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The Choice
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This is an intriguing episode. Spenser becomes famous because of helping rescue a famous kidnapping victim - and he attracts the interest of a pair of street vigilantes with an air target pistol. In the meantime, Hawk is uncharacteristically nasty to his old trainer, who is then shot by the vigilantes.
Soon you have Spenser tracking down the killers, Hawk tracking them down, the killers playing innocent, Spenser trying to get them to change their ways, and Hawk going slowly towards his goal. It's an interesting episode, more about the nature of someone who kills than about any standard character interactions. There's very little of Susan here - she's shunted off with her ex for her own protection rather quickly.
I don't like Hawk raking the older man over the coals in this episode - it seems very uncharacteristic and mean of him. I understand they were trying to make a point, and I suppose you could argue this is the "less refined" young, aggressive Hawk being shown here.
The main enemies reminded me a lot of the pair in the Jesse Stone series who were also a couple who loved killing people together.
I'm a bit iffy on the ending, with Spenser in essence setting them up for Hawk to kill them. On the other hand, they were fairly creepy ;). There is an odd part here. Spenser has a recording from his answering machine of them admitting their guilt. But they claim that they were forced to make that recording much later in time. Didn't answering machines back then have time-stamps?
Also, Hawk is not a great boxer in this episode. I think he improves in later episodes - I wonder if watchers complained about it and he then practiced a bit.
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