Swamp Molly

Synopsis:

This is a story about honor. Back in the fall of 1936, a woman named Swamp Molly helped Jesse Duke escape from the feds. Bo and Luke’s probation doesn’t matter to her, she wants them to do a job, since she’s trading in on the favor, which she’s done several times before. Boss and Rosco have been keeping an eye on her and want to catch her.

“The only time she comes around is when she wants something….nine times outta ten it’s Uncle Jesse…”

Luke comes up with a plan to make the shine run in broad day light with Bo and Daisy acting as insurance. Unfortunally since this is Hazzard, the plan doesn’t work. Rosco catches the boys at a barricade, after Bo blows up the first one. The Sheriff opens the truck and the boys find out they were lied to. Daisy bails them out of that situation. They hide the truck and go meet Molly at the rondevue point. Only to find she has an ace up her sleeve because she had Cousin Alice take Jesse crawdad fishing in the swamp.

 
Things look bad with the boys on the run and Jesse where they won’t be able to find him. They go get the truck and end up meeting Jesse who figured out what Alice was doing. Bo and Luke, along with Jesse, Daisy and Alice, head over to Black Holler, after the boys fill Uncle Jesse in on what the contents of the truck really are. With Enos watching them and Rosco with Boss coming their way, an attempt to blow the truck up with a dynamite arrow backfires….because Luke loaded the dud dynamite!


All is not lost though because Rosco drivin’ fast, bumps the truck into the ol’ drink that has quick sand at the bottom, which goes “all the way to China.” The evidence gone, the boys escape going away on firearm regulations for the rest of their natural born days.

“In all my days!…“

Commentary:

This was the first episode filmed in California and a darn good one, similar to the first five that were filmed in Georgia. The first season dealt a lot more with the Dukes moonshine heritage. Here we learn some of the old ridgerunner tricks or ‘works’ in getting rid of the law and revenuers… smoke bombs, barrels of oil rigged to create a spill, arrows and dynamite.

The Dukes have Cooter paint a truck for part of the plan. Enos tells his superior officer. “Honest Sheriff, all I seen coming this way was a little ol’ ice cream truck with naked babies painted on the side.” Rosco replies “Them ain’t naked babies…they’re cherubs…cherubs…Dipstick!”

The expressions on Bo, Luke and Rosco’s faces are priceless when the truck’s back door is opened to reveal the contents. Luke: “Oh Rosco…you gotta believe me…we had no idea…”
Rosco: “Would you hush? It wasn’t bad enough you run booze, but now your running guns to those pinko fascists.”

Rosco tells the FBI men he called them because of a hallucination (on Boss’s orders because he wanted to sell the guns Rosco confiscated). I’d bet the farm that if you close your eyes, you’d see exactly what he describes.

This is one episode that is a must see for all the classic moments between the Dukes, or Boss and Rosco, or Rosco and Enos. It has a lot of comedic moments yet just enough drama to make you pause for a few moments.

Highlights:

Nearly all the shots in the opening credits come from the first few episodes. This is the episode that contains the infamous scene in which Bo blows the outhouse up. (Thus the mix up of dud dynamite and real dynamite later in the episode when they try to blow the truck up.)

In one of the few references to popular culture of the late 1970’s (in this case, DISCO), Boss is seen trying to learn how to dance like John Travolta. Well…atleast he had the white suit part down.


One of Boss’s earliest comments on Rosco’s brain (or lack thereof) came with this episode: “Rosco, looks like you took a correspondent course in brains, and actually passed.”

Once again, we see Rosco in military fatigues and it wouldn’t be the last. Previously he wore them in High Octane. Again, he wears them here complete with military radios and code names for himself (Red Dog) and Enos (Blue Fox).

Trivia:

Mary Jo Catlett (Cousin Alice) was a housekeeper on the 80’s sitcom Different Strokes, just like Nelda Volz who became Hazzard’s beloved postmistress ‘Miz Emma Tisdale’

The Swamp Molly character was based on a woman that creator Gy Waldron met who lived in the Okefenokee Swamp.

Sharp eyed viewers will notice the red pick up truck would be seen again in the episode “Deputy Dukes.”

–synopsis by Tara (with info from The Dukes of Hazzard Unofficial Companion). Vidcaps by Hoss.

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