A rare episode for American television in the mid-80s that dared to show that maybe Americans and Soviet-era Russians weren’t that different after all. How the episode ever got a green light from CBS is a miracle. Had this been the 1950s all concerned with the episode would have had to flee the country.
I wanted to emphasise the dark, Cold War paranoia of the episode without actually showing any dead bodies or graphic images (an episode rated in the UK as Certificate 12 at the time) and these paintings are designed to be displayed for anyone to enjoy so I made sure that there were no elements in any of the paintings that would upset anyone.
The image of Hawke and Caitlin coming down the stairs in the Hazmat suits was perfect for my needs as it looked sinister and foreboding at the same time and totally captured the paranoia inherent in the episode without having to resort to any graphic images.
Note Airwolf hovering. This is a nod to the sequence in which Airwolf overtakes the Russian jeeps, blows up the bridge, then nods at them. The only time Airwolf ever does this in the 2nd Season. The only visual casualty of this painting being Dr Morton since I felt the Russians were more central to the story. Morton came across as secondary to the main plot which was about the side effects of the chemical weapon cure.
I also left out any reference to the submarine as I felt it would have overcrowded the painting and made it more difficult to make Airwolf central to the painting.