Episode 16 - Elaine And The Lame Duck

Weird Way Media. NI miss you see that guy with it now he's an actor and the only camp driver in his place. Hello and welcome tonight mister Walters a taxi podcast. I'm your co host HP and with me as always is my co host father Malone. Fall them Malone.

How are you this evening? I'm good, hbos late. I've been sincerely pondering the word slams. I hope someone knows what that word means. I think this episode will solve that mystery.

I thought I knew what schlamazl and schlamiel meant, but apparently I didn't. But we'll delve into that. A reminder, we're doing these shows and broadcast order and not in order of filming. Tonight, we are covering Taxi episode sixteen, called Elaine and the Lame Duck. This one was written by Glenn Charles and Les Charles, our favorite sons from Henderson, Nevada, and you already know it.

It's directed by James Burrows. Hey, before we get yeah, I have a few alternate titles. Yep. Instead of Elaine and the Lame Duck, how about Alex Rieger, is Iceberg Slim? Or if you want something a little more brief pity fuck.

We're gonna get into this. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, so let's dive in. But this was a very odd episode for me. I had a very an interesting reaction to it, and it sounds like you had a similar vibe of watching it. I feel myself suddenly looking askance at the Charles Boys.

It's surprising, given their pedigree in some of the better episodes they've already produced, this is let's just say it's an outlier, and we'll get into the reasons for that. So we open this episode and it's we open on a It's another snowy night. It's like it's like the Sunshine Cab Company is in like the Ninth Circle of Hell, and it's just endless winter as far as the eye can see. Alex is driving his cab. It's our favorite poor man's process, and he's picking up a fair.

The fair is an excitable bald man named Walter Griswold and a woman named Jill, who it doesn't seem to want to be there. She has this sort of look on her face like what am I doing here? Where are you taking me? I'm not having a good time. Let me ask you, father alone, who's playing Walter Griswold.

Ugh, it's Jeffrey Tambor. You know Jeffrey Tambour. We all do. He's the problematic star of such projects as Arrested Development. He was in Max Headroom.

I forgot that he was in one of our favorites, Three o'clock High. Isn't he the teacher that runs He runs the snackshack, he runs that bookstore, and then the bookstore he finds it's to he worries that Jerry is the actual culprit. Oh my god, it's so heartbreaking that moment. Jeffrey Timber is problematic. Look.

I reread the sort of allegations against him in preparing for this podcast. They seem like whatever is happening was happening. He doesn't seem like he was some sort of nightmare tentacled monster out there like Harvey Weinstein or anything. He seems like he was probably an asshole a lot of the time, but who isn't at some point. He's a very good actor.

There's no question I've enjoyed him in a lot of things. The Larry Sanders Show alone is spectacular. He's great in that show. He's iconic in Larry's I totally forgot about Larry Sanders, and I agree he's not. He doesn't come close to Harvey Weinstein or people of that ilk, but I know that, I certainly know he made Jessica Walter his cry on more than one occasion, which at least makes him into a scoundrel if nothing else.

Well, Yeah, like I said, I one percent believe he's an asshole. But is it that's most people? It seems in Hollyweird. Yeah, he seems like one of the last vestiges of a time where you could get away with that kind of behavior and not be called on it, and not be canceled. For lack of a better word for that kind of behavior.

I don't I'm sure it still goes on, but certainly his reckoning came right as me too was hitting its stride. I'm not condoning any of the behavior, by the way, like there's no call for any poor behavior in any workplace. Everyone needs to get along and do the fucking job, like nobody's better than anybody else. But it doesn't mean he's out there raping. Look I looked up as IMDb.

He hasn't worked since twenty twenty, which I think is right around the time that this all became more widely known. So for whatever reason, he's taken a step back from Hollywood. Make of that what you will. This guy and this woman get in the cab and Walter makes a bad joke about hijacking the cab to Cuba. Hey, remember when hijacking jokes were hilarious.

It does seem like there was a lot of this like I'm taking this whatever to Cuba kind of jokes so long that time. Do you remember Robert Stemkis's Academy Award winning student film, No, I'll tell us about it. I think it's called Field of Honor. It's about this soldier who's just returned from Vietnam and he's just trying to get home and everything is a trigger, like a kind of a Vietnam to like a flashback, And at a certain point he's just riding on a city bus and a militant takes over the bus and he says, I'm taking this bus to Cuba, like even And I th that was like, what's seventy two, seventy three they were doing that, So, my god, just this hilarious raft of hijacked planes. If nothing else that instantly dates this show to that period of time.

