Let's talk about this man for a minute.
Erik Hunter is a character of all time. I know he didn't quite resonate with most Laredo fans during the show's original run and I get it. I believe he was better appreciated by people who saw season two before season one and I get that, too. If he seemed like he was always part of the gang, it'd be weird to not have him there. But most who first experienced the Chad (Peter Brown), Joe (William Smith), and Reese (Neville Brand) dynamic didn't like seeing that compromised and a new guy shoehorned in.
I share some of the sentiment that Erik's presence wasn't necessary. As I understand it, Robert Wolders was brought on as a means of lightening Neville Brand's load, if not replacing him entirely, because his alcoholism was affecting him on the job. (Claude Akins' 'Cotton Buckmeister' was introduced for the same reason and was much closer to Reese in terms of characterization, although he only did a handful of episodes.)
But Erik is still an interesting and worthy character in his own right. Chad, Joe, and Reese irked and teased each other but were also clearly friends. Erik, however, wasn't portrayed to be particularly close to his fellow Rangers. He often concocted and acted upon his own plans, or diverted from previously agreed-upon strategy to do his own thing.
He, like Chad, was presented as a handsome, educated, image-conscious man who had at least one girl fawning over him in pretty much every episode. Still, Erik is a vessel for queer subtext, just as Chad and Joe are--just in a slightly different way. The subtext between Chad and Joe is exactly that: it's between Chad and Joe. It's in the deliberate closeness between them that often includes prolonged physical contact and an often unspoken but extremely deep bond between them. We saw Joe being petty and jealous when Chad showed interest in someone else (a woman). Chad was shown wringing his hands and worrying over the highly capable Joe when he was sent after Linda Little Trees, solo.
In the absence of such closeness with another character, the bulk of the wink-winking and nudge-nudging where Erik's sexuality was concerned came via his clothing (and his unashamed commitment to his unique style). His fashion sense was pretty relentlessly mocked by his fellow Rangers, yet it never came across as hateful or prejudiced. It also didn't make him think twice about how he presented himself to the world.
Erik dressed in extremely colorful outfits that were inspired by mod/Carnaby Street Fashion of the mid-1960s, per Robert Wolders in this interview:
LAREDO , the lighthearted adventures of a group of Texas Rangers, was spun off of an episode of THE VIRGINIAN in 1965. That first
The better part of Erik's wardrobe was loud and felt anachronistic for a man of the 1860s (or 1870s or even early 1880s--Laredo couldn't quite nail that.)
Before:
And after:
Yes, those are gifs from the same episode. The after outfit is a part of a cover--a disguise. This means of 'dressing down' Erik when he goes undercover happens more than once throughout the series.
This, quite possibly his most conservative ensemble, is another Erik considered a costume, and himself playing a character while in it. IE: this is not who Erik Hunter actually is.
"I won't tell anyone you were just ogling my sternum bush."
-Erik, probably.
Nice PJ's bro. (They appear in multiple episodes and I'm 100% okay with that because damn Robert Wolders had THIGHS <3.)
Seeing either of these characters posing as men of the cloth is hilarious. It's a wonder they didn't get struck down by lightning. Then again, that was intentional. This episode (S2's 'the Seventh Day') also canonically reveals that Erik is a designer. When asked where he gets his clothing made, he answers that there's a girl in town who sews it all to his design.
His most subdued not-a-cover outfit.
I'm sure part of the goal in presenting Erik as both a dandy and a shameless pussyhound was plausible deniability--straight on paper and queer between the lines. (IMO he and Chad are both bisexual disasters, as they are shown to have a clear and defined interest in women.)
With that, I leave you with Erik being Erik in all of his as-openly-not-straight-as-1960s-tv-could-give-us glory.
