Dog’s Most Wanted dove right into Beth Chapman‘s battle with cancer during its action-packed series premiere episode. The new series chronicled Beth’s final months and her battle with cancer, as she and husband Duane “Dog” Chapman find some of the nation’s most wanted fugitives.
“If I’m going to die I’m going to die in my boots,” Beth said in a preview for the season airing at the start of the emotional series premiere.
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Spoilers ahead for Dog’s Most Wanted Episode 1: “Like Father, Like Son”
The episode began with Dog and Beth receiving the news that her cancer is back, before skipping to January 1, 2019. Beth tells the cameras how she has been feeling after finding out she has “incurable lung cancer.”
“There’s no stage 5… to figure out what you’re going to do in the next two years, let alone six months, is challenging of itself,” she said, before the show’s narrator explained she underwent her first chemotherapy, as well as CBD treatment Jan. 4.
With medical bills piling up, Dog reveals he and Beth will be hunting down the list of fugitives as a way to make money, and to get Beth excited again as she continues her treatment.
“I love her and I’ll do anything for her,” he told the camera in a tearful confessional.
Despite her ongoing treatment, the CBD supplements gave Beth enough strength to go on a hunt with the crew. The episode showed as the group went on a rough car chase in Hawaii for one of the criminals, which Beth and Dog’s child Cecily called the “craziest s—” she has ever experienced.
Willie Boy, the fugitive they were chasing during the premiere, was revealed to have a heartbreaking similarity with the Chapmans, after crew member Kaleo Padilla revealed his mother died a couple months after the filming of the hunt.
Willie boys mom, died of cancer 2 months after we filmed this. RIP…
— Kaleo Padilla (@Oneslap) September 5, 2019
As the premiere episode’s hunt reached its most stressful moment, Beth is seen confronting one of the fugitive’s friends who refused to help track him down despite seeing him almost run over the crew.
“I have lung cancer and I’m over here traipsing around in f-ing weather for this piece of s—,” Beth says. “You can’t be trusted. Your word is s—.”
Dog then threatens to burn the house down to get them out if they need to in order to secure Willie Boy’s arrest. The episode ends with the tense attempt to arrest the fugitive, but they end up getting his dad instead. Beth has to leave the scene as they arrest the dad, with Dog promising to get the son as the episode ends.
“Working is doing wonders [for her],” Dog tells the cameras. “It’s keeping her alive so, come on baby let’s get ’em.”
The premiere of Dog’s Most Wanted comes over two months after Beth tragically passed away June 26 at the age of 51 following her long battle with cancer. Her passing pushed the premiere date of the new reality series from its original 2020 release following her death.
“My wife is, was, and always will be the heart and soul of Dog’s Most Wanted,” Dog said in a statement in July. “Beth wanted nothing more than for the show to go on, and I am so proud of the legacy that she left behind. She lived and died for this show, and she would be so proud of how hard we worked bringing these criminals to justice.”
Dog’s Most Wanted airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on WGN America.
