S03E01 - The Return

On the SEASON THREE premiere, Hooker is at a crossroads. His wife, Fran and the kids, have been mysteriously whisked away to Oregon. T.J. Divorcee is now fully established to live in a fringe area: The Safari Inn! Dreams haunt him in this motel which make us wonder, what would it be like if Hooker was transformed into some kind of Freddy Krueger-like creature? The dreams were of Johnny, his partner who was shot to death by a ONE HANDED MAN prior to the series start, and now Hooker must become his avenging angel. We get glimpses of the Hooker past wherein he's a narc detective that "wore fresh clothes and had white rolls." This is a big episode on the T.J. Mythos and re-establishes the show to focus on the new partners: TJ & Romano, Stacy & Corrigan