All indications point to Frank Tallman (Gilbert Green), a local crime lord awaiting trial, where Starsky and Hutch are the main prosecution witnesses.
With the help of their regular informant, Huggy Bear, Starsky and Hutch track down the hitmen, a pair of professionals named Zane (Richard Lynch) and Cannell (Michael Conrad), only to learn that one of the actual victims, 19-year-old Patricia Talbot (Karen Lamm), was indeed the intended target.
At 5am one morning, wealthy used-car dealer Zack Tyler (Med Flory) and his wife Emma Lou (Alta Christopher) stop to help two men, John Brown Harris (Charles Napier) and Little Huey Chaco (George Loros), who are having car trouble, only for them to rob the couple, with Harris raping and fatally strangling Emma Lou.
Starsky and Hutch, along with three highly experienced detectives -- Kalowitz (Bill Sorrells), Burke (Paul Benjamin), and Corman (Richard Venture) -- are involved in a large-scale drug bust, where pure cocaine with a street value of $4,000,000 is seized.
Captain Dobey gives them 48 hours to clear their names and those of Kalowitz, Burke, and Corman, who they assume to be innocent, and nail Stryker (Gilbert Green), the drug kingpin behind everything.
Ben, now furious that Hutch escaped, tells his right-hand man, Allen "Monk" Philos (Geoffrey Lewis), to make sure he is killed.
Starsky's ex-girlfriend Helen Davidson, a fellow cop, is found murdered, with her body bizarrely wrapped in radio antenna wire.
Starsky and Hutch are tracking down a dock-worker suspected of murdering Officer Ed Jamieson (Joe Warfield), an undercover cop investigating a series of waterfront heists.
Hutch's childhood friend, Nancy Blake (Sheila Larken), is preparing to get married, and it seems that her groom-to-be, Billy Desmond (Stephen McHattie), might be involved in the heists.
Now, John shows up with a story about being presumed dead while spending five years in a POW camp in Vietnam, asking them to help him find his ex-wife Karen (Suzan Gailey) and young son Corey.
As it turns out, John's actually an imposter named Mike, a hit-man hired by local crime boss Nate Garvin (Gene Darcy).
After the particularly long and awkward interrogation with a suspect who has been accused of putting a 19-year-old woman in a coma, Starsky and Hutch decide to unwind for the evening by going for a meal at Giovanni's, an Italian restaurant down by the docks.
This leads them to discover a plot to rob an armored car by an experienced gang, who is not only holding hostage driver Tom Cole (John Ritter), but his pregnant wife, Ellie (Linda Kelsey), threatening to kill her if he fails to obey their orders.
After a retired ex-cop and friend is murdered at his new job running the concession business at a sports arena, Starsky and Hutch are drawn into the world of Professional Wrestling.
Starsky and Hutch run afoul of federal agent Bettin, when his scheme to collar crime kingpin Dombarris puts the psychopathic serial rapist Jojo back on the streets.
While investigating a brutal daylight murder that occurred near an infamous sex shop, Starsky inadvertently discovers that Gillian is working as a prostitute for a crazed gangster and his domineering mother (Sylvia Sidney).
After the mysterious late night murder of an exotic dancer, the investigation reveals that elements of vampirism and sanguivorism are present in the crime when the victim is found drained of her blood.
While the city is gripped in fear, Starsky and Hutch investigate a lead from an occultist, involving the detectives in a disturbing subculture of Satanism and the supernatural.
A set of a Western movie is the site of a murder, another in a series of killings targeting members of its star, Steve Hanson's, Wolf Pack club.
A pair of Starsky and Hutch look-a-likes, hired by a shady lawyer to discredit the detectives, hit the streets in an imitation Striped Tomato Gran Torino, terrorizing informants and extorting money from citizens.
A series of deaths has attracted the attention of the authorities; they believe the appearance of Johnny Doors, a high ranking crime syndicate figure may indicate an attempt to take over the financial empire by the Mob.
While on the case Hutch meets a young nurse who wants to become his girlfriend, whom he discovers not only has a very nasty jealous streak, but is also a delusional and murderous stalker.
Starsky arranges to be committed to a mental asylum, where Hutch has been planted undercover as a male nurse, to investigate why this particular hospital is suddenly having such a high fatality rate.
Reporter Chris Phelps rides along with Starsky and Hutch in order to research an article on "the counter-culture cops, the new breed", as they investigate pushers who are cutting their drugs with strychnine.
A weekend trip to Captain Dobey's cabin turns sinister for Starsky & Hutch when they discover a Satanic cult across the lake and try to determine why the sheriff and the local people of the nearby small town are treating them so strangely.
Along with a female officer, the Detectives go undercover at Fever, a popular discotheque, in order to set a trap for a serial killer who is murdering women that refuse to dance with him.
Starsky and Hutch pose as good old country boys in order to track down moonshiners who have brewed up a lethal batch of bootleg hooch.
Starsky unknowingly places himself in serious danger when the detectives investigate a woman's claims that a jealous ex-lover from San Francisco has followed her and is responsible for the murders of her recent one-night stands.
Starsky and Hutch pose as an eccentric photographer and a timid swimwear buyer when the duo enter the fashion world to investigate a garment-business racketeering ring.
James Marshall Gunther, the businessman who was the lead villain in "Targets Without a Badge" two shows earlier, returns to put out a murder contract on Starsky & Hutch.