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The Worst Episodes of The Untouchables

Every episode of The Untouchables ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of The Untouchables!

Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptible agents battle organized crime in 1930s Chicago.
Genres:DramaCrime
Network:ABC

Worst Episodes Summary

"The Jazz Man" is the worst rated episode of "The Untouchables". It scored 6.7/10 based on 42 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 4/30/1963. This episode scored 0.1 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Come and Kill Me".

  • The Jazz Man
    6.7/1042 votes
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    #1 - The Jazz Man

    Season 4 Episode 27 - Aired 4/30/1963

    During the blistering summer of 1931, Ness and his men are working tirelessly against both the illicit whiskey and the narcotics that are flooding the city. One morning, a despondent Capt. Jim Johnson visits Ness in his office; Capt. Johnson had been on a raid that netted 50 dope addicts-- one of them was his son Buz. Ness talks to Buz behind bars.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Come and Kill Me
    6.8/1047 votes
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    #2 - Come and Kill Me

    Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 11/27/1962

    July 4, 1930.  40,000 horse racing fans fill Arlington Park.  Ness and his men have Arnold ""Spats"" Vincent under surveillance; they will close in on him as soon as he gets a piece of paper: a list with the names of officials in high places who are ready to do business with the crime cartel.  2 hoods (one tall, one short), apparently associates of Spats, approach him.  The tall hood sits next to him and whispers something to him; then he stabs Spats. 

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Mexican Stake-Out
    7.1/10114 votes
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    #3 - Mexican Stake-Out

    Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 11/26/1959

    Eliot Ness is lured south of the border to retrieve a witness who will help his case. Only it's a set-up...once there, the mobster on trial is planning to have Ness killed.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Cooker in the Sky
    7.1/1055 votes
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    #4 - The Cooker in the Sky

    Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 10/2/1962

    Joe Lassiter is the greatest inside man in the bootlegging racket. He and his sidekick, Nick Karabinos, have just arrived in Chicago by train; Lassiter traveled 1,000 miles because of a 250 grand deal: build a Ness-proof brewery. At the closed Bell Club (which Ness took apart last week), Lassiter meets with bootleg czar Louis Tully and his associates.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Junk Man
    7.1/1051 votes
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    #5 - Junk Man

    Season 4 Episode 20 - Aired 1/26/1963

    Chicago, 1931. On the Southside, on a dead end street, there is a junkyard-- but it's really a front for a narcotics empire, run by gangster Victor Salazar. Ness and his men are on the case; they keep intercepting his trucks, carrying shipments of narcotics. Barney Howe tells his boss Salazar that his problem is the operation's too spread out; but one big shipment will give him the Northside, too-- Barney says he will ""put Chicago in his pocket."" Late at night, they get a call from a hood named Kierson who has info in his briefcase: the time and route of a $2-million commercial shipment of morphine crystals to a medical research center; he's to meet them at the corner of Mohawk and 23rd in 10 minutes.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Butcher's Boy
    7.1/1048 votes
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    #6 - The Butcher's Boy

    Season 4 Episode 22 - Aired 3/12/1963

    Racketeer Gus Ducek is fingered to be knocked off. But when the car with the hitmen drives towards him, Ducek's boys fire back with machine guns, turning the tables; one hitman dies, Boley Davis escapes. Watching the botched rubout attempt are Lt. Philip Hedden and Sgt. Davey McCain. Eliot Ness and his men are out to pin the murder attempt on Hedden, since the hitmen were driving one of his cars.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Spoiler
    7.1/1053 votes
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    #7 - The Spoiler

    Season 4 Episode 23 - Aired 3/26/1963

    New Jersey waterfront, 1933. Johnny Mizo had been marked for death by the American crime cartel; he had fled to Brazil. Now, he has returned to America to get the $200,000 he had hastily stashed in a hideout before fleeing. The Captain tells Mizo he has exactly 11 days, and then the ship sails back to Rio de Janeiro, with or without him.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Giant Killer
    7.1/1044 votes
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    #8 - The Giant Killer

    Season 4 Episode 25 - Aired 4/9/1963

    April 28, 1932. Chicago. 3,500 fans are at the arena, watching the end of a 7-day bicycle race. But Ed ""Duke"" Monte is there to make a drop-off. Ness and Lee Hobson catch him, with a quarter of a million dollars in counterfeit bills in his leather bag. On May 25, Monte is sentenced to 10-15 years in the State Pen. That same day, at Monte's old headquarters (the Odeon Theatre which specializes in Burlesque), his former lieutenant, Lou Sultan, is having the guy he accuses of being the stoolie, Parrot Krebs, worked over by his thugs.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Ain't We Got Fun?
    7.2/10129 votes
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    #9 - Ain't We Got Fun?

    Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/12/1959

    Summer 1933, Chicago. The mobsters were branching out from liquor, going into the numbers racket, call girls, gambling and dope. One of the most successful gangsters is "Big" Jim Harrington; right now he and his gang are in back of Benny Hoff's Blue Poodle nightclub, and they smash a truckload of liquor.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Downfall
    7.2/1060 votes
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    #10 - Downfall

    Season 3 Episode 22 - Aired 5/3/1962

    Chicago. Pete ""The Persuader"" Kalmisky, former bodyguard of Al Capone, accompanied by Syndicate business manager Alan Sitkin, have a meeting with Joey December, president of the debt-ridden Great Lakes Pacific Railroad. They form a crooked alliance; Joey agrees to transport their illegal liquor on his trains, in exchange for ""20% off the top."" After Kalmisky leaves, Sitkin talks privately with Joey. Sitkin gives Joey $100,000 for 10,000 shares of Canada Central stock, now worth $10 a share;

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Ginnie Littlesmith Story
    7.2/1066 votes
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    #11 - The Ginnie Littlesmith Story

    Season 3 Episode 24 - Aired 5/17/1962

    May 17, 1932. There are many free soup kitchens in Chicago, but one of them in the skid row section is really a front; upstairs, gangster Chiz Gosher, twice convicted of white slavery, has his office. His partners in crime are the powerful, nationwide vice ring known as The Group, represented by hood Vic Cassandros. Chiz's niece is Ginnie Littlesmith, who runs the soup kitchen, and she is not involved in the rackets. Downstairs, Enrico Rossi is working undercover-- he's dressed in dirty old clothes, and phones Ness; Eliot tells him the raid is set for 12:45.* But Vic is soon tipped of Ness' impending raid; Vic goes upstairs and demands the ledger books from Gosher.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Jake Dance
    7.2/1051 votes
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    #12 - Jake Dance

    Season 4 Episode 16 - Aired 1/22/1963

    Late Summer 1930. It started in Wichita, Kansas: a staggering gait called the Jake Dance. (we see a man staggering along using a cane in each hand.) There are many different kinds of alcohol, but the only kind that is safe to drink is ethyl alcohol; many people had been drinking Ginger Jake, which is contaminated with methyl alcohol, also called ""wood alcky."" And people who drank a lot of it often suffered permanent loss of muscle coordination, and developed a staggering gait called the Jake Dance. Many died.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Vincent Mad Dog Coll Story
    7.3/10125 votes
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    #13 - The Vincent Mad Dog Coll Story

    Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/19/1959

    February 1931. In Churchill Downs, the entries for the Kentucky Derby are closed. Tight-fisted Dutch Schultz, beer baron of the Bronx, places a bet with the Syndicate: 100-grand in the Winter-book on Enchantment to win the Kentucky Derby. Trying to get the most for his money, Dutch knows he will get much better odds now than if he waits until race day.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Floyd Gibbons Story
    7.3/1054 votes
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    #14 - The Floyd Gibbons Story

    Season 4 Episode 11 - Aired 12/11/1962

    Chicago, October 1932. Within minutes of the time the Globe's top reporter Carlton Edmunds was shot, Eliot Ness and his men are on the scene. Ostensibly it appears a stray bullet in a gunfight hit Edmunds; he was just a passerby in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Blues for a Gone Goose
    7.3/1053 votes
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    #15 - Blues for a Gone Goose

    Season 4 Episode 17 - Aired 1/29/1963

    Jazz was born in the Roaring Twenties. It's now 1930, and on Chicago's Gold Coast there's a nightspot called ""Goose Gander's Golden Egg"" jazz club. Blues player Eddie Moon is blowing his hot cornet with the jazz band. But then mobster Lucky talks to Ray ""Goose"" Gander; Lucky wants him to carry Lou Cagan's hooch in his joint. Ray refuses, the strongest drink he serves in his place is coffee. Then Lucky's hitman plays some music of his own-- with his tommy gun; he shoots up the joint.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Line of Fire
    7.3/1048 votes
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    #16 - Line of Fire

    Season 4 Episode 29 - Aired 5/14/1963

    Chicago, January 1933. Danceland has a big sign, ""30 girls, open until 2 a.m."" Inside, customers mingle with the dime-a-dance girls. Hoofer Ellie Haskell says goodnight to the owner, Marty Pulaski; outside, she is immediately shot by a sniper on the roof of a building across the street-- the sniper is Herbie Pulaski, Marty's mentally disturbed brother. Lt. Roy Gunther is on the case, he questions Marty, who has 20% of the dancing racket. However, Marty is sure his main competitor, Vince Bogan who owns 80% of the dance racket, is responsible for the killing.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Nero Rankin Story
    7.4/1083 votes
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    #17 - The Nero Rankin Story

    Season 2 Episode 28 - Aired 5/11/1961

    September 16, 1933. Although Eliot Ness had successfully destroyed The Underground Court (episode # 46), he had not smashed its parent organization, the big Syndicate, in control of over 50% of the nation's crime. With the death of Judge Foley, who was the chairman of the Syndicate, 5 top-ranking members are now assembling at a roadhouse on the outskirts of Chicago-- to vote on whether or not to appoint Nero Rankin as the new chairman; Nero had been designated by Foley to be his successor, in the event of his death.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Night They Shot Santa Claus
    7.4/1074 votes
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    #18 - The Night They Shot Santa Claus

    Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 9/25/1962

    December 24, 1930. That evening, small-time mug Hap Levinson is playing Santa Claus at the Sackman Orphan Home. Santa brings toys and ice cream to all the waifs. He walks outside, waves good-bye, and is promptly machine-gunned to death by hoods in a speeding car. Quite a shock for all the kiddies. Killing Santa is not a federal crime, but Eliot Ness investigates. Hap was a friend of Ness' for 10 years; they had sort of a truce. If Ness was on official business, they were on opposite sides of the law; unofficially, they were pals.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Eddie O'Gara Story
    7.4/1053 votes
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    #19 - The Eddie O'Gara Story

    Season 4 Episode 7 - Aired 11/13/1962

    Chicago. Right after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. (February 14, 1929.) Ness and his men are scouring Chicago, looking for Bugs Moran.  Ness says there used to be 2 gangs in town, now there's just one.  Ness figures if they get to Moran first, maybe he'll talk-- he might just be mad enough to give them the information they need.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Jake Lingle Killing
    7.5/10140 votes
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    #20 - The Jake Lingle Killing

    Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/29/1959

    Gangs have divided Chicago in 2-- the northside is run by the Bertshce mob, the southside by the Viale brothers, Augie & Vito. The line of demarcation being Madison Street. At the news office, Jake Lingle phones in a story to the front desk: gang war has erupted on the near northside, 2 hoods with machine guns smashed the liquor supply at Bertsche's Club Chapeau, in retaliation for Bertsche's mob raiding a Viale warehouse.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The George Bugs Moran Story
    7.5/10130 votes
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    #21 - The George Bugs Moran Story

    Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 11/5/1959

    March 2, 1932. Gangster Joe Carroll, sidekick of George "Bugs" Moran, kidnaps 9-year-old Larry Halloran, Jr.-- the son of Lawrence Halloran, president of the United Trucker's Union. It just so happens that at this very moment, Ness and his Untouchables are trying to nail Bugs Moran-- who is now the top criminal in Chicago, since Capone is in prison. Ness leaves Agent Martin Flaherty in charge; Ness has to fly to Washington, DC, since the brass wants him to give Congress the whole story about the Capone operation.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • 90-Proof Dame
    7.5/1080 votes
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    #22 - 90-Proof Dame

    Season 2 Episode 32 - Aired 6/8/1961

    Chicago, April 1932. The city is ruled by underworld czars, one of the toughest of which is Nate Kester, former henchman for the Capone mob. To put up a pretense of legality, he owns and runs the Odeon Theatre, which specializes in Burlesque, but his real operation is bootleg booze. Kester has his boys drag in Henry Bogar, who has a 5-6 state territory selling imported brandy. Kester tells him that from now on he will carry his stuff-- cheap rotgut with forged ""de Bouverais"" cognac labels. Bogar tastes the stuff, and calls it slop; he says brandy drinkers will never buy it as long as the real stuff is available.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Man in the Middle
    7.5/1067 votes
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    #23 - Man in the Middle

    Season 3 Episode 21 - Aired 4/5/1962

    November 7, 1933.  Slot machines are big business; 2,000 of the one-armed bandits rake in $100,000 per week; ($50 per machine).  One night, ""Moose"" Tobin and 3 other Bomer hoods drop in on Porker Davis' upstairs gambling joint.  Tobin tells Davis that Bomer wants to teach him a lesson; the hoods chase everybody out of the joint.  Then they start throwing the slot machines out the 2nd story window; when one of Davis' employees tries to stop them, the hoods throw him out the window. 

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Pressure
    7.5/1061 votes
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    #24 - Pressure

    Season 3 Episode 26 - Aired 6/14/1962

    Chicago, April 16, 1934. Prohibition is over, the main racket is now narcotics. The New York Syndicate, the ""Big 6"" send their representative Wally Corbin to Chicago, to pick up a shipment of heroin from Louie ""The Bear"" Madikoff-- he's the top dealer in the Midwest and the chief supplier of the NY Syndicate. Ness has already picked off 2 of Madikoff's runners. Wally picks up 1-1/2 kilos of the junk, worth $200,000.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Bird in the Hand
    7.5/1055 votes
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    #25 - Bird in the Hand

    Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1962

    December 12, 1929. That night, gangster Arnie Kurtz is in a car, watching a hit he ordered. Another car, speeding along and with a chopper blasting, guns down a pedestrian; but the victim pulls a gun and fires back, his bullet goes through the windshield. The car crashes; the driver is dead, but the hitman escapes. Arnie Kurtz goes to establish his alibi; at 10:35, his wife Stella drops in on her brother Benno Fisk, who owns a pawn shop. Stella has a job for him: deliver a payment of 100 Gs to a gangster in Washington, DC, for her hubby Arnie. Benno will be gone for 3-4 days, so Stella takes his 2 pet birds with her; Stella and Arnie are permanent guests at the swanky Lakeview Hotel.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A