Where else did Hutch put his hand?

I was watching Shootout the other day — December 17th to be precise, the episode’s 45th anniversary. I really wanted to post an episode review, but that’s gonna take me a while to write, as there’s soooo much to analyze and discuss in that ep.

But I started thinkin’ about the lovely scene where Hutch finds Starsky on the floor after he rolled off the sofa in the back office, and Starsky is lying in Hutch’s lap.

Despite Hutch telling Starsky earlier that he’d been shot in the shoulder, we know he was actually shot somewhere in the back and it seems that Hutch suspects that Starsky is losing feeling in his arm and torso due to nerve damage from the bullet. I’ll go into that in more detail in the episode review.

Anyway, when they’re on the floor of the office, Hutch keeps asking Starsky if his arm is okay and feels his arm and stomach. It looks like Hutch is squeezing or pressing down hard to try to get a reaction from Starsky, based on the fact that Hutch is grimacing as he does it, but after getting no reaction, and Starsky’s left arm repeatedly flopping onto the floor, Hutch worriedly tells Theresa that Starsky can’t feel a thing.

So anyway, back to the touching part. First, Hutch sticks his hand up Starsky’s sleeve and squeezes his arm in several places, and then he moves his hand tantalizingly over Starsky’s stomach.

Now maybe it’s just me, but if I really wanna know if my buddy has lost all feeling, I’d know just the place to touch. Do you suppose Hutch tried that?