I recently finished watching The Fugitive series and was curious to see other performances by David Janssen. I've caught a couple of Route 66 episodes on TV when I came across it in the past, but haven't bothered to watch the whole series through before. This episode however made me buy the dvd series because it left me wanting to see more of it. I enjoyed it that much.
As for Janssen's performance, I found it to be exceptionally good, especially during the final emotional scene. What I found surprising while watching that scene was how we never really saw his Fugitive character Richard Kimble show this kind of emotion over the course of the series, (and someone on the run convicted of a murder he didn't commit should be angry as hell) but it was very clear from this episode that Janssen did have it in him and was fully capable of it.
Until now, I thought maybe he just didn't have the chops for getting too emotional in scenes so the writers never made him to go too heavy with emotion, but his performance here proved that theory wrong. I just wish we had seen his Fugitive character show this kind of angry emotion over that show's 4 seasons like we saw him do in this episode.
I liked the story as well, and in the beginning I wasn't sure what the hell was going on from the way things slowly unfolded. I wondered why Karno had such a strong and sudden hatred for Tod seemingly at first sight. It was obvious that he was a troubled soul, but in the beginning I didn't know why he was the way he was and wondering why he was being so hateful to everyone, especially Tod.
It all unfolded nicely though and I especially liked how the whole story wrapped up in the end and now I want to watch the whole series due to the strong performances all around. I think that 1960's television had some of the best dramas made, and the sad offerings we have in the 2020's just pales in comparison. 10 stars for this episode and I like the title.
EDIT: I watched this episode over again tonight (11/30/23) 6 months from my first viewing, and this time around I understood Karno's initial hatred for Tod since he felt threatened that he was seeing his girl (even though he acted like he didn't want her). I don't know why that seemed to go over my head on the first viewing.
Watching it again, I do think Tod was overstepping his bounds with Toika and really should've just backed off after realizing there was history between her and Karno.
When Tod went to the bar to purposely pick a fight with Karno I thought that was overstepping of him, but I guess it was needed to advance the story and it also gave David Janssen a great dramatic scene where he reveals his war history.
I have to say I enjoyed this episode so much more the second time around and the emotional final scene where Karno appears had me teary eyed right along with Toika. (I'm a sucker for this kind of drama!)
I have now watched the first 2 seasons of Route 66 (when I first wrote this review 6 months ago I hadn't yet viewed the series) and for me this is definitely one of the series most strongest episodes and David Janssen's performance as Karno was top notch. It's a shame the producers of The Fugitive didn't allow him to display the range he showed here. 10/10....and I still love that episode title!