Watcher Texas Ranger

Chuck Norris is reading a book by Chuck Norris while two rival crews of bad guys try to jack the same truck, and the Texas Rangers decide the best solution is to call Russia for backup. A mild-mannered Russian cop shows up obsessed with Dirty Harry, the body count starts low and stays weird, and somehow it all leads to a strip club that looks like a Northwoods pizza joint, a country bar drinking contest that should never have been attempted, and one of the most ridiculous undercover plans this show has ever tried.

We went in expecting something funny. We came out with strong opinions about pigeons, pop-up books, and whether you can really out-drink a Russian. Season 4 is almost in the books—only two episodes left after this one. Roll on, little rangers.

Walker, Trivette, CD, and Alex head to Sawtooth Lodge for a quiet fishing weekend on a lake big enough to argue about. Drug dealers land a seaplane full of clear totes, Bobby the brand-new park ranger decides one bolt-action rifle is plenty, and Alex ends up in a Bronco trying to get a wounded man back to the cabin. Power gets cut, the phone line gets shot, and the bad guys try to burn the place down with a plan that has too many moving parts. Then Walker decides they are the spiders, the dealers are the flies, and the lodge turns into a half-baked Home Alone. Hank the Korea vet still will not touch a gun, Jimmy still believes in snipes, and the Bronco does not survive the woodpile.

Deadline is the one where the Texas legislature floats disbanding the Rangers to save a few bucks, right as Robert Englund (yes, Freddy) and his crew gas a jewelry store, scoop diamonds out of a pile of broken glass, and then decide kidnapping a senator’s daughter is easier money. Walker skips the hearing, drives around until he finds the crime, and the rest of the hour is heel shots, a mugshot program with about four noses, FBI guys getting iced out, a parole officer who stole his own file cabinets, and Chuck doing forest-spirit math on a patch of dirt under some pallets.

CD is celebrating the 155th birthday of the Rangers. It is the 173rd. He is also wearing a badge he retired from. Alex is in court defending the thing she has never really practiced. The bad guys bury a steel box, forget where they put it, and still want $10 million in negotiable bonds without saying where to drop them. Standard Walker police work, one decent van chase, and a fight that is less a fight than a paid-for meal.

Four episodes left in season four after this. Next week is The Siege, which is another fishing trip that immediately goes sideways.

Walker wakes up in a tux, bleeding, and has no idea what episode he’s in.

Season 4, Episode 21 — Blackout — is the clip-show / amnesia / undercover / New Year’s Eve episode that forgot it was April. Walker can’t remember his name, his cover, or why a helicopter is trying to turn a Cuda into confetti, so the show just replays old fights, old kisses, and that one time he juggled a man with his feet.

We talk recycled footage, tables that refuse to break, the world’s worst arm bandage, a loft that is somehow both empty and a Faraday cage, and why Chuck’s flashbacks include scenes he was unconscious for. Also: sold-out CD’s with one customer, a skid-gunman who might be a mannequin, and the most confusing “who even is the bad guy” hour of the season.

Watcher Texas Ranger. We watch Walker. You watch us suffer.

Jimmy Trivette finally gets the spotlight — and a tabloid TV crew that treats a stakeout like a hostage situation. Walker gets the mayor’s nephew and, as usual, crime just walks up to the truck. Eddie Paradise is on the Most Wanted list. The reporter wants “real journalism.” The camera lady is the actual MVP. Cowboy Jack’s makes a cameo. There’s a Trans Am, reused helicopter footage, a dirt bike that eats it, a river that might be a canal, and a boat chase where nobody unties the rope.

This is Walker, Texas Ranger leaning into its own joke: one Ranger sits in a van for seven hours, the other one trips over a fugitive on a dirt bike. James, Clint, and Ryan riff the whole thing — sneaky schnitzel assignments, Go Long Jimmy, the world’s worst interview, Alex’s pep talk, and the moment Jimmy actually gets to throw the punch.

Walker, Texas Ranger – The Avenger (Season 4, Episode 19)

Walker teams with the FBI to bust an arms dealer. The guy in charge dies mid-hostage situation and uses his last breath to name-check a brother. That brother is Caleb Hooks (Michael Parks), a Vietnam-era mercenary trainer who takes the news about as well as you’d expect: he flies a newspaper in by helicopter, steals Walker out of his own living room, and puts him through a homemade trial-by-combat gauntlet.