This guy. You already are annoyed by this fellow Walter because he makes this bad joke, and even, let's face it, even in nineteen seventy eight, it's a bad joke. And he laughs uproariously at his own joke, which is an automatic mark or telling us that he's this is just this is kind of an asshole. Neither Jill nor Alex really find it amusing in the slightest, but Walter is full of Jois de vive. He's basically bouncing off the insides of the cab with excitement.

At least from his perspective, it seems like he's having a grand old time on this date, oblivious on top of everything else that is really annoying about him. Here's something else that's annoying, and we've talked about this in a previous episode, what is the gauntdamn plexiglass shield? For Apparently, Sunshine Cab is just a big proponent of dramatic moments for their passengers. We could just lean forward, slide the goddamn thing open, and have a conversation a little more intimately, you're referring to when the woman kind of rushes it aside and has a little word with Alex in private, Is that what you're talking about? Ruth Gordon and Sugar Mama just slides it open and says, And then in a previous episode, John Burns accidentally knocks the whole thing over on to Alex.

Yeah, he just pushes it over, hammering on this thing. But this is a problem. It is a problem. I'm now worried for the cabby's safety. Whenever I see someone who looks a little askance at the cave.

Is this guy gonna hijack the cab to Cuba? Who knows? He says to the woman, Hey, you want to go dancing? You want to go to a show? I think they've just gotten done with dinner, and the woman, Jill, just flatly asks Alex to take her home.

To your point, the obliviousness of Walter, he misreads this for amorous intent. His sort of vibe changes and now he's like, oh, this is going to be one of those dates. So they're driving home and he's continuing this full court press on this woman until finally she can take it no longer and asks to be let now, this is in the middle of a snowstorm, and she says, I just want to be left out right here? Can you stop right here, Cabby? And they both, I think they both say, like, this is a really bad part of town.

You don't want to get out here. You can get killed, And then she says, well, then let him out. She openly advocates his murder rather than be in the cabin a moment longer with him, which begs the question, Okay, so obviously this has been a bad date, and she'll explain herself in a moment a little bit more. But if you had this kind of a miserable time, and one can imagine what the evening, oh dinner conversation was like. At the end of the meal, you get in a cab with him.

We've been in this guy's presence for about a minute and a half, and we're already sympathetic to this woman because we can't stand being around this guy. He's made a bad hijacking joke. He just seems to be full of himself and oblivious. But yeah, to your point, yeah, why would you even get why wouldn't you just take your own cab and say, you know what, I'm done. She finally lets it all out and says that the dinner was just flat out terrible.

I think she says, he ordered the meal in French and her meal was ten pats of butter. So she finally gets out of the cab in a huff. Walter is left humiliated in the cab hold on, hold on, hold on no. As she gets out of the gab after laying into him what a miserable time she had and how terrible a date he is, he does this, He does the line of can I walk you to the door, and she says no. He says, well, I guess you're not going to sleep with me, which immediately struck me as the classy version of so I guess a blowjob is out of the question.

That was a big punchline around this time, right, this is Charles's voice appropriating that and like gussying it up for television. That's also funny how the standards for television have changed because you couldn't be that forthright. I don't know that you would say exactly what you said on TV now, but there's probably more racy and authentic ways to get across that. But yeah, but basically that's like the final humiliation with this guy in front of Alex, so she leaves the cab. This is just inexplicable.

Alex, being the sensitive person that he is, tries to can soole this loser father ballone. You've done ride sharing in the past, You've driven for a ride share company. Yeah, Like if you if you saw this thing play out in front of you in your car and this woman leaves, what's your reaction going to be to this loser? Well, as soon as he said I'm taking this car to cube, I would have stopped and said everybody out. But if you're asking me my reaction to his sad stacks story and like witnessing how pathetic his date went, I would say, where do you want to go?

And all this sort of palaverb like, oh, I don't know, just took me into all that shack. I go, Now, where do you want to go? I'll take you there and I'll console you along the way and then i'd let you out and that was it. But Alex, as we'll see in a moment, like he pushes this well past the point of reason. He starts talking to this guy.

He like you said, He says to the guy, well, where do you want to go? And the guy Walter just, I don't know, just drive, just take me anywhere. It doesn't matter because now he's completely depressed about how the night went. So in talking with Alex you find out that the sad sack is a US congressman. So we cut to the garage and inexplicably, now Alex is taking him inside the cat the garage with him.

