In this fun second episode of the popular 70s series, CHiPs, has motorcycle Highway Patrol officers, Ponch and Baker (Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox) trying to find and capture a notorious thief who uses a tow truck (he has a scanner which snoops on the police, arriving to derelict motorists whose vehicles have stranded them on the highway) as a way to secure the trust of innocents who believe he is there to tow their vehicles, in turn robbing them blind. Like the pilot previous to this episode, "Undertow" has the background plot of the tow truck thief, but features several plot threads such as Ponch suffering from the lingering effects of nitrous oxide (canisters of the chemical were spread along the highway after the tow truck driver caused another truck to crash), a basketball game between the CHiPs police officers and another team known as the Rams (the first game, absent Ponch who has been sent to the hospital to recover from the nitrous oxide, results in the Rams creaming the CHiPs team by 40 points!), and a gas station robber trying to evade Ponch and Baker, resulting in a serious car accident (after front-ending a tree which sends the robber flying out of his vehicle, Baker has a moment with the desperate young man who explains that it is because of prolonged unemployment which caused him to rob the gas station attendant in the store). The scene between Baker and the robber who believes he's possibly dying is a good scene for Larry Wilcox who shows that regardless of what the criminal might have done, he is treated with care until help arrives. The episode concludes with Ponch helping his team, this time around, win the big game. Very funny scene where Ponch, under the high of the nitrous oxide, is supposed to be checking guest-starring Richard Backus (Gilligan's Island) for inebriation while driving (Backus was not only driving too fast, but haphazardly, slurring his speech and obviously drunk), both stumbling over their words and behaving goofy, with Baker having to take control of the situation after helping a motorist who is lost and needing directions. Paul Brinegar(the bartender in "High Plains Drifter") has a nice cameo as an aging surfer, with a pet bird, driving too fast while trying to get to the beach, pulled over for speeding by Ponch and Baker. As normal during the series, there are a couple of nice chase scenes where Ponch and Baker are in pursuit of criminals on the run, with the busy highway used as a weapon against the highway patrol officers.
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