What Ralph Left Behind

The Thorsons get custody of an amiable, talkative young man wanted on a minor offense, but he soon involves them in more complicated and dangerous matters. Also, Dottie and Brandi try filming a television commercial.

Dottie and Brandi are tracking down Dupree Scaife, a specialist in stealing SUV's. Dottie goes to see Tiny in jail looking for leads. Tiny, resigned to his stay in jail, nevertheless maintains that he is innocent of the murder charge that placed him there. Dottie begins to look into leads in Tiny's case as well as Dupree's. Brandi discourages her, thinking that proving Tiny's innocence isn't their job. But she's also concerned about the growing affection she sees between her mother and the convict.

A dissatisfied Brandi leaves school and strikes out on her own with a different partner, looking for the same quarry as her mother.

To try to round up the maximum number of bail-jumpers with the minimum amount of effort, the Thorsons put out the word that they're having a party with food, beer and football on a big screen TV. They hope that about a half-dozen skips will show up, but when party time arrives the number attending is more like thirty. Dottie and Brandi have their hands full with their unsavory guests, nosy neighbors and curious cops, but their real problem is that one skip, a big, violent, dangerous one, realizes that he's in the house that used to belong to Papa Thorson.

It's a bit of a role reversal for the Thorson women. They travel to Baja to capture murder suspect Flaco Rosario, and surprisingly, the usually cynical and skeptical Brandi is swayed by the fugitive's story of his innocence. Brandi is torn between simply doing her job and helping to prove Flaco is not guilty. Meanwhile, Dottie has her first real date since before her marriage to Ralph. The guy is Adam, Tiny's tax attorney. When he shows up for the date, though, he's high on what he calls "cold medicine," then tries to get physical with Dottie in the car, causing her to get physical right back to defend against his unwanted advances.

On a routine pickup, Dottie is mysteriously abducted and Brandi enlists Tiny in her frantic search for her mother.

The Thorson women are after a big bounty on a skip named Chick, who used to be Tiny's cellmate. Tiny warns them that Chick is in fact a dangerous killer and asks for them to let him aid in the capture. The women agree, but they don't know that Tiny is out for revenge against Chick for the murder of an old friend.

The case of widowed Arlene Potts stirs the sympathies of Dottie and Brandi. Apparently she was an abused wife who killed her husband in self-defense. The Thorsons want to get her to stop running and hopefully receive justice. But the bounty hunters find out that Arlene had two previous husbands who died suspicious deaths, plus they have their doubts about the brother of the widow also.

A former bail jumper calls Dottie with the news that there's a woman in Las Vegas who is claiming to be the legal wife of Ralph Thorson, married to him at the same time Dottie was. When the Thorsons travel to Las Vegas to confront the woman, she is adamant in her claims and sounds like she has a credible story. Dottie, Though she doesn't believe her, Dottie is still forced to consider that Ralph may have led a double life. But before she can speak to the second Mrs. Thorson again, the woman turns up dead and Dottie is charged with her murder.

Charged with the murder of a woman who claimed she was the real Mrs. Ralph Thorson, Dottie has to hide from the law in Las Vegas while investigating her husband's past in an effort to prove her innocence. Her investigations implicate other powerful people in Las Vegas in criminal activity.

CAPSULE: The Thorsons try to bring in an out-of-control computer genius whose new software is worth millions. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Brandi is upset with Mark Farrell. He's going to a new job in Quantico, VA and she thinks he got it mainly on the strength of a bust she and her mother made. On top of that he expects her to be happy for him. Dottie is told that their bookkeeping is in a hopeless mess and that as holder of Tiny's liquor license, she responsible for the taxes he hasn't got around to paying. Ricky gives the Thorsons a pickup for Barnaby Weese (DUI, leaving scene of an accident). His bail was put up by one Lorna Smith in the form of an expensive watch. It turns out that Weese is actually Barry Weiland, a computer software genius. At his company, Dottie and Brandi talk to operating officer Chris Malone, who tells them Weiland has created software that will block the creation of MP3 files and it will be worth a fortune when it goes on the market. Trouble is,

