, Sean is shocked that Kimble would risk capture for him, and when the school gates open and the cops are there inside we see Kimble tensely looking inside the gates at the police. He's actually fully prepared to give himself up, to give up his freedom as well as his very life in order to save Sean's. Throughout the entire series, I don't think he's ever done anything as important and as profound as this and it's quite admirable.

When the cops prepare to take him in, he doesn't try to run away even after Sean tells him to. He's that serious in his effort to restore the boy's faith in humanity and show him that not everyone in the world is out for themselves. Some may say he was stupid to go that far for the kid, and i initially did think that too until I put myself in his position and wondered if I too would have done the same. It's an interesting scenario and i'd like to think that I would, to give my very life to save another...but then again, i'm no Kimble...but the more I watch this wonderful show, the more I aspire to be.

And I felt that the scene when they parted was done exceptionally well. Kimble shakes the boy's hand goodbye, but as he turns away he says his name, "Sean" almost in a contemplative way. The boy seems to have had a profound effect on him and when Sean runs to hug him before he goes, I nearly lost it. Both of them have had a profound effect upon each other, and when Kimble promises to write Sean, we know he'll keep that promise as we previously saw him do at the end of Season one's "Fatso".

I'd like to think Kimble kept in touch with the boy and became a father figure for him after he was able to stop running. And of course Sean married classmate Kathy who was head over heels in love with him and they lived happily ever after. (Can you tell i'm a sucker for a happy ending?... Although I do enjoy the morbid endings too.)

One final little tidbit I found interesting and nice to learn....that laundromat in the first act is actually still a laundromat in 2023!! In the Trivia section of the episode here for the filming locations, the address is listed and you can see it on Google Maps. It still looks the same nearly 60 years later. How cool is that?... Though I wonder if Kimble's clothes are still sitting in the washer!

Interesting episode of The Fugitive.

[zxdex88 · 10/10 · 7 August 2021]

The great thing about Ronnie Howard's performance in Cry Uncle was that he did not have to be funny. He did not have to be "on" all the time, like he was in the Andy Griffith show. He could let his natural, normal self show in a casual, relaxed way and we even got to see a bit of a bad boy side to his character. It made him much more interesting I felt, than the one dimensional Opie Taylor.

The other boy (Donald Losby) clearly has anger and trust issues and needs help. I thought Losby was completely believable. The ending was a let down...not a "happy ending". But that's how real life would often be, unfortunately.