James, Clint, and Ryan go scene-by-scene through the empty gun case “arms deal,” the FBI agent who folds like a lawn chair, Chuck reading a book by the fire like a normal person, the spinning bamboo cage, fights in the dark, on spikes, with katanas, with flaming sticks over an electric floor, and finally an Old West street that comes with its own production-assistant tumbleweed.

Is this the most Walker episode Walker has ever Walker’d? We rate it in Texas Ranger stars, name Extra of the Week, and tell you if it’s worth your time even if you’ve never watched the show.

Next week: Behind the Badge.

Walker, Texas Ranger – El Coyote (two-parter as one)

Chuck Norris dyes his hair and beard black, slaps on a handkerchief, and goes undercover as Gomez from Guadalajara to bust a slave-trading ring. Jesse Rodriguez is back. Jimmy Trivett walks into a hotel room like he owns the place. And Walker lasts about five minutes before he starts trying to blow his own cover.

This is the most undercover Walker has ever looked… and the least convincing. Black bangs. No Spanish. Blue eyes explained by “lots of Germans settled there.” Clifton Collins Jr. is young and hungry in the crowd. The recruiter is selling luxury resorts and the governor’s mansion. The box truck has holes in the roof. Border Patrol looks at three abandoned vehicles and decides the paperwork isn’t worth it.

We get the full two-parter in one sitting: the Home Depot recruitment pitch, the night crossing, Halifax Construction internment camp, the woman who collects ninja “toys,” a legitimately good fight, Jimmy’s peak swagger scene, and Walker flying out of trees and off roofs because patience is for other people.

It’s a grim premise that the show treats like a Tuesday. We talk about what works, what’s ridiculous, what should have been a full season instead of two episodes, and why Mexican Chuck might be the most Walker thing that has ever happened.

Next week: The Avenger

Alex’s battered-women support group heads to the lake for a peaceful getaway. The abusive husband they just put in jail finds out where they are. What could go wrong?

This week James, Clint, and Ryan Mueller (in the official Chuck shirt) tear through Walker, Texas Ranger Season 4’s “The Juggernaut.” We get a bar fight that starts because a guy said “howdy,” a trailer-park 911 call that never ends, a judge who is done with this case, Chuck’s karate kids with the greatest 90s haircuts in Texas, Jimmy teaching self-defense in a Michelin Man suit, CD being CD, and a 90s Bronco that becomes a 5,000-pound weapon.

Chuck spends most of the episode tracking instead of kicking. The ladies do not.

Come for the roundhouse drought. Stay for the campfire trauma stories, the mustard-related beating, the extra-of-the-week debate, and the moment the whole crew realizes this guy is a satellite-dish-level piece of trash.

Next week we lock in for the two-parter: Walker goes undercover as a Mexican peasant to bust a slave-trading ring. El Coyote is coming.

Hit play. The beard is watching. So are we.

LaRue is back, and he’s somehow even slimier than last time. Fresh off a technicality release that makes zero sense, the long-haired (wait, now Clooney-haired?) psycho shows up at Alex’s fancy dinner with a dead rat, starts stalking her like it’s a full-time job, and turns Walker’s ranch into a pure nightmare of lead pipes, scorpions, and “this is too easy” plot holes.

James, Clint, Bob, and Mattila dig into Season 4 Episode 15 — The Return of LaRue — the episode that somehow takes one of the show’s best villains and runs him straight into the dirt. Shawshank song theft, Dirty Harry beatdowns, missing 24-hour protection, a horse that knows knots, and enough bad writing to make you question the justice system and the writers’ room.

Classic Walker mayhem with extra side-eye. You know what to do.

Walker goes undercover in a maximum-security prison as “the Ice Man” (the world’s worst hitman with the most recognizable face in Texas) after a protected witness and a couple of Rangers get smoked. Trivette tags along as a brand-new prison guard, the sets look suspiciously like a parking structure and plywood, there’s a tornado, a chaplain who’s better at documenting crime than saving souls, and Chuck still manages to work in some chair-building and a solid body count.

Special guest Bob Hauser joins Clint and the crew for his first Walker episode as they track the body count, hand out Extra of the Week, rate the bad guys on the old TV scale, and decide how many Texas Ranger stars this one earns.