CAPSULE: Ricky's law-breaking cousin gets him involved in a stolen-car mystery which has potentially fatal results. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! The Thorson women bring Rudy Ramos to Ricky's office. He's a perennial skip, but Ricky bails him out because he's family, a cousin. Rudy's mother (and Ricky's aunt) Nelda arrives. She angrily accuses Ricky and his business of being the cause of Rudy's trouble and also disparages Dottie and Brandi for their profession. In lieu of $2000 he owes the women, Ricky gives them the use of Ricky's gold 1976 Cadillac convertible. A couple of bounty hunters show up at Tiny's bar to get beer for a camping weekend that is an annual event for men in the business. Brandi is insulted that they she and her mother aren't invited. Dottie is disappointed to hear that Tiny is going too. Back at the house, Rudy steals the Cadillac. It turns out the car was hot in the first place, stolen two weeks before. A very intimidating figure, Maurice Paxton, dr

CAPSULE: Dottie sponsors a parolee, Max Quinlan, who is an old prison friend of Tiny's. But some men on the outside have unfinished business to conclude with the former armored car robber. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Tiny accompanies Dottie back to prison to see Max Quinlin, who has requested a meeting. His lawyer tells them that Max, who's been in serving a long sentence for armored car robberies, has a chance to be paroled if he can be released to a responsible community member like Dottie. Although he was Tiny's good friend in prison, Tiny is now leery of Dottie taking such responsibility. But Max makes a good impression on the big-hearted Dottie and she agrees to do it. The more cynical Brandi is not thrilled with the prospect, however. A prisoner is seen calling up an unknown party with the news: Max is getting out. Mark Farrell shows up to meet Brandi. He's left his new position in Virginia after six weeks and as he tries to explain things to Brandi he tells her he

The Thorsons bring in dangerous psychopathic criminal Dana Weatherly, who they caught while wearing women's clothing during the attempted execution of a crime. Brandi makes a few snide remarks to him, which causes Dana to promise he will exact revenge against her. Later, the Thorsons' neighbors the Barretts, who hardly ever had a thing to say to the Thorsons in the past, now ask for Dottie and Brandi to help with their problems with their daughter Christy. She's an old friend of Brandi's from high school, but the two haven't had much to do with each other lately. Nowadays Christy has dropped all ties with her parents and has moved in with her suspicious character of a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Dana Weatherly has escaped from Ricky's custody.

CAPSULE: The Thorsons go after a celebrity author, Philip Carlton, the ""Heart Doctor,"" who has taken his own love therapy too far with some of his patients. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Ricky has a celebrity for the Thorsons to pick up--Dr. Philip Carlton, the ""Heart Doctor,"" who has written the best seller ""Men Are Cats, Women Are Dogs."" The doctor is accused of rape after tricking a patient into having sex with him. Ricky tells both women they could perhaps use his counseling. Brandi goes downtown to find out what she can about Carlton, though her mother thinks she just wants to see Farrell. Dottie and Brandi both go to see Carlton's wife Sharon, from whom he's separated. She's in a hospital mental ward and is confused and unresponsive. She mumbles a few words, but the Thorsons don't know what she's talking about. Watching a video Carlton made, Dottie realizes that Sharon was talking about the house in the video, which is located in Lake Tahoe. Brandi and Dottie travel t

CAPSULE: While searching alone and undercover for a drug dealer, Brandi is charged with the same crime herself. She skips bail, forcing Dottie to track her down before the police find her. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Brandi comes home after spending the night out at a rave, but Dottie thinks she's spent the night studying. Suddenly DEA agents burst into the house and arrest Brandi at gunpoint on the charge of drug-dealing. Downtown, Agent Forrest confronts Brandi and her attorney with 20 hits of ecstasy she had in her possession plus photos of her making the buy. Brandi tells the agent she was working on trying to find a skip. Forrest tells her that a girl named Georgia OD'ed at the rave and that Brandi could possibly be looking at murder charges. Ricky puts up the bail for Brandi. Dottie is upset with her daughter for not telling her about this case, but Brandi counters that the nature of her undercover work made it necessary to work alone. She bought the ecstasy from a

CAPSULE: The Thorson women go to work for the ""bail bondsman to the stars"" and go undercover as maids to catch a pyromaniac who is destroying a family's businesses. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! At Tiny's bar, Dottie finds out that he needs about $8,000 for repairs. She offers to loan him the money, which she'll get as a payment from Ricky. Tiny agrees only very reluctantly after persuasion from Dottie. A man sits beside Dottie and begins coming onto her very crudely. Tiny steps in and subdues the man, taking away a gun he is carrying. Det. Farrell comes on the scene. It turns out the man is a cop, Wes Lonigan, who Farrell is there to meet. Lonigan is ready to arrest Tiny but Farrell intervenes. Once again, the Thorsons have trouble getting payment from Ricky. Farrell suggests they go to Dante Cicollo, ""bail bondsman to the stars,"" who is looking for women to do a job. Dottie and Brandi are impressed with his offices and his expense account. He tells them of an undercover j

