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.
