Watcher Texas Ranger

Walker, Trivette, CD, and Alex head to Sawtooth Lodge for a quiet fishing weekend on a lake big enough to argue about. Drug dealers land a seaplane full of clear totes, Bobby the brand-new park ranger decides one bolt-action rifle is plenty, and Alex ends up in a Bronco trying to get a wounded man back to the cabin. Power gets cut, the phone line gets shot, and the bad guys try to burn the place down with a plan that has too many moving parts. Then Walker decides they are the spiders, the dealers are the flies, and the lodge turns into a half-baked Home Alone. Hank the Korea vet still will not touch a gun, Jimmy still believes in snipes, and the Bronco does not survive the woodpile.

Deadline is the one where the Texas legislature floats disbanding the Rangers to save a few bucks, right as Robert Englund (yes, Freddy) and his crew gas a jewelry store, scoop diamonds out of a pile of broken glass, and then decide kidnapping a senator’s daughter is easier money. Walker skips the hearing, drives around until he finds the crime, and the rest of the hour is heel shots, a mugshot program with about four noses, FBI guys getting iced out, a parole officer who stole his own file cabinets, and Chuck doing forest-spirit math on a patch of dirt under some pallets. CD is celebrating the 155th birthday of the Rangers. It is the 173rd. He is also wearing a badge he retired from. Alex is in court defending the thing she has never really practiced. The bad guys bury a steel box, forget where they put it, and still want $10 million in negotiable bonds without saying where to drop them. Standard Walker police work, one decent van chase, and a fight that is less a fight than a paid-for meal. Four episodes left in season four after this. Next week is The Siege, which is another fishing trip that immediately goes sideways.

Walker wakes up in a tux, bleeding, and has no idea what episode he’s in. Season 4, Episode 21 — Blackout — is the clip-show / amnesia / undercover / New Year’s Eve episode that forgot it was April. Walker can’t remember his name, his cover, or why a helicopter is trying to turn a Cuda into confetti, so the show just replays old fights, old kisses, and that one time he juggled a man with his feet. We talk recycled footage, tables that refuse to break, the world’s worst arm bandage, a loft that is somehow both empty and a Faraday cage, and why Chuck’s flashbacks include scenes he was unconscious for. Also: sold-out CD’s with one customer, a skid-gunman who might be a mannequin, and the most confusing “who even is the bad guy” hour of the season. Watcher Texas Ranger. We watch Walker. You watch us suffer.

Jimmy Trivette finally gets the spotlight — and a tabloid TV crew that treats a stakeout like a hostage situation. Walker gets the mayor’s nephew and, as usual, crime just walks up to the truck. Eddie Paradise is on the Most Wanted list. The reporter wants “real journalism.” The camera lady is the actual MVP. Cowboy Jack’s makes a cameo. There’s a Trans Am, reused helicopter footage, a dirt bike that eats it, a river that might be a canal, and a boat chase where nobody unties the rope. This is Walker, Texas Ranger leaning into its own joke: one Ranger sits in a van for seven hours, the other one trips over a fugitive on a dirt bike. James, Clint, and Ryan riff the whole thing — sneaky schnitzel assignments, Go Long Jimmy, the world’s worst interview, Alex’s pep talk, and the moment Jimmy actually gets to throw the punch.

Walker, Texas Ranger – The Avenger (Season 4, Episode 19) Walker teams with the FBI to bust an arms dealer. The guy in charge dies mid-hostage situation and uses his last breath to name-check a brother. That brother is Caleb Hooks (Michael Parks), a Vietnam-era mercenary trainer who takes the news about as well as you’d expect: he flies a newspaper in by helicopter, steals Walker out of his own living room, and puts him through a homemade trial-by-combat gauntlet. James, Clint, and Ryan go scene-by-scene through the empty gun case “arms deal,” the FBI agent who folds like a lawn chair, Chuck reading a book by the fire like a normal person, the spinning bamboo cage, fights in the dark, on spikes, with katanas, with flaming sticks over an electric floor, and finally an Old West street that comes with its own production-assistant tumbleweed. Is this the most Walker episode Walker has ever Walker’d? We rate it in Texas Ranger stars, name Extra of the Week, and tell you if it’s worth your time even if you’ve never watched the show. Next week: Behind the Badge.