T.J. Hooker/Night Vigil

Night Vigil
Season 4, Episode 1
Airdate	October 13, 1984
Production Number	181665
Written by	Frank Telford
Directed by	Winrich Kolbe
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T.J. Hooker — Season Four

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Night Vigil is the first episode of the fourth season of T.J. Hooker, and the fiftieth episode overall.

Stacy is shot and critically wounded during an armed robbery at a convenience store. Hooker is determined to find the man responsible and make him pay for nearly killing someone who is more than just a fellow officer to him.

Starring:

Guest Starring: Larry Flash Jenkins ("Toothpick" - Willie Joe Ellington Brown III), Allen Williams (Internal Affairs Detective), George Kee Cheung (Dr. Coe), Pepper Martin ("The Big Guy"), Fay Hauser (Jobina Wright), Steve James (Coach Cassius Isely), Willard E. Pugh (Roller), Mike Genovese (Lucky Robinson), Marcia Del Mar (Lecha Martinez), Joanne Ishimine (TV Newsreader), Lenny Hicks (Officer J. Mitchell), Edward Manson (Frank), Al Berry (Store Emplyee), John MacBride (Hotel Desk Clerk), Holgie Forrester (Nurse)

Co-Starring:

Plot Overview

Will Stacy Sheridan become the hottest-ever young woman to lie at rest in a cemetery?

Her life is hanging by a thread when she is critically wounded during an armed robbery of a convenience store, as she and Corrigan are stopped for breakfast and car repairs. Stacy is brought in to the hospital, where Hooker and Capt. Sheridan are waiting. It is there that Hooker recounts his memories of Stacy when she was a little girl, being there for her birth and becoming a second father to her. The chief of staff tells Hooker and Capt. Sheridan that Stacy was shot with armor-piercing bullets, which – amazingly enough – still are able to save her life ... for the moment. Because the bullets are lodged beneath a critical artery near her heart, surgery is not advised and that if a mistake is made, she will die.

Hooker is determined at all costs to find the shooter and his accomplice, a man named Toothpick, who are suspects in multiple armed robberies of varying businesses especially jewelry stores. To accomplish his goal of trying to find the man responsible, Hooker is willing to breach all ethics to find the man, a huge thug whose name is never known and has a long criminal history, including murder and armed robbery.

After Hooker forces information from a gun shop owner, he later is able to get information about Toothpick from a gym manager, just as the thug and Toothpick rob a jewelry store and shoot multiple people when they realize the silent alarm has been activated. After they shoot and wound - less seriously – another officer (which the thug cackles evily as Toothpick and his girlfriend scream now realize they'll now be facing long prison sentences), Hooker is grilled by Internal Affairs over his tactics and is taken off the case, and warned that he will face suspension and possible termination if he is known to still be involved. Back at the hospital, the chief surgeon has researched possible ways to operate on Stacy, all of them extremely risky, but Capt. Sheridan and Hooker both give their consent to operate. Before she is taken in to surgery, Stacy is able to mutter a description of the thug that shot her.

Eventually, the officers arrest Toothpick and his girlfriend, and the girlfriend agrees to cooperate by telling the officers where their boss hangs out and where he may be staying. Hooker gets cooperation from the restaurant manager and hotel clerk, and he finally confronts the thug inside his hotel room. The thug is barely able to react, but Hooker is so quick on the draw that the force of the shot sends the thug through the window and over the balcony ... five stories to his death.

At the hospital, the operation is a success, and Stacy is now awake. Hooker is very grateful for how things turned out and confirms his bond with Stacy. She'll need a little time to recover, but she'll be back to work very quickly.