They're gonna go out afterwards for a beer. He just has to give his receipts to Louis and then they'll be on their way. Now why this is making less and less sense? Why would Alex take this guy with him into the I just I don't know. I was already rubbed the wrong way from the get go.

What was your reaction to this? Fought him alone? You know what, It's no weirder than showing up with John Burns, who needed change. Yeah, but that was more like Burns was a nuisance that he just had to close the loop and send him on his way. It wasn't as if he was taking him under his wing and saying, hey, let's go pal around for a while.

He loser. What your question is, what's my reaction? To him taking him as under his wing or taking him to the garage, because take him to the makes total sense in that he's taking him under his wing. They're going to go have a beer together and talk about commisserate whatever. But the entire idea that Alex is going to go do this with this particular man is, as you said, inexplicable, because if this guy were charming and was a loser, then it might be one thing.

It's it's weirdly stacked against this character, and it makes me question all the motives of all of the characters who get involved in this particular plot line. It's almost as if this whole episode takes place in like a parallel universe where the things we know about these characters and their motivations and their typical behaviors don't really happen in this parallel Sunshine and Cab Company. Like. Alex obviously is sensitive, but I could I could very easily see him giving the guy a few words to kind of buck him up and say, you know what, Pally, just go up to your apartment, just sleep it off. You'll feel better in the morning.

Things aren't that bad. Things will get better. But to take him with him into the cab. Cr Alex seems to be in awe of the fact that this guy is a US congressman and proud of the fact that he's made his acquaintance. See, that's the thing.

The only redeeming aspect of the guy is his governmental position, like the sort of status that comes with that. And if that's the only reason Riga is doing this, then that makes Rigor a scumbag. And if it's not that, then it's just like, what are you doing, Alex? Just get buy the guy a beer, wish him good night. So they go to the garage and they're told that Loui's gone out because he had to take his mother to the dentist.

There's a lot of dental things happening in taxi, by the way, I've just noticed this, Like Laca had a dental thing a few episodes ago. Now Louie's mother has a dental thing. That's a little odd. Bobby explains that it's a discount to that only works nights. When this happened, I had to search back in my mind and say, was Danny DeVito working on another project at this time?

It felt a little, at least in the moment like they were covering for the fact that DeVito couldn't be in the episode. But that's I out, that's not the case. No, But it does bring up the strangest exchange in the entire episode, which is Wheeler says that Louis took his mother because Louis found a cheap late night dentist, and then Rieger says, very romantic root canal by moonlight. What sincerely? What is going on?

Did Rigor have a stroke? Does he think Louis and his mom are romantically involved? What are his motivations here? This feels like a script written by somebody who was told what the basic premise of Taxi is. Yeah, I feel like maybe one of the Charles brothers had to have his wisdom teeth out and he's writing this episode like under he's still loopy from the anesthesia and that's why he's still fixated on dental work because it doesn't like you said, this feels like somebody who's coming into Taxi but doesn't have a firm grasp on the premise and the characters.

Alex buys Walter a cup of coffee and they start to chat a little bit and we find out how much more of a loser this guy is than we even thought. Apparently his father, Walter's father is a major contributor to his party. They don't say which party, but as a reward for contributing to their party, they ran his son for Congress. But he only won because the opponent was convicted of murder the week before the election, and that's he was elected after they had a runoff, and even now there's talk of a recall. So they're hammering this point over.

We already know that this guy's a loser, but the charless can't help themselves from like hammering and hammering and hammering at this point, like how much more of a loser can we make this guy a sad sack. A couple episodes ago, in Caveto four Memories Cabetofo, we had Tom Selleck drop by for Nardo's episode. This should have been the Nardo episode with Tom he it. It should have been someone really just utterly charming who is also a total fucking loser. Because the problem is you put Jeffrey Tambor in here.

It's that I don't I wouldn't want to be around this guy for more than a minute. As a viewer, like, we're already exhausted just being in this guy's company because it's just there's just nothing redeeming about him. It's exasperating Alex. He's just trying over and over again to cheer this guy up. This is all very out of character.

We know that Alex is a sensitive guy and what have you, but we also we know that he is somebody who minds his own business. Why poke his nose into these things that he has no business being involved in. But anyway, this is the path we're on with this episode. Alex introduces him to the rest of the Cabbes, and to my surprise, actually Louis returns. I thought he was off this episode, but apparently this is just a little bit of comedic business that the Charles Is put into this thing.

And I think Louis even says that everything went well. He even sprang for the novacane for his mother. Hey it's my mother. I figure, what the hell Louis is wearing a lady's winter coat. I thought it was odd because it had these sort of Paddington bear dowel fasten.

