The Big Pill

Originally Aired: October 19, 1952

Dragnet #174, "The Big Pill," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Frank Smith are called in by Naval Intelligence when two young Marines are hospitalized under mysterious circumstances. PFC Edward Monahan and Jack Wayne Walker had just returned from a year serving in Korea and took a 48-hour pass to Los Angeles for one last celebration before Monahan's planned wedding. After the shore patrol picks them up from a cheap hotel where they've been causing a disturbance, doctors discover both men have been poisoned. Monahan dies, and Walker barely clings to life.

When Friday and Smith arrive at the naval hospital in Long Beach to interview the surviving Marine, Walker recounts a hazy nightmare of their time in LA. What started as an innocent bachelor party turned into a deadly trap. Walker remembers drinking at a bar, losing days at a time, and meeting someone called "Stubby" who he instinctively didn't trust. As the pieces of Walker's fragmented memory emerge, Friday and Smith must reconstruct the missing days and identify who poisoned these servicemen before the second victim succumbs to the same fate.

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