‘CHiPs’ Retro Recap: ‘Pressure Point’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

The more time I’ve had to reflect upon season two of CHiPs, the more I find myself impressed with it. Because most police serials out there, would be terrified to tinker with their format for a single episode, much less an entire season, but this show, well it’s been fearless in trying new things in year two, to the point where I honestly don’t know what to expect when I start another episode. It might be something that feels familiar, it might be something dark and powerful, or, once again, the show may just have something special and new hiding up its proverbial sleeve, as was the case with the next episode I settled in to watch.
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For ‘Pressure Point’, took the time to do something that has never really been tried on this series before by giving Ponch and Jon a genuine mystery to work with for a change, and it accomplished such a feat by plunging us into a fascinating world of deceit and envy, and well, extortion, and all of that came about in the strangest way imaginable. Because in the early moments of this episode, we were privy to a coordinated attack on a powerful tycoon named Arthur Forbinger and well, it quickly became obvious that this ‘on the road’ assault was a warning of sorts, one that Arthur didn’t want to heed, nor did he want any outside help with. But his standing in the community, and Ponch and Jon’s keen eye to the fact that something more was going on here, involved them in the matter whether he liked it or not.

Which is a good thing, since we learned that one of Arthur’s most trusted lieutenants, a man named Paul Everett, was done working for peanuts and job security and respect, he wanted to make some bread and enjoy a little comfort for himself, and in order to make that happen, he basically sold out his boss by joining in on quite the extortion scheme. Basically, the idea was to terrify Arthur and his granddaughter to the point where they no longer felt safe just looking out the window, and having that kind of fear present in Arthur’s heart, would motivate him to invest in every security measure imaginable, from a company of Paul’s choosing, which meant he would get a cut from the sales and at first glance, it seemed as though the plan was working.

Thankfully though, Ponch and Jon were assigned as personal police protection for Arthur and immediately went to work on explaining to Arthur how he was being manipulated, and while he didn’t believe that this kind of betrayal was possible from someone he trusted, some clever thinking from our dynamic duo finally got him on board and prompted the CHP to launch a sting operation that would bring down the man behind this scheme and well, that’s where the show returned to traditional territory. Because Darrel Justin, the mastermind behind these attacks, personally oversaw his teams when they muscled someone up on the road, which meant we were treated to one thrilling car chase on the streets of Los Angeles, wherein Justin’s thugs met their match in Ponch and Jon, which meant that once again, they saved the day and brought down one scuzzy security company.

But, while this story ends in classic CHiPs fashion, what came before that finale was honestly quite impressive. Because this little mystery quite frankly, just sucked me into the story, to the point where I was glued to the screen and didn’t even realize we were coming to the end of the episode in the slightest and that’s just awesome. If anything, this really was quite the delightful tale, one that shook up the formula of the series nicely and one that told a great story through and through, and that’s thanks in large part to the performances on display in this tale since everyone brought their acting A game to the table, with a special shout out to the late Rudy Vallee for making Arthur such a treat to watch and well, with only six episodes to go in season two, I really am eager to see what other surprises this season has waiting in the wings. Which means, it’s time to sign off and fire up my Blu-Ray player and enjoy more of this wild ride. Until next time.  

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