Yeah, that's what I mean. So that's a tip off. And then if you look closer, they fasten on the right. I didn't notice that. Oh yeah, And when he walks in, it had a hood.

I like to think that it's a lost and found coat that Louis went, oh, this is comfortable and warm. Walter and the Cabby's chat a little bit more, and Walter admits at that point that he's a loser with women. He just can't seem to get things right. A little side note here, Laka has a little bit as Walter's talking. I thought it was like the best Yakov Smirnoff routine that you never saw.

Did you notice this? So he comes over and he says the speech about women, the speech about women exactly. God, I fucking love it. I've wrote in my notes, love this, I love it. I love this.

And then I wrote the reason Laca works so well is confidence dedication to always appearing as if he's considering the next word. The crux of it is, basically he says he's talking about women in his country versus women in America, and I'm not going to do the routine for you, but basically, in his country women are overworked. They clean, they do all this stuff, and they're happy. And then he says women in America. They're pampered, they wear clothes, they take bubble bats, and they're happy.

And I think Alex says, well, what's the point then, and Laca just says women are happy people. He just walks away like there's no funny, catchy punchline. That is the punchline. I thought it was brilliant. Let me take it on another side, Alley here, I've often praised Ralph t Schlane, the costume designer here on taxi in this particular episode, I'm not calling out any particular extra on screen, but the entire cab company is a wash in orange and yellows here.

It's all over the episode, everyone in orange and yellow. It's like a Gogan painting with grease paint. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. I'd like you later on in this particular episode to remember how nice I was to Ralph Teschlang. Okay, just for future the future, Walter's complaining about how hard it is to find a nice woman.

And while he's doing this, I kept thinking to myself that the writing is just not very good. It's a little vaudevillian because it's a lot of setup for a punchline. And it's a lot of repeating the same basic humor, Like the same points are being made over and over again, which is this guy just can't seem to catch a break. Like I'm looking at how much time is left in the episode, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm my god, there's only been like four minutes in and I'm already exhausted. There's this woman and she told me she never wanted to see me again.

We've all had women who said that I had just been introduced to her. It's a lot of that. Like you said, it's all set up in punchlines. Set up in punchline. We get it.

This guy sucks. Why are we continuing to deal with him? There's nothing redeeming going on at all with this fella. Tambour is so heavily featured in this He's really in pretty much every scene. He has the if you went back and looked at the script, I guarantee he has the lion's share of all of the dialogue.

It almost felt, in a funny way that this was almost a backdoor pilot for another show featuring this guy, because just thinking the same thing, like a Griswold perspiring Congressman next the summer replacement. I was starting to wonder is it the writing or is it his performance? And I landed on the side of bad writing. I don't know what your reaction was up to this point, father alone, because I know obviously the charles Is are fantastic and it was jarring to think that they could produce something like this. It was a lot of character.

At the risk of eliminating any possibility of interviewing them for our future Cheers podcast, I got to say this one's bad. It's the writing, It's I don't know what's going on in this script. I said, it felt like somebody wrote it based on like hearsay, like somebody told them what the premise was it. If you had told me that this was somebody's spec script to get on the show and then they just produced it without rewriting it, I would believe it. Oh.

Another side note, Alex is monologuing to the group about how Walter needs confidence and he does this thing. It's a very accurately thing that he does. I don't know if you picked up on this. He does this thing where he stands up and he puts one foot up on the chair that he was sitting on kind of like this. It's like the Captain Morgan kind of pose, where, you know, like a New Rockney thing, like all right, listen up right exactly englishman.

We got to get him laid. Who's with me? I love these little bits of business that the actors get up to. We've talked about it in the past, and I just thought that was pretty funny. Yeah, they got to do something with this episode, you know.

And I call back to the opening of the episode if you don't mind, of course, just to mention during our poor man's process the snow that we have snow going on, right. Yeah. I really admire that this series in particular, is committed to showing the inclement weather in New York City beyond a Christmas episode. I ever noticed that in every series it's all it's always just summer all the time, and then suddenly there's everyone's buried in snow drives because the Christmas episode, and then the next episode everything's back to normal, sunny, beautiful. So I like that there's a continuity of we're going through a long dark winter over here at Sunshine CAB.

I do appreciate their dedication to that, and I always We've talked about this, but I always thought that helped sell the idea that even though they were filming this in California, it feels cold. They sometimes they over do the snow a little bit, but I thought it was fine here, It felt it felt real. At this point, Elaine walks in. We haven't seen Elaine yet. She finally walks into the garage.

