DOG: The Family Speaks Special A&E Episode

DOG: The Family Speaks

A&E

September 19, 2006 (that's tonight)

Airtime 10 pm/9 central

Has the world gone mad?

When I was casually channel surfing, you know, in my regular impatient, eye-rolling way, I caught a glimpse of long thinning blonde hair with feathers sticking out of it, old muscles, sunglasses and a black leather vest. Well, we know exactly what that is, right? Dog, the Bounty Hunter. Eager to see if it was a new show, and not a re-run, I paused the surf.

Imagine my surprise when it turns out that this was not an episode of Dog’s regular show at all, but a preview for a special episode, entitled, “DOG: The Family Speaks”. Okaaay…the family speaks all the time, any regular viewer knows that. They speak about family, and drugs (how veddy, veddy bad they are) and the healing powers of Jesus Christ even as they say, “Now oh Lord, help us catch this F*cking bad guy, amen.” They speak about how all of their lives have gone from absolute shite to the beauty of Hawaiian living. All of this whilst stroking canisters of mace, flexing tattooed arms and chain-smoking cigarettes. Beth bounces across the screen with her enormous shelf of a bosom heaving in indignation occasionally, snarking off to everyone in sight, or, if the other side of her coin was tossed that day, stopping to give a barefoot convict her shoes and a pep talk on the meaning of existence. The family- including assorted peoples who have no relation to the Chapmans, but still call him brother, her sister, Leland cousin, you know… The Family… speaks quite a lot, actually. We know this. So what on earth were they “speaking about” for a special show?

After some fast internetty searching, I found my astonishing answer. Dog, and the posse, including adorably elf-like Leland, have been arrested. You’ll excuse me if I say… as I do in any baffling situation…. what, what, WHAT?

Ok, so a fast break down for those of you as flabbergasted as I am. Wait a minute and you’ll understand why the big daddy and crew have been locked up and are currently awaiting extradition to Mexico for trial. Here it is…. And hold your breath, ‘cause it’s a doozy….Mr. Duane Chapman apparently tracked down a convicted serial rapist in Mexico and had the nerve to arrest him in 2003.

I know, can you believe it? That is just so NOT something Dog would ever do! (This is sarcasm, for those of you not yet familiar with my particular brand of writing.)

Of course this is something Dog would do. I’m fairly certain that he’s “guilty” of this-whatever guilty means in this whole ball of ridiculousness. He always gets his man, right? And imagining him after a guy who brutalizes women…well, yeah, I can definitely see that he committed this crime. Went into a foreign country after the convicted RAPIST. Ignoring the fact that Mexico, enlightened country that they are, doesn’t allow bounty hunting, even when it’s to get convicted RAPISTS. Nabbing the RAPIST (currently in the good old USA again, thanks to Dog and pack, serving 124 years of prison time, as opposed to sunbathing on some Mexican beach somewhere, drinking a beer and plotting his next big “date”) and taking him home to be locked away. Apparently, Mexico is delighted to have resident rapists, and if you dare take one away from them, well, they'll get even!

In three years or so.

That'll teach bounty hunters everywhere. You leave those rapists in Mexico where they belong and are (apparently) wanted!

So do I think Duane did what they say he did? Yep, all of the above sounds just like him. That's not really my question.

The question is, why is this something that our own US marshals would do- leaping upon Dog, Tim, and Leland in the early hours of the morning and arresting them at the bequest of the Mexican government three years after the fact? Why has Dog all of a sudden become this big, bad fugitive that they are determined to get? Rumors of trade-offs surface. Angry citizens protest (or plan to make money off this) . Petitions are being signed.

Of course, this is American, land of the free, home of the people who said OJ is not guilty, but that Dog should be behind bars.

I will update after the show tonight.

... I was so tired I couldn't update this until this morning... unfortunately when it said 9 central, what they actually meant was 10 central, at least according to my television programming. So I sat up until eleven (you do the math) to watch this show.

It was much as I expected it to be. Lots of shots of Dog and the boys taking down ice heads, close ups of Beth's quivering lips as she described the agony of seeing her husband in chains. Leland looked and sounded nervous, he said "I don't know," a lot. Tim "Youngblood" wore the other face of being arrested....shame, shame, shame. Apparently no one told Tim that if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't need to waste any time on that particular emotion. Dog, in his customary woofier than thou manner, said he thinks he whole thing is a "big mistake" due to a rumor started on the internet about them bringing the fugitive (RAPIST, remember, who drugged and did violent horrible things to beautiful young women, one of whom was featured on the show and has started a legal defense fund for the Chapmans.) back to the US, naked and chained in the trunk. I guess that's what thy call being an optimist. Dog also calmly said that his life would be over if he was sentenced to prison, and he hoped that if it happened, he died peacefully… I suppose as opposed to dying in a gut-clenching agony of pain and gore. Yes, Dog is a bit of a drama queen, but still…. I don't think the Mexican government is out to get these guys based on a google gag. And, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Dog’s tactics, the trunk idea is prolly not true, although he does indeed hate women-hurters, he’s also humane to the lowliest. The question really does seem to be, why IS the Mexican government out to get these guys? No answer yet.

There was a lot of talk about the seven days the trio spent in prison already, a Mexican prison, and you could just see the people on the show struggling to maintain their P.C.ness while getting across to the viewing audience that this is a bad, bad place to be. They didn’t actually say the words “dark ages”, “prehistoric”, or “monstrous” but they were floating around for sure. Apparently the dog pack were already arrested and detained, back when they first went and got the guy (RAPIST) and following some mixed-message legal advice (another idea carefully tiptoed around in the attempt to not malign the Mexican justice system and/or sound like we might possibly have a better one here) they returned to the US, sure that the incident would never be brought up again. If it was, it certainly was not expected to be brought up in the form of US Marshals bursting in on their sleep, their government attempting to extradite them.

In watching the show, there weren’t any new bombshells, short of getting to see one of that crazy kid’s (THE RAPIST’S) victims cry all over herself about the violent degrading things he had done to her and how she could sleep once Duane had put the guy behind bars. Never mind that, now. Dog broke the law by putting the chump behind bars. Except there’s a whole lotta people who figure since he was just a US citizen who went into a foreign country and got another US citizen and brought him back, and since bounty hunting is not illegal in our country…well, those whole lotta people think that this whole thing is Bullsheet with a big set of horns on it.

As cynical as I pretend to myself to be, I have to admit the word that kept running through my head while watching this was “travesty”. There were other words too, but most of them involved swearies and I promised my mommy I’d tried to keep my language clean.

I guess I'll just sit back and watch the legal dance unfold, but I have to say on this one, I'm rooting for the canine crusader.