Main cast: Lisa Hartman (Cheryl), Huguette Faget (Emilie), and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker)
Director: Aline Issermann
I took a few days off from watching and reviewing the fifth season of The Hitchhiker, and it was great. I managed to get many enjoyable things done, but at the same time, that annoying voice in my head kept reminding me that if I didn’t get back to this, I’d still be vexed by this show come Christmas. There are two digits worth of episodes to go, after all, so… sigh. Let’s just get the whole thing over and done with.
So, Her Finest Hour. The first thing I see is Lisa Hartman in the most 80s get-up ever: big puffed-up blonde hair, sparkling jacket with unnecessarily large number of pins and stuff on it, black polka-dot thigh-length skirt, and a big, ugly belt that comes with a gold chain dangling around the waist. Ah, the sacrifices she makes for her career.
Hey, the story is based on something by Christopher Fowler, though, so perhaps this one isn’t so bad?
Ms Hartman is Cheryl, the ugly American of the episode. For some reason, she’s in Paris when she could have been making a living as the vocalist of a Heart tribute band in the US. She and her accomplice as well as lover Bruno will have their home demolished in two days, so this pair of swindlers decide to target the addled but possibly wealthy old woman Emilie, who has agoraphobia and has never left her house in decades.
Cheryl has Emilie convinced that she and Bruno are from the government, taking an assessment of all valuables in people’s household before a great war hits France. Since Emilie’s son died in World War 2 and she is not altogether there in the head, perhaps convincing this poor darling that another war is coming may not be a good idea…
Oh, thank goodness for the source material, because this episode is a masterpiece compared to some of the episodes that came before it. Ms Hartman plays a pretty convincing evil tart, and her character is fun to watch her. Emilie is a pretty sympathetic character, which only accentuates what terrible people Cheryl and her dim-witted husband are to exploit the poor dear’s dementia.
Besides, it makes little sense to plan a long con when they need money ASAP to get a new place to stay. Can’t they sell drugs or something instead?
The real chiller here is the well-intentional things that people with dementia may do, things that end up leading to disastrous fallout to the people around them. Still, Emilie wouldn’t have done what she did if Cheryl and Bruno hadn’t fanned her PTSD and then played along even when smarter people would have taken a step back and go, “Hey, wait a minute…” So yes, those two deserve what they get.
The take-home lesson here is that this show lives and dies by its source materials, and often, it does more than it lives. Fortunately, this is easily a better episode in a long while.
Well, that and how Americans on this show rarely find a happy ending when they marry a French citizen and then move to Paris. Americans should stay where they belong and leave France alone!
Too bad no one has bothered to tell that to the Americans behind this show.
