MovieChat Forums > Riptide (1984) Discussion > What was your fav episode and what happe...

What was your fav episode and what happened on the finale?

posted 20 years ago by mortgagemanmike2003
34 replies | jump to latest

I used to watch this show weekly when I was a kid. Some of the episodes had real depth. I think this was during the Miami Vice era so nobody gives this show its due. Not sure why it was cancelled or why the cast didn't go on to do bigger things. I would like to purchase a few of the episodes, in particular, the episode where Joe Penny goes to his high school reunion.

What happened on the finale? I know Joe & Perry did some T.V. movies but I think they could have done more.

Thank you writers of Riptide...

MWP

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] InjunKB 16 years ago

Home for Christmas. I watched it alone, as the Joe Penny character, alone at Christmas. It had a trememdous impact.

"We sleep safe in our beds because rugged men . . . " George Orwell.

[–] TexasJLC83 14 years ago

I read through all of these to see if anyone explained what actually happened in the final episode- so I will try my best from what I remember. The last episode in the series starts off with the three detectives taking some older guy to a small town saying he needed help finding his son. When they get there- it turns out he lied to them and really is accusing the young man of raping & murdering his daughter as he starts shooting at him. The young man shoots back and ends up wounding Cody, so Boz kills him to save his friend. Cody ends up staying in the hospital as Nick and Boz decide to return to the small town to investigate. They find the young man's sister as she tells them he was innocent because he had been gay. Boz then feels guilty he killed the guy although it was to save Cody's life. So Nick & Boz continue investigating so they can find out who actually had raped and murdered the older man's daughter. After discovering some clues, the cops of the town are corrupt and try to kill them both to keep them from finding out the truth. The sheriff captures both of them along with the young man's sister. As he gets ready to kill all three of them- he confesses it was him who raped and murdered the older man's daughter. He had set it up to look like the young man had done it so everyone in the town would think so. But Nick and Boz manage to outsmart the sheriff by stopping his plan & saving themselves. The last scene shows Boz thinking he will never touch a gun again because he killed an innocent man with one. Cody & Nick tell him he will have to get over his fear and continue using one for his own good. Boz leads them to believe he will do just that, but then puts it away as if he will never use one again after they are not looking. That is how the series ends as the episode finsished off leading viewers to think there would be more.

[–] rehiii76 14 years ago

Interesting synopsis. This episode was titled Echoes and was meant to be the season finale for the third season, but rather as it worked out...became the series finale. But it actually wasn't that bad of a way to end out the series to be honest. It is sort of implicit as to what is going on with the guys and the directions that they are or may be heading in.

As TexasJLC83 says, in the very last scene, as Cody and Nick leave Muarry's room aboard the Riptide, the very last thing that we see is the Boz opening the drawer and putting his gun away. I think that that was going to be it for Boz. He was going to be forever tormented by Nathan Hardwick's death and the scene signals that he was finished with the detective agency. He was likely going to head back into either the world of computer sciene or academia.

I also think that we can deduce that Cody and Lt. Parisi were right on the verge of becoming a serious couple. I sort of saw Cody leaving the agency as well and marrying Parisi and maybe even taking a job with the King Harbor police department as a detective.

That would leave Nick as the odd man out. I doubt he could of or would of remained in the agency as the lone man. What the future was holding for him was hard to say. He was a loner and probably didn't have many prospects beyond flying his helicopter. We know that he was in the Army Reserves and the Gulf War was less than five years away when the show ended, so who knows...maybe he got caught up in that.