CAPSULE: Dottie and Brandi spend a less-than-idyllic time in the mountains searching for an embezzler who is also being pursued by a murderous mobster from Russia. After a fight, Tiny is arrested and charged with murder. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Brandi and Dottie wait outside a building for embezzler Teddy Irwin to come outside so they can apprehend him. Inside, Teddy is surprised by an ominous Russian man demanding money. Suddenly Irwin comes falling off the building's roof, landing on a parked car. Det. Farrell questions the Thorsons why this criminal facing a relatively minor charge would kill himself; they have no answers. Ricky refuses to pay commission for a dead body but says he will pay for his partner, Irwin's brother Bill, also an accountant involved in the same embezzlement. The Thorsons get a lead that Bill Irwin might be in a cabin in a remote area of the San Bernadino Mountains. At Tiny's bar, he sees Jason in an unpleasant conversation with Arno and D.Q.

CAPSULE: Brandi is forced to shoot a skip who she believes is going for a gun. But later the gun can't be located, and Dottie's and Brandi's bounty hunting licenses are suspended. Tiny pushes himself further away from Dottie. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Brandi and Dottie are in foot pursuit of con artist Edmund Riley on the Santa Monica Pier. He's cornered against the railing overlooking the ocean. He pulls out what looks like a gun and Brandi quickly responds by shooting him. He falls over into the ocean. When the police arrive, one of them is Jack Forbes, a detective from Las Vegas who pursued Dottie earlier in the ""two Mrs. Thorsons"" mystery. They're in no trouble, but Forbes notes that no one else saw a gun but Brandi. Dottie was distracted and didn't see it either, but believes her daughter. So far there is no body recovered or gun, either. Dottie goes to see Tiny in jail with the idea of delving into the background of the young man he's accused of murdering in order

CAPSULE: The Thorsons take on a job as bodyguards for a famous female singer who has been receiving threats. Lonigan continues his frame-up of the jailed Tiny. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! With no promising work forthcoming from Ricky, Mike Kaputo offers the Thorson women a chance to be bodyguards for Lisa Lee, a fast-rising young singer. Dottie thinks it is be a good idea and would give them a change of pace. At a video shoot, Lisa's manager Marvin tells the women that her number had gotten out on the internet and that she'd received some threatening phone calls. When Dottie and Brandy meet their new client she acts like a total prima donna and says she wants Mike for her bodyguard, not these women. While in her dressing room trailer, Lisa receives a threatening call from someone there on the soundstage. The Thorsons find no suspect but do find a poster of Lisa slashed by a knife which is still stuck in it. Lisa wants Mike back as bodyguard more than ever, but Mike wants

CAPSULE: Dottie and Brandy work to solve the mystery behind the arrest and murder charge against Tiny. When Lonigan gets wind of their efforts, he sets up Tiny to be killed in prison. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Ricky calls early one morning with a tip about a skip. When Dottie goes to wake her mother, she's not in bed but there's evidence a man has been there. Dottie enters the room with Mike Kaputo, though she later insists to Brandi that nothing happened between her and Mike. At Ricky's office Brandi tries to convince Dottie to look further into Tiny's case because there is something suspicious about it. Det. Forbes calls. When they see him, he says the lack of a name of whoever made the original call in Tiny's case was a ""clerical error,"" a claim Brandi is highly skeptical of. Lonigan notes the Thorsons asking about details in Tiny's case. At the bar, Dottie examines the books and finds that all business is in order and a nice profit is being made. This convinces her

CAPSULE: Ricky has no place to keep Bruce, a huge wrestler the Thorsons have brought in. He ends up at their home, where he helps Tiny nurse an ill Dottie. Brandi pursues a skip with a few tricks up his sleeve--he's a magician. She also decides how she will answer Mark's proposal. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! At a wrestling match, Brandy subdues a huge wrestler name Bruce Beauregard. When they bring him to Ricky for the bounty, he has no place to keep him. He shows Dottie and Brandi a security tape of a magician named Danny Blaze who has been stealing valuable magic memorabilia. There is a major bounty out on Blaze. The Thorsons are forced to take Bruce home with them. The next morning Brandi wakes to find Bruce still there and her mother nursing a bad cold. Tiny comes by to stay with Dottie. He, like Ricky and everyone else, is asking Brandi how she will respond to Mark Farrell's marriage proposal. Even Bruce is curious. He proves to be a real homebody, watching soap oper

