HOUSTON KNIGHTS

9. Moving Violation (9/15)

10. Heads I Win, Tails You Lose (9/22)

11. Desperado (10/6)

12. Gun Shy (10/13)

13. Lady Smoke (10/20)

14. God's Will (11/3)

15. Diminished Capacity (11/10)

16. Home Is Where The Heart Is (11/17)

17. Secrets (12/8)

18. Somebody To Love (12/22)

19. There's One Born Every Minute (1/2)

20. Vigilante (1/9)

21. The White Hand (1/17)

22. Sins of the Father (1/31)

23. Crime Spree (2/6)

24. Cajun Spice (2/13)

25. The Stone (2/20)

26. Burnout (2/27)

27. Love Hurts (4/26)

28. Bad Paper (5/2)

29. For Caroline (5/10)

30. Jungle Fighter (6/7)

9. MOVING VIOLATION

An off duty police officer is killed, which gets the boys investigating a stolen car ring. When they spot the heist of an Excalibur in front of a popular restaurant, they trail the driver to a warehouse. Inside the building, Joe discovers his car, a Shelby Cobra, stolen in Chicago some months ago. In the ensuing battle, they capture one and two escape – in Joe’s car. One of those escaping knocks down a blind woman, who gives them a good description of who bumped her. (This is a great scene. She uses Joe as a guide for her description.) L becomes friends with the police officer’s widow and young son. Joe eventually gets his car back, but only after it is used in a chase and then taken as evidence.

10. HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE

This episode has two separate story lines. One deals with date rape; one with a prison breakout. In the date rape, a man dates women he meets at a fitness center, who he feels "has it coming" because they dress in leotards while exercising. This show LF to be a women’s rights activist (sort of), and he encourages the women to press charges. She does, but loses. After she loses, other women from the fitness center come to him, and tell him what the same thing happened to them.

In the prison breakout, they get involved with a retired Texas Ranger, who didn’t like the justice system. (The Texas Ranger is Robert Horton from WAGON TRAIN). He hinders their investigation somewhat and tries to stop an armored truck with his six-gun. L found a unique way to stop the truck. They fail the jailbreak, which was attempted during a prisoner transfer.

11. DESPERADO

A man who L once talked out of committed suicide starts robbing banks. He’s a modern day Robin Hood. As he leaves each bank he gives the money to people he meets. BUT he only robs branches of one particular bank. The daughter of the banker volunteers at a local food bank. When "Robin Hood" brings money to give to out-of-work people she becomes involved with him. She soon learns he has a violent side, and why he only robs her father’s banks. When LF & L finally track him down, a gun battle is forced - and the bad guy falls.

12. GUN SHY

On the anniversary of her accidental shooting of a young boy, Lt Beaumont feels pressured to prove she can still handle field work. Racketeers that are extorting money from dance clubs have killed several managers. They start out by forcing you to use their garbage pickup, then pressure you to get more involved in under-the-table operations. One of the managers killed was a young woman Joe knew and liked. Beaumont goes undercover as a manager. They break the operation and she proves she can still handle a gun while under fire. Joanne’s husband, not seen before, is introduced in this episode.

13. LADY SMOKE

Two brothers kidnap the daughter of a once wealthy Texan oil woman. The brothers do not know she doesn’t have the money for the ransom. She hires a PI to try to get her daughter back. He botches the job, and in doing so draws in L & LF. The brothers contact Lady Smoke, a local disc jockey, as a go-between. But Lois Smoke has problems of her own. She fled New York City to get away from memories of her husband g killed by someone trying to steal his watch. She is put into protective custody, and Joe, having a weakness for pretty women, falls for her. The Brothers want Lois to meet them with the money. When she does, the brothers have a disagreement, and she ends up the captive and the girl is freed. One brother is killed as they try to escape. The other brother is with Lois Smoke as a hostage take cover in a nearby building. LF goes in unarmed in an attempt to try to free her. While distracted by LF, L crashes in and saves them all.

14. GOD’S WILL

Some fanatic is killing television evangelists, and leaving pages torn from bibles as clues to the next victim. One preacher survived an attempt on his life, and L takes him out to the working farm of his former pastor. The pastor and his wife are not use to working on a farm, and call someone from their staff to come out and get them. Unknown to them, the person they call is behind the murders, and he is using someone from his family to do the dirty work. After LF & L kill this person, the pastor returns to the city and sets up a big television performance complete with fireworks. Through a phone call, L discovers who the mastermind is and the Knights stop him before he kills the pastor.

