“Trish and I are going to pull off the perfect crime.” – Rick
“Just Between You and Me” featured a few wrinkles I haven’t seen in past episodes of Take The Money and Run. Granted, the overall product wasn’t really any better, but hey, with this show you’ve gotta take the positives wherever you can.
The episode features a father and daughter team, Rick and Trisha, as the hiders. The detectives are Casey and Anwan, veterans of the San Francisco Police Department. And, as always, the interrogators are Mary and Paul.
Trisha, a firefighter, brings a couple of novel ideas to the table regarding unique hiding places. Instead of simply hiding the briefcase in a bush or at a friend’s house, Trish suggests that they could hide the case on top of a billboard using some kind of complex pulley system or submerge it underwater with rope and a cooler. This water idea is a particularly fascinating one, and something I’ve thought of many times while watching Take the Money and Run. Going back to my griping about the show’s rules, no one ever comes out and says that the hiders must hide the case somewhere where they, the hiders themselves, would be able to find it again. And since the case is simply “worth $100,000” but does not actually contain $100,000, what’s to stop the hiders from driving over a bridge and tossing the case out of the car, Walter Sobchack-style, into a body of water?
The pair immediately abandons these more creative ideas in favor of attempting to hide the case at Trisha’s friend’s house. But when they can’t get inside the house, they have to resort to Plan B. The back-up plan is to hide the case at a restaurant where Uncle Bob hangs out a lot. Why Uncle Bob hangs out at a restaurant during the middle of the day is beyond me. Perhaps it’s a Satriale’s Pork Store kind of place. Anyhoo, the restaurant turns out to be too far away so Trish and Rick are on to Plan C. Here’s where the other new wrinkle comes in: the way the sequence is edited, the audience is unable to tell where the case is hidden. I suppose this is done to increase the suspense when the detectives are searching — the viewer will be on the edge of their seat wonder in and when the case will be found. The only hint we get is Trisha saying, “Where we’ve hidden it, it will never be found.”
When the hiders are taken in to custody they appear to be ready to settle in for the long haul. Having spent the past 11 years in firehouses, Trish is used to cramped quarters and Rick is a former Marine, so a couple of days in a cell shouldn’t faze him. As it turns out, appearances can be deceiving: Rick isn’t built for incarceration or withstanding interrogation. Inexplicably, he spills the beans to Mary almost immediately. He tells her about his friend Eddie and Mary dispatches the detectives to Eddie’s office, where Casey and Anwan find the case.
To add insult to injury, Rick (who is married) is totally busted on national television hitting on Mary the interrogator. “Nice eyes, by the way,” he says flirtatiously as she gets up to leave the interrogation room. What an idiot.
Since the fall television season is upon us and new shows are premiering left and right, chances are this will (hopefully!) be last time I’ll get the chance to write about Take the Money and Run. My feelings on the show are pretty well documented, so I figured I would finish up my coverage with a few excerpts — pro and con — taken from comments and emails I’ve received from readers of TVGA in order to give a fair account of the public response to this show:
* “The point I’m trying to make is to not believe what one person says on a website. Sounds like all of you have dismissed this show as being boring or ‘too easy’ and all of you suggested ways to help out the detectives out, it sounds like they have it under control.” – Annisseth
* “This show is ridiculous…hope it’s over soon” – Nancy
* “Very lame show.” – 6079
* “You should present your ideas to Bruckheimer.” – Renee
* “How can I get on this game show?” – Kim Myrie
* “I was incredibly bored with the interrogation format. Since we had recorded it, I ended up just fast-forwarding to the rather anti-climatic end. I doubt I will be watching this show again even if it does make a number of changes.” – Alex
* “You suck. Bruckheimer rules!” – Anonymous
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.