Episode
The Fugitive: Set Fire to a Straw Man
Overview
Kimble reluctantly becomes involved with Stella Savano, the sister of George Savano, a mobster who runs the trucking company where Kimble works. Stella is an emotionally disturbed woman with a dangerous attraction to Johnny, the adopted eight-year-old son of Jesse Stangel, Kimble's co-worker. Kimble learns that Stella is actually Johnny's mother. But Stella becomes so delusional that she thinks that Kimble is Johnny's father.
Details
- Series
- The Fugitive
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 11
- Air date
- 1965-11-30
- Runtime
- 51 min
Episode context
Set Fire to a Straw Man is Episode 11 in Season 3 of The Fugitive. It aired on 1965-11-30. The runtime is 51 min.
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Episode 10: Landscape with Running Figures (2)
In the conclusion to Part 1 (from last week), Kimble accompanies a temporarily-blinded Mrs. Gerard to a place where she can phone her husband for help. Mrs. Gerard, who is as inquisitive as her husband, continues to pepper Kimble with questions about himself and his life. As she starts to put the pieces together, she realizes that this man may be Richard Kimble. She begins to form a plan to trap him.
Episode 12: Stranger in the Mirror
Kimble is working as a custodian for the Saturday Morning Camp, a weekend camp run by Tony and Carole Burnell. Things become complicated when two police officers are found beaten to death. The police recruit Tony, a former policeman, to interrogate a local juvenile delinquent who is the main suspect in the killings. But unknown to everyone, the real killer is the schizoid Tony who blames the police for the death of his father who was a policeman and was sent to prison on a trumped-up murder charge and then killed by the dirty cops during a prison riot.
More episodes from this season
Episode 9: Landscape with Running Figures (1)
In Part 1 of a two-part story, Lt. Gerard and his wife are on a much-needed vacation. When Gerard rushes off to answer the call to duty, an angry Mrs. Gerard decides that enough is enough, and leaves town on the bus. Unbeknownst to her, Kimble is on the same bus. When the bus crashes, Kimble helps her get away from the wreck. Due to a head injury, she is suffering from temporary blindness and doesn't recognize Kimble. Kimble, unaware of who she really is, decides to accompany her to a phone where she can contact her husband. Along the way Mrs. Gerard starts asking questions, and is starting to form an image of Kimble, and is intrigued with what she learns. Will she discover his true identity before they reach their destination?
Episode 13: The Good Guys and the Bad Guys
In the small town of Drover City, Montana, Kimble stumbles onto the annual ""vigilante roundup,"" a carnival of sorts where locals ""hunt"" down anybody not wearing Western cowboy clothing. After being ""lassoed"" literally, Kimble is held ""prisoner"" in the local school cafeteria where the dance hall is. Meanwhile, Gerard arrives in the area after hearing reports of Kimble's spotting, has the state police set up roadblocks outside the town, and then enters looking for the fugitive. Gerard shows Kimble's mug shot to Charley Judd, the town marshal whom recognizes Kimble. But Charley mistakenly thinks there's a reward on Kimble (and Charley wants to keep all the money for himself). So, he sends Gerard away on a false lead and has his girlfriend, Laura, transport Kimble to the real jail at the police station. There, Kimble must persuade Laura to let him go by telling her that Charley is in it for his own selfish reasons, just as Gerard figures out that Charley has sent him on a wild-goose chase
Episode 8: An Apple a Day
Running from the police, Kimble hides out at a farm owned by a local country doctor, named Josephus Adams, who treats his patients with little more than a dose of honey and a reassuring word. After one elderly woman under Adams care dies from a protracted bronchial infection, an angry Kimble intervenes and tries to help the patients. But in the meantime, Adams' wife, Marianne, stumbles upon Kimble's identity and tries to use that to her own advantage. When Dr. Adams teenage niece, Sharon, falls into a coma after having an allergic reaction to bee stings, Kimble risks his freedom to take her away from Adams to a hospital for treatment.
Episode 14: End of the Line
After losing his wallet, Kimble steals another wallet to pay for his train fare. The wallet belongs to R.T. Unger, who owns a local dairy. Kimble finds work as dishwasher at a local diner in order to repay the debit. But when Unger finds his wallet missing, he calls the police. Kimble goes to Unger's house and gives back the wallet and money to Unger's daughter, Betty Jo, who is pregnant by Neil, a disreputable youth who works at Unger's dairy. Unger offers Neil $1,000 to leave town. But when Neil refuses, their argument turns into a fistfight where Kimble walks in and sees Neil kill Unger. Kimble flees and tries to find a way to get out of town before Neil decides to pass the blame for the killing on the fugitive.
Episode 7: All the Scared Rabbits
Kimble responds to a newspaper ad for a driver and is hired to drive a certain Peggy Franklin and her 10-year-old daughter, Nancy, to California. But Kimble doesn't realize that Peggy has abducted Nancy from her ex-husband, a pathologist named Dean Franklin. Nancy innocently removes a rabbit from Dean's research lab, unaware that the rabbit has meningitis. When Nancy contracts the sickness, Kimble risks keeping his secret safe to save Nancy before she dies.
Episode 15: When the Wind Blows
In rural Wyoming, Kimble seeks refuge from the local constable at a small hotel run by Lois Carter, a young widow who hires him as a handyman. Kimble soon befriends Lois' son Kenny, a particularly sensitive young boy who protects Kimble from the police when they arrive looking for him.
Episode 6: Three Cheers for Little Boy Blue
Kimble is working as a chauffeur for George Forster, a successful contractor who returns to his small Midwestern home town with big plans for the community. While Forster's homecoming is greeted with overall apathy and resentment, Kimble discovers that one of the townspeople is planning to kill Forster. Kimble must find out who it is before his secret is discovered
Episode 16: Not With a Whimper
Kimble arrives in the factory town of Hempstead Mills, West Virginia to assist Andrew McCallister, his longtime mentor who is dying from lung cancer which confines him to a wheelchair. McCallister's vigorous anti-smog campaign has earned him a reputation as a local crackpot. But the old man plans to go out with a bang; by having a bomb hidden in a package which he has Kimble deliver to the local factory. But when McCallister discovers that a group of school children will be inside the factory during a school tour at the time of the explosion, he dispatches Kimble to evacuate the building and deactivate the bomb before time runs out.
Episode 5: Conspiracy of Silence
While working as a steward at a remote desert resort, Kimble is unaware that the area is a top-secret government test site for chemical weapons. Kimble tries to leave, but gets mistaken for a spy by Major Beck, the head of the project. When several staff members, including the staff physician, suffer from a chemical explosion, Kimble is pressed into service to care for the wounded, unaware that Beck still plans to turn him in to the army general leading the project.
Episode 17: Wife Killer
Reporter Barbara Webb spots Fred Johnson, the one-armed man, in a police roundup of suspicious character during a murder investigation. Calling to mind the Kimble case with her publisher boss Herb Malone, Barbara takes a photo of Johnson and publishes it in the local newspaper. The image of the one-armed man draws both Kimble and Gerard to the town. While Gerard waits for Kimble to show up at the police station, the fugitive is outside and sees Johnson in the jail courtyard. But the one-armed man spots Kimble and escapes from the jail and steals a getaway car. Barbara spots Kimble and tells him to get in her car as they chase after the one-armed man. During the chase down a winding mountain road, the one-armed man's car crashes, and Kimble has to tend to Johnson's injuries knowing that he's the only one to clear Kimble of his wife's murder. Unable to speak because of a head injury, Johnson nodds when Kimble asks if he murdered Helen. While Kimble rests, Barbara types a confession paper