[–] TexasJLC83 14 years ago

Since I have seen every single episode to a bunch of TV shows from the 1980's- they usually end with an episode that does not stop what the series is about. "MacGyver" is one of the few shows that actually does that- by him meeting his 19-year-old son Sam Malloy (the mother was an ex-girlfriend from college who had been murdered 10 years before and he was looking for the killer to get revenge) he did not even know about before that and deciding to resign from the Phoenix Foundation at the very end so he can get to spend time with him. "Knight Rider" ends as if there will be more adventures- but a TV movie came out 5 years later set in the future saying Michael Knight retired from the Foundation for Law & Government in 1990 to start living a normal life. However, that retirement is suddenly interrupted when futuristic criminals are outsmarting the cops and a new supercar has to be made as the original was dismantled. "Airwolf" ends with Stringfellow Hawke saying he will adopt his missing brother's half-bred son and him promising he will continue searching for him. I know it was followed by a fourth season where the brother is found and becomes the new pilot for Airwolf- but I pretend it does not exist since fans say it was nothing like the seasons with the original cast. "Magnum P.I." ends with Thomas Magnum finding his long-lost daughter and rejoining the navy. "Quantum Leap" ends with Dr. Sam Beckett meeting the man who had been leaping him around with him possibly being God in human disguise (although that is never told out)- and the last scene showing words saying Sam never returned home. "A-Team" ends with the four Vietnam vets discussing what they will do once they have finally gotten the pardon clearing their names- and they all agree to continue travelling the country helping people who cannot go to the police. "Hardcastle & McCormick" ends with Mark McCormick finally being off of probation under retired judge Milton Hardcastle's custody and deciding to attend law school. "Greatest American Hero" also ends as if there will be more adventures- but it is followed by a special episode never aired on television where the secret gets out of Ralph Hinkley having the superpowered suit whereas the aliens who provided it to him decide he can no longer wear it and force him to choose a new owner who turns out be a woman named Holly Hathaway becoming the Greatest American Heroine. "Incredible Hulk" ends with a regular episode having Dr. David Banner continuing to travel through the country searching for a cure- but it is followed by three TV movies and the third one ends with the Hulk creature being killed off.

[–] rehiii76 14 years ago

Interesting. I suppose most of them never really did have a formal ending to clear up all the loose ends. But as I made reference to...at least you could sort of picture how everything did go on Riptide after watching Echoes at the end of season three. The rare show that did that.

I still recall how the Brady Bunch ended with Greg Brady getting crazy orange hair and graduating from Westdale. LOL.

[–] alexracer 9 years ago

The Fall Guy , last episode is one like any other DESPITE the fact that they already knew that S5 was going to be last

T.J. Hooker also had no real final episode

[–] jayson_firestorm 14 years ago

Others have pretty much covered it already; there was no proper 'finale', but the final two episodes are of note.

The penultimate episode, "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em", parodies 'Moonlighting', which sadly trampled the third season of 'Riptide' in the ratings in the US, leading to its cancellation (quite why they just didn't move it to a safer time-slot I'll never know!!). It also parodies some of the common features of Stephen J. Cannell shows, such as avoiding mass gunshots from the bad guys, then taking them out with one single bullet!

The final episode, "Echoes", sort of bookends the series, in that Murray is forced to shoot and kill someone. In the rest of the series beforehand, Cody and Nick had always been the ones in fights and shootouts, and the episode deals with Murray trying to come to terms with his actions.

The series was run here in the UK in the small hours of Saturday night / Sunday morning on the then new Channel 5 in 1997-8, in a 3:50am slot! They showed the entire series (albeit wildly out of sequence), though for some reason skipped the Pilot and two third season stories. Initially I set the video recorder and watched the episodes the next day, but soon I stayed up all night to both record the episodes and watch them live!!

Favourite episode? Probably the second season's "Catch of the Day", where their friend with learning difficulties believes he has seen a mermaid. It was the first episode of 'Riptide' I ever saw, at a friends house when $ky ran the series; it's one of the best installments. I also love "Father's Day" (s2) and "Long Distance Daddy" (s1).
The early second season is easily the best period IMO, the show really felt to be working on all levels then. The third season felt a bit flat, with more straight-laced detective cases lacking the fun of the first two seasons, but I still wish it had continued for a fourth.

[–] generationofswine 11 years ago

It's been years, but there's an episode where Cody read a New Age book about communication & tried over & over again to just do what the book said instead of resorting to violence.

To me that was one of the most memorable episodes of any T show that came out of the 80s. It was just hysterical & realistic, I know people that would do that.

Its probably one of my favorite episodes of any TV show.