Airwolf - Eruption

*** / ****
Like I said, in a previous review, I have been watching episodes of Airwolf--first two seasons featuring Vincent and Borgnine--enjoying the score, bits and pieces with familiar faces and certain subject matter that is so 80s, and the superchopper in action. Eruption, though, doesn't feature the Airwolf as a significant factor until the end when bad coal management, screwing over employees in a mining town, load up in weaponized helicopters targeting the company's late creator's wife, an aid with evidence of ledgers containing criminality, a truck driving vocal renegade challenging the status quo in a limo.

Juanita Mahone is Mary Avery, the truck driver imprisoned in a mine along with two others wanting to change how employees are treated in New Gideon. Mills Watson is Cove, corrupt tyrant secretly concealng his treatment of the miners and their families in New Gideon from Amelia Davenport (Laraine Day), who isn't as powerful as her husband once was, holding only a portion of the company, ultimately beholden to the board of directors. Taylor Lacher is the police chief, totally devoted to Cover, complicit in how their citizens are deprived of medical rights, basic heat and supplies needed for survival, and common decency. Because Cove and the police chief are painted as complete scum, there isn't a shades of grey at all about them. The miners are horribly treated within this insolated community/town, keeping Davenport purposely in the dark, reaping the benefits of the hard work. Joshua Cadman is a local with a pregnant wife (Angela Cartwright, Penny of Lost in Space), sick and tired of what his folks are going through. Bill Cort, as the mining company accounts manager, decides he can't be associated with Cove's nefarious schemes and does the right thing, willing to expose the criminality.

As far as talent involved, Cartwright will be the television face folks know well, considering her involvement in LiS. However her role in this episode is indictive of her less remarkable follow-up to LiS. This pregnant wife has a few has a few dialogue pieces but not much else. Day, of Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, has a flashier role as an important agent of change due to her name and prestige. But Mahone really shines as a defiant employee willing to voice her displeasure even as her livelihood and welfare could be impacted.

With all this said, I think the real pièce de résistance is the eruption at the beginning, stemming from a dangerous, volatile volcano due to erupt at any moment. Hawke and Santini are there in the Airwolf to collect gas info from volcano, Mt Catherine, in the hopes to study it for future prediction. They get caught right into the eruption where ash and smoke just devastate surrounding areas. The eruption's effects, including the death of a deputy in his truck investigating and how New Gideon is impacted initially by it, are incredible. Airwolf caught in it, finally brought down for repairs, is a way to involve them in the mining dispute.