- Title: Spenser: For Hire – Rage
- IMDb: link
Spenser Saturday takes us back to the mean streets of Boston and the travails of a smart ass private detective. After a school dance he was chaperoning with Susan (Barbara Stock), Spenser (Robert Urich) breaks up an altercation between two students in the parking lot leading to questions about an attack and rape. Later, when the girl runs away, her parents hire Spenser to find Jill (Christie Mossman) who gets into further trouble when she witnesses a murder while pawning her Grandmother’s broach and is hunted the recently-released con (Brad Dourif) who kidnaps the girl and commandeers a bus, later abandoning it after a shoot-out with Spenser.
Keeping Jill around as bait, Maxie (Dourif) makes plans to take a pound of flesh out of Spenser who managed to wing him in the leg in the altercation at the bus station. While setting a trap for Spenser, Maxie instead snares Susan setting up a standoff with the police and Spenser trading himself for the woman he loves. Given a short scene with Spenser earlier in the episode, where our smart ass detective saves Hawk (Avery Brooks) from being shot in the back, we get more of Hawk lending support in the search for Maxie and returning the favor by gunning down Maxie at the end of the episode and saving Spenser’s life.
There’s quite a bit bubbling under the surface of the episode including Susan and Spenser’s discussion of date rape, Jill’s father (Trey Wilson) initially blaming the way his daughter dresses for the attack, and the discussion of what happened to Maxie in prison sending him into a murderous fury after his release. Dourif is great as the unhinged Maxie who is smarter than he appears, but nowhere near as smart as he thinks his is eventually getting outsmarted by Spenser and Hawk. The thread of Jill’s rape gets buried due to the Maxie story, but we do see a tearful reunion with her parents and an apology from her father leading to some closure for Jill and the promise of a fresh start.
