Main cast: Lorenzo Lamas (Tom Astor), Carolyn Dunn (Michelle), Lawrence Bayne (Teddy), and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker)
Director: Tab Baird
Look who’s finally directing an episode of The Hitchhiker! I guess supervising producer fellow Tab Baird thought he may as well sit at least once in that chair before the show is done for good. Well, that or everyone else that could have directed has declared the show kuru and refused to have anything to do with it.
Lucky for him, Trust Me is going to be the highlight and peak point of Mr Baird’s career as a director because it stars the one and only Lorenzo Lamas!
Mr Lame-ass, I mean, Lamas plays Tom Astor, a conman and a gigolo that makes his living from convincing his victims to give him expensive pieces of jewelry that he will then sell off. The lunkhead gets an unusual gig in this episode: a stalker Michelle knows everything he does, and she wants him to seduce a mark of her choosing: her own mother.
Tom is hesitant to get involved, until he learns that Michelle’s mother has a diamond mine and she has no intentions of leaving anything to the daughter. This must be why Michelle wants him to swindle the old broad and split the profits with her.
Whatever; the old biddy may as well give all of that to him, right?
Of course, there is more to it here, and poor Tom will realize that he is nowhere as suave as he thinks he is…
This is another episode that floors me in how good it is, compared to some of the recent turds in this show. The primary reason for this is its simplicity. Just like the previous episode, this one has an uncomplicated plot minus unnecessary twists and turns, and it makes use of its limited budget without coming off as too cheap.
More importantly, believe it or not, Lorenzo Lamas is pretty good here. I’m not sure if Tom had been so successful because he was hot like he thinks he is—Mr Lamas plays him more like a cocky, uncouth SOB, and I suspect this has much to do with the appeal of the character to his marks than any purported good looks or charm.
Tom ends up being a pretty memorable protagonist-villain here, and Carolyn Dunn plays off him well as someone with clearly shady motives but one that Tom can’t help tangling with because he thinks he can outsmart her in the end. These two have a pretty amusing kind of hate-lust thing going on, although the fact that she’d outwit him is a forgone conclusion in a show that is what it is!
All in all, another shockingly, unexpectedly solid episode. Dare I hope that things will only get better from here?