15. DIMINISHED CAPACITY

Joe and Levon are assigned to protect a man who is being released from prison so he can move to another state. He killed one of Houston’s favorite citizens, and many people are unhappy with his release. When he stops to visit his sister he gives the boys the slip and ends up dead. LF & L are suspended. However, they keep on the case anyway. They get into more trouble when Joe shoots someone who was trying to shoot Levon. Being suspended, they weren’t suppose to be carrying weapons. (There is a very good scene with Joe & Levon in the Cobra, and Joe’s car phone, and call forwarding.) They end up finding the killer and other evidence involving a corporation’s misdeeds. Their suspension gets extended, and this time they are placed under the watchful eye of an Internal Affairs man.

16. HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

This episode gives a look at the plight of the homeless. Chicken asks Joe and Levon to help locate the friend of his new cook. The boys discover that Elizabeth is a single mom, and she and her children are living in an unfinished high-rise. Her friend, Corey Baker, went for a job interview and never came back. Corey foiled an arson attempt at the building, and was staying out of sight. It was costing the owner too much and he felt torching the building would be easier. His decision to withdraw comes too late. The Knights get Elizabeth and the kids out just in the nick of time.

17. SECRETS

(This was one of THE most popular episodes within the Houston Knights fan network. The HK network, "Partners & Friends," operated out of Arvada, CO, from 1986-1991.)

During an undercover operation, Joe is shot. Though wearing a flak jacket, he still ends up in the hospital with two badly bruised ribs. The doctor, looking over Joe’s past medical records, says he needs to take an AIDS test, because of a transfusion Joe had in Chicago a couple of years ago. Joe takes the test but is worried about the results. Joe had refused to go join L for Thanksgiving at his grandmother’s home in Lombard. When the doctor calls to say the tests were inconclusive and had to be run again, LF decides at the last minute to join his partner for a weekend in "Mayberry." Joe’s name for Levon’s home town. Here LF meets L’s grandmother, Mother Minnie, who has a secret of her own. L’s college alma mater, Texas A&M, asks him to present a MVP award to a local high school athlete. The Knights discover that the boy’s father is in the witness protection program. There are complications between Levon and the local sheriff, a high school friend, who also loved Levon’s wife Caroline. Action abounds when the brother of the man the boy’s father helped convict sees a newspaper article about the boy’s football ability in a national paper. (There is an excellent scene between Joe and Levon in the darken hall of an old house. Joe telling his partner about the AIDS test and why he’s afraid.) LF gets Mother Minnie to tell her grandson her secret. The Knights save the man and his son from death, AND LF’s test proves to be negative.

18. SOMEBODY TO LOVE

Officer Guiterrez returns to Houston during the Christmas holidays looking for a kidnapped baby. One of several babies, over the last two years, that have been taken from their parents. If there is a theme, it is about loneliness. Joe misses his large Italian family and their holiday traditions. The parents of the missing child are in despair. And the adoptive parents don’t know they have dealt with a black-market baby selling ring. During the investigation, L & LF come close to being blown up. Estaban steals the baby in an attempt to get it back to its Mexican family. The Knights and Estaban get evidence and put the baby stealing ring out of business. Lundy saves Estaban from a kidnapping charge. The adoptive parents are invited to Chicken’s Annual Christmas Party for local orphan children. Estaban turns up at Chicken’s. It turns out his superiors weren’t too happy on how he behaved in Houston. Enter new character.

19. THERE’S ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE

A beautiful blonde con artist, Neely Lloyd, takes Joe for $300.00. The Knights try to find her, and discover a dead girl in Neely’s old apartment. Joe figures she conned the wrong guy, and he is tracking her too. The tracker kills the girl before realizing it isn’t Neely Lloyd. The guys end up on a stake out watching Neely’s new place. It’s L’ birthday, and LF brings him a cupcake with a candle in it. Levon tells Joe what it was like growing up with an alcoholic father. That his father only calls him once a year, and that’s on his birthday. The Knights set a trap for Neely and the man tracking her. In the end, Joe loses Neely in a train station, but instead of disappearing, she turns herself into Joe.

20. VILGILANTE

A Texan arrives in town to visit his mother, and avenge the death of his stepfather. The man has lived in Oman, in the Middle East for 20 years. He uses Arabic methods to kill and mark his victims. He goes after the men who robbed his parents home, and killed his father. One victim is afraid to identify him because he feels retaliation. The Knights find a way to stop him.

21. THE WHITE HAND

A group of young college men begin a racist attack against a Hispanic council woman and her staff. The group leaves a spray painted white hand as their mark. When one of her assistants is killed, Joe and Levon want to put her in protective custody. She refuses. The "White Hand" feels her group is taking away jobs that belong to whites.

22. SINS OF THE FATHER

The boys are teamed with a detective who is used to working alone. He saves LF’s life on a raid, but L feels the man was really putting all their lives at risk with his tactics. The man, Dan Stocker, is suicidal. His son overdosed several years ago. It’s discovered that Dan is working both sides. That the death of his son relates to dealings he had, still has, with a known drug dealer. In the finale shoot-out, Dan takes a bullet meant for Lundy, and dies in Levon’s arms. The Knights and other officers console a young woman Dan was just getting to know.

