Baywatch - S04E04 - Blindside Review

 

Baywatch brings us a second sad episode in a row, which is odd.

'B' Story

Hobie gets another story straight after his previous 'Lover's Cove', though he's not exactly the focus - He meets a "friendly giant" from a local carnival... or fairground... with a bit of a freak-show thrown in too. This dude is called Manuel and he is one of those guys who does look a bit too big for it to be healthy. His acting is virtually non-existent but I did feel for him even though the whole evil freak-show boss thing is cliche. His boss is horrible to him but Hobie convinces the giant, who is a lovely, talented guy, that he can be more than just a fairground attraction where he's treated like a scary monster.

We don't even get to see Manuel confront his boss and leave him, it's done off camera. He opens a stall at the beach selling wood carvings of pelicans that he made himself, that's the last scene of the episode and it's rather abrupt. This story has some really forced and moments, like Manuel falling off a pier so we can have a scene of life guards rescuing him. Of course this is lead by Mitch, who just happens to be walking by with Hobie. I guess they were on their way to meet him anyway? Manuel falls off because a rather large group of knife wielding thugs decide to harass him, this is in the day time and feels as if the writers decided they had to have someone drowning no matter what. I guess this ordeal convinces Manuel to leave the freak-show job because the next scene of his is the aforementioned statue selling one. It's not explained why this changed his mind though, so it makes the drowning scene feel real random.

Time for a nit-pick - You get the impression that the fairground is new there, as in it probably tours around, it doesn't stay in one place for long. However there's a scene under a pier where it's revealed that Manuel has a secret wood carving workshop, it looks like it's been there forever.

'A' Story

I'm probably going to sound livid about the main story of this episode and that may be an accurate representation of my feelings, even though the episode was fairly entertaining overall and this story was better than Hobie's one. Well, I say 'better' but... OK I'll explain.

John D. Cort, a character who left the show a while back returns in a epic scene involving riding a horse in typical John D. Cort action hero fashion. Even though John wasn't in the show from the very beginning, he joined soon after so he's virtually one of the original characters in my eyes. He was also great, a real action hero who had some quite refreshing 'non-Baywatch' style episodes. However, it's all downhill from then on because they do this character a disservice. Both stories are sad in this episode, John's one being by far the saddest.

It turns out that something is wrong with John, I should have caught onto it quicker because the episode is called 'Blindside'. At first I thought he had a small sight problem or that he's blind in one eye but he's not letting anyone know, but he goes to a doctor and it turns out he's going completely blind and there's no cure. This is all revealed pretty much at the end of the story so I should say what else happened before that, so here goes; It turns out that C.J. and John had a relationship in the past, this was of course off camera because in reality, the character of C.J. didn't exist back when John was on the show. Not that it matters but canonically speaking their relationship probably happened before the Baywatch pilot. It actually makes sense because when John joined the show, we were told that he moves around a lot and has been a life guard at Baywatch before, pretty much the same thing is said of C.J. when she is introduced, Mitch new both of them before we did, basically.

John has a condition which is sort of like tunnel vision, his peripheral vision gets blurrier and fades away so that he can only see what's right in front of him. I don't know how he didn't notice this, perhaps he was in denial. He does mention that the doctor said the condition may have started a long time ago, that's it's slow and gradual. Before we find all of this out though, the writers of the show decided to make it sting for the viewers even more - John decides he wants to stop travelling, he's going to stay at Baywatch to be a life guard full time. His true passion. They make out that John and C.J. are back together too though I will say the actors on-screen chemistry isn't stellar.

 The reality is that the show creators probably just wanted to make a dramatic story and maybe the guy who portrays John was happy with a more serious story-line. But my over active imagination can't help but see this story as a kick in the teeth to one of the original Baywatch characters. It's even C.J., a newer character, or sort of grasses up John to Mitch, telling him that there's something wrong with John. Now, Mitch had noticed it too and C.J. was just concerned for John, but I see it from a new light if I think about new cast versus old cast. Yes, I'm over thinking it but it just popped into my head.

In 1993 the viewers may have thought John was going to be back on the show for a while, hell, I even thought it might happen for a bit. I knew he was coming back to the show but I didn't know for how long, I guessed it wasn't going to be for that long because I never saw photos of him from later seasons, but I didn't know it would be for only one episode. I it also feels depressing that they took such a cool, manly character from the shows history and gave him an incurable condition. Like, couldn't they just have left him alone? Having him not come back at all would have been better. His story ends with him leaving C.J. because he doesn't want her to deal with looking after him when he becomes completely blind. He then leaves Baywatch, unable to be a life guard anymore, actually I think I'll look up if he ever comes back...

I'm surprised, turns out he does come back but not for long. He's in one episode of season 5 and also the movie 'Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding' but I bet he's not in it much. Maybe a cameo? It came out ten years after 'Blindside' so surely John is blind by then. That'll be depressing.

Anyway back to 'Blindside'. In his last scene, John talks about wanting to see some more things in the world before he loses his sight completely, really sad.