"You can't go home again" or at least maybe you shouldn't try if you've made a big success of yourself. The people you left behind might not be as admiring as you'd expect. Especially if one off them lost a pro football career due to an auto accident he blames you for and another is a girlfriend who wanted to be more than that. Even the people without specific grudges won't be comfortable comparing your success with the mundaneness of their lives.
Richard Anderson, making his third appearance in the series, plays the successful businessman who has decided to "save the town" by putting a factory there that will bring many jobs and pump a lot of his wonderful money into his old home town. People seem to be appreciative on the surface but there is more than air of resentment, especially since he's been getting phoned death threats. Anderson's chauffeur is Richard Kimble, whom he found hiding in his garage and feverish six weeks before. Dr. Kimble likes his employer and feels he owes him something and is concerned about the phone calls which Anderson brushes off as being from some crank. He's refused official security from the local Sheriff, an old friend. The Sheriff recruits Kimble to carry a gun- of course he'll need finger prints to get the permit approved. (Don't tell the NRA but they do a background check). The gun represents another problem-= the last thing Richard Kimble wants to do is to shoot and maybe actually kill somebody.
It's a nice set up but. Anderson is a bit too "nice". He's tolerant of the people who obviously resent his "big man" status. He feels sorry for the person who wants to kill him. The back story of the football player's injury is weak- they went to a bar and, as they were getting out of the car a drunk backed into them and the football player got the worst of it. It was Anderson's idea to go to the bar. So what?
In Mel Proctor's book on the series, "The Official Fan's Guide to The Fugitive", Anderson says he went to a class reunion himself in 1993 and felt a little resentment of his success as an actor and it reminded of this episode. Ed Asner, who plays the football player, has some grumpy quotes in the same book. "I felt that Richard Anderson was always too pretty so the thought of putting a bullet in him was delectable to me." No doubt he was kidding but he wasn't kidding when he said "Most of my roles in The Fugitive didn't thrill me. The football player was one of the few good ones
Malinek's limp took a lot of concentration and energy and was a pain in the ass." It was a good thing he wasn't playing Chester on "Gunsmoke".
He had an equally sour opinion of David Janssen's acting: "I really found it painful to watch David Janssen grimacing every time a cop came around. He looked like the dopiest person in the world, giving himself away to the cops every time rather than playing it cool and smooth. Why he wasn't arrested the second week of the show and sent back to Indiana, I'll never know. I thought David was a good actor but a lot of the time, David didn't give a s--t. David had great talent but was lazy and coasted." I couldn't agree less.