CAPSULE: While Brandi takes anger management classes, Dottie goes after an elusive skip who abandons his 10-year-old daughter Melissa. Dottie takes the girl in temporarily, but then Melissa's long-lost mother shows up. Perhaps, though, this odd family unit is not what it seems. Spoiler Alert! Key plot details revealed! Dottie asks Ricky for a job that she can handle alone, since an incident with Brandi and a parking meter has landed the younger Thorson in anger management classes. Ricky sends Dottie after a burglary suspect, Marty Bates, who is a confirmed gambler with a known liking for redheads. Dottie traces him to a motel, where she confronts and handcuffs him, but just as she's about to take Bates away, his 10-year-old daughter Melissa appears. While going to the bathroom, Bates slips out the window, leaving Dottie with his daughter. She takes Melissa to social services, but not liking what she sees there, Dottie takes the girl home with her for temporary safekeeping. At her clas

CAPSULE: Dottie and Brandi team up with a self-styled crime-fighting superhero who calls himself ""The Blue Jaguar"" in order to catch a skip that even Ralph failed to bring in seven years before. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Dottie and Brandi bust a con man who was posing as a minister and had just performed a fake marriage. While at Ricky's he tells them about a skip who has been on the loose for seven years, who even Ralph couldn't catch when he was alive. The man, Ben Ainsley, perpetrated a real estate fraud that cost a lot of people, including Ricky, a lot of money. Ricky can't even tell the women what the payoff will be for them. Brandi thinks they should leave it alone, but Dottie, always soft-hearted, insists they take the job. They go to see Jack Forbes who, as usual, is annoyed by them but provides help. The Thorsons visit one of Ainsley's convicted ex-partners, Tom Lindquist, who claims he was a fall guy in the transaction and doesn't have any idea where Ainsley i

CAPSULE: The Thorsons are facing a bill for years of unpaid property taxes, so they employ a burglar to crack Ralph's safe. They find no money, but they do find clues to a 1989 kidnapping case, which, if solved, could lead to a fortune. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Dottie and Brandi catch cat burglar Harry in the act, but they have a proposition for him. They'll forget about the present crime if he will open Ralph's safe for them. It seems the government is claiming they owe $120,000 in unpaid property taxes and Dottie is sure there is some documentation to prove otherwise. At the opening of the safe, Ricky has brought along newswoman Maria Sandoval to cover the story, saying he wants to give the Thorsons some publicity. However, it appears his main motive is to date her. Dottie and Brandi find little of use in the safe, but they do find a lot of recorded notes Ralph made. Some concern the famous McDonald kidnapping case twelve years earlier, in which the unknown perpetrat

CAPSULE: Dottie and Brandi continue their quest to find $3 million in missing ransom money. Ruthless bounty hunter Rango Burke is determined to beat them to it, and unethical reporter Maria Sandoval keeps sticking her nose in. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! After a recap of Part 1, Brandi continues to try to convince her mother to give up the search after the latest literal dead end. Local police confirm that Hatfield died as a pedestrian in a multi-car pileup years before. Tiny comes to Arizona to bail out Ricky, then handcuffs him to the door of his car! (A joke, apparently.) On the road still searching, Rango Burke dumps Maria and her cameraman after she broadcasts a live update giving his location and intentions. Once again the Thorsons travel to El Monte to talk to the insurance investigator Edward Conklin. Dottie tries to convince him to tell them what he told Rango, not only for their sake, but so he can help them right his own ruined reputation and career. Conklin se

CAPSULE: A high-tech bounty hunting corporation moves into the Los Angeles market and their vast resources threaten to turn the ""old-timers"" like Dottie and Brandi into dinosaurs. SPOILER ALERT! Key plot details revealed! Dottie and Brandi have a skip staked out, but just as they are moving in for the collar several cars come screeching on the scene disgorging men in black suits and a camera crew. The men efficiently take the fugitive into custody and tell Dottie and Brandi that they are from Krill & Associates, a professional bounty hunting corporation. The Thorsons go to Ricky who explains to them that Krill is a corporation who takes over ailing businesses and are now looking to corner the L.A. bail enforcement market with their new high-tech approach. As a favor, Ricky gives the women a lead on Don Alonzini, a well-known psychic who has skipped bail on his partner Sidney Julius, leaving him in danger of losing a $500,000 house. Dottie and Brandi check out some high-tech equipment f