Spoiler Alert, don’t read my babble until you watch the episode!

Yes! Seems Airwolf is finally starting to raise my blood pressure. Rambo 3 had his turn vs. the Russians, and now it’s Stringfellow’s turn. In Proof Through the Night, Hawke and Dom are sent to pick up an American-born (but Russian by heritage) spy who possesses some kind of serum that The Firm’s Archangel must want to use for a batch of cookies or something. So he sends Hawke into enemy territory to recover it all. And staying true to 80′s show predictability, the adversity doesn’t take too long to show up.

The problems all stem from the beginning of the show. See, Hawke and Santini had to strip Airwolf of all its guns in order to save weight to haul back a bunch of chumps. But little did they know that an ambush awaits their pickup point, and shockingly, a Russian helicopter shows up and starts shooting the shit out of the place.

After a series of manly quips and quotes and even a diving-through-the-window-jump-forward-flip-on-a-table-with-perfect-landing by Hawke, it quickly becomes daylight out as he makes his way back to the unarmed Airwolf, seemingly undetected by the giant 500 trillion candlepower spotlight mounted on the Russian helicopter.

With no guns, ammo or missiles, Hawke uses Airwolf’s turbo thrusters to out-maneuver and literally BLOW the Soviet copter into some trees, where it prunes the tops for a split-second before crashing into the ground. Dominic and the spy celebrate in happiness, as Hawke once again proves to be THE MAN.

Even though the entire Russian Army shows up (2 jeeps), Hawke again uses the turbo boost to flip the jeeps over, and effectively removes the threat. Then, after rounding up the entire family he’s sent to pick up, he out-turbo’s 4 Mig 23′s that fire probably 3,000 missiles at Airwolf–obviously to know avail. Of course the entire fight scene takes place within the exact time it takes the theme song to play. And rile you up it does.

After the climax, Archangel and his hot assistant Mirella act like little kids when they learned Hawke and Santini saved the day. At the same time, a couple of cheesy Air Force pilots make some kind of wager on what kind of aircraft Airwolf is, only to be proven wrong when they assumed it was a stealth fighter jet. I guess they were going for some Knight Rider-esque humor here. It was lame, but I laughed anyway.

In customary Airwolf fashion, the ending of the show yet again takes place at Hawke’s lakefront mountain dream cabin/art gallery. The bitchy, whining younger Russian chick storms out of the dinner table, only to be followed by Hawke-complete with his trusty bald eagle loving cello. The dialog that follows is kind of musing, and went something like this:

Hawke: Boy my paradise lake is sure beautiful.

Bitchy Russian: No, it sucks ass, and so does your country. I want to go home even though I can’t because my dad would be blown to smithereens.

Hawke: Well, maybe if you weren’t such a stuck up selfish brat, you could learn to love America.

Bitchy Russian: No way. I’m way too self-absorbed to ever look past my needs and wants and somehow be considerate of others.

Hawke: Go eat some fast food, watch some tv and read American magazines. In the mean time, I’ll play the song from Russia that you’ve been singing your whole life.

Bitchy Russian: Wow, what are the odds you would know that song on your cello. Ok, I’m convinced. The audience has learned their lesson, and I’ll sing simultaneously with my uncle back in Russia, who is most certainly laying in the grass at night looking up at the stars singing along.

What a fantastic episode. Time to grab some Mountain Dew, and onward to One Way Express.