23. CRIME SPREE

Joe borrows some money from Levon to invest in a stock deal, but tells the cowboy it is for his grandmother’s appendectomy. Lundy is livid when he finds out the truth, and asks Beaumont for a new partner. But it has to wait until they are done investigating the Devlin Gang. A ruthless clan that deal in guns, rape and general wrong doing. An undercover operative’s hidden mike is short circuited by a microwave. In an ensuing gun battle, the operative is killed when Joe fires upon the Gang. This makes L even madder at LF, though, Joe is cleared by Internal Affairs, and IA says it was a "righteous shooting." The Knights separately answer a distress call from a downed officer. Then take off together in L’s GMC Jimmy. Once lured inside the Devlin’s property, they are out-numbered and captured. They escape the trap they are dumped into and begin a cat and mouse game. When Joe is injured, helping to save Levon, who’s been cornered, his blood trail makes it easier for the Devlins. The boys decide they do work pretty well together, and take a stand. They dispose of two bad guys. When it looks like they will be wasted by the remaining Devlin, they are saved by Carol who along with several others from the squad has been searching the woods for them.

24. CAJUN SPICE

A high school boy working as a delivery man for Chicken’s restaurant, takes a hit that was meant for Chicken. The boy convinces C to let him drive C’s vintage Cadillac. When the door closes, the car explodes. This leads C and the Knights to a Texas mobster named Charlie Beaupre. At one of Beaupre’s bars, LF gets attracted to a pretty woman. It turns out that she is Beaupre’s niece, Angie. You get some insight into LF’s family as he talks with Angie, and as he explains the similarities between his family and the Beaupres. They discover that Charlie was not behind the hit. One of his right-hand men is dealing behind the boss’ back.

25. THE STONE

A thief steals a large black stone that he thinks is valuable. It turns out to be a radioactive isotope taken from a medical machine in a vacant building. Joe and Levon wrestle a young man, who was threatening someone, to the ground. Taking him to the hospital, they discover he is dying of radiation poisoning. Since the boys wrestled with the man, the doctors say the clothes they are wearing must be destroyed, and they shower in a special area. A female reporter, LF once knew, but who doesn’t remember him becomes involved by trying to get a story on the death of the thief. The Feds stir up things considerably when they barge in and takeover. The Feds try to put the reporter "on ice" but Joe rescues her.. sort of. A man who stole the stone from the dead man, calls Reisner and tells them he is grinding up the stone and putting in into a ventilation system. By repeating the recorded conversation back again, the Knights discover that he is in their building. A standoff on the roof proves fatal, as L shots the man. LF and L tell the reporter she may have the story of his life, but she can’t name her source. The story – the Feds are covering up other such accidents, even when the death toll is in the thousands.

26. BURNOUT

The kidnapping of a young girl, and a former case involving a young man makes Joe feel that his job as a cop is worthless. After finding the girl dead, and finding out that one of the killers is going to walk free, LF walks into Beaumont’s office, and turns in his badge. On a stakeout waiting for the second killer, L is approached by the dead girl’s father. A struggle between them ends with Levon being wounded in the shoulder. The father takes Levon, at gun point, into the squad room. He wants to kill the man who killed his daughter.

(There is an excellent scene between LF and the police shrink, sitting at a huge bar.) Estaban and Joe capture the second killer. When they return to Reisner they discover the standoff. Joe goes in, unarmed, to try to reason with the father, and to tell Levon that they have the other man. LF, using the conversation from the bar, talks to the man. Joe make him realize that another, the man’s wife, is hurting as bad as he is. Joe had promised to talk with Lundy about quitting, but tells him instead that he’ll see him Monday morning.

27. LOVE HURTS

A Houston family is slaughtered for no apparent reason. One member of the family, a son, Aaron Frost, was not killed as he was not home at the time. As the Knights start probing into the mystery, they discover that Aaron got into trouble when he was 12. He shot another kid. He did so on the command of an older boy. That older boy was not a local drug dealer. He paid Aaron’s college fees and in turn Aaron would travel to the money laundering capitals of the world for the dealer. Aaron was greedy and held some money back for himself.

The dealer got even by killing all of Aaron’s family. Then A kills the dealer’s father. The dealer snatches A’s girl friend. It takes the Knights and Estaban to save the girl, and get the bad guys.

28. JUNGLE FIGHTER

Someone is killing off Vietnamese immigrants. The killer is using techniques used by specialized Nam jungle fighters. Suspicion falls on several stressed out vets who have a past history of violence. Joe ends up in a Mexican standoff. Each man having a gun pointed at the other. The real killer turns out to be the shrink the vets go to for therapy. He wanted to be a "warrior" just like the men he counseled.

The End