This sparks an idea in Alex's head. This is again, this is we're in kind of a cuckoo land here, total cuckoo land, man, This is you know what, It's an insulting cuckoo land. Let me tell you why, because now what we're actually getting is this is a Nardo episode. This is what they're given as a Nardo episode. She shows up a third of the way in what is going on in Taxi Town?

Man, You're right, I didn't think of it in those terms, but it's it's very I don't know, it just seems very pigheaded to make what's ostensibly a Nardo episode. But really she doesn't have a lot of agency in this episode. This isn't Nardo's problem that Riager's trying to fix Nardo. So is the solution to a problem that Rigger is trying to fix and that is fucking gross. She walks in and he gets this notion that Walter should go out with a lane.

Now, why in the world Alex would take some loser he just met in a cab, take him to the garage and drew some to all of his friends, everybody who has meaning in his life, and then set them up with a lane like this, one of his most special friends in the world and somebody who's so clearly out of his league in every facet of his personality. It makes zero sense. We're hammering on this, but we're going to continue to hammer on it, actually, because it's going to get worse. It gets a lot worse, and it gets a lot more inexplicable. As the episode progresses, we cut to a classic Mario's exterior.

I think we're back to the State Street pub and that huge snowbank on the reference is still piled up outside. Worry there, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were there a couple episodes, green onning in the middle of a block somewhere, yeah, anywhere, So it's the blizzard is still going on. It's in full effect, and we cut inside and Walter and Elaine are in there having dinner, and it's all very awkward. Walter is as uptight as we've seen him, and Elaine can't like, bless bless her. Elaine can't stop trying to put this.

Instead of a normal person like Jill from the beginning, who is just waiting for this night to be over so she can just go to bed and forget that it ever happened, she's really trying to mother him and put him at ease and say just relax, it's okay. D Da da da, and the rest of the cabbies arrive and they say hi to Walter. It doesn't really amount to a whole lot. First of all, when they showed up at Marios, I was like, this is where this congressman has taking her. This is ridiculous, right.

And then after about four or five minutes of tambour and his perspiration, how much he sweats. It's an interminable speech about all of the disgusting ways he's sweating. It just goes on and on and on. After all of that, the Cabby's walked in and I went, oh Jesus, thank god, thank god they're here. I thought maybe they were coming in to check up on a lane and kind of get because they've done that in other episodes.

I think Angela, don't they come just to get a look at a Angela and kind of bust the shops. But no, they just seemed to be there just having their own meal separate. They didn't seem to expect them to be there. So yeah, they say hi all around, didn't really like I said, nothing really happens with that as of yet. But well, one thing I didn't notice.

This episode's full of side notes, and I think part of the reason is I'm looking for anything to hang my impressions of the episode on. Did you notice the lovely buffet that they had set up in the foreground of Marios. This was a new thing, certainly did Yeah, I was particularly drawn to that picture that water pitcher that was that looked like a conk shell, one of those plastic like blow up blowout kind of once that that was amazing. I think I saw some salad where there breadsticks involved. Were there was breadsticks, there were rolls.

Oh man, do fill up on bread, That's what I say. At Marios had plates piled high for your for your enjoyment. There was a whole nine I just I cannot remember seeing that kind of set decoration in Marios before or since. We've not been to Marios on a Friday night, evidently when the place is really jumping apparently. But I think your point that you said prior to this is well taken.

Like, you know, we know that Walter took this woman Jill to this fancy French restaurant. Why would he take somebody who is frankly a goddess next to this woman Jill and just go to this dumpy Marios place unless he suggested it. I don't know, maybe she suggests it. Like part of it, we don't get to see the actual moment between Rigor and Nardo where he convinces her to go out with this guy. Maybe it was like, okay, but I want to go someplace that I know and then I want you guys to come in and check on us.

And it could have been that, yeah, and that you know what, That's very logical. That totally makes sense because she doesn't know this guy from anybody, so all she has is Riager's assurance that this guy is a nice guy, and he's known him for all of eight minutes up to this point. So He's not necessarily the best judge of his character at this point. But yeah, that would make sense that maybe that's why they came in the Cabby's when they did. Maybe she's like, look, i'll take this guy out, but can you just check up on me and let's go on my turf?

Like I can't go where this guy wants me to go, So that makes sense. Speaking of side notes, Yeah, what do you think the difference is between a great and just a mediocre air hockey? Are you talking about what Tony says when they him? Like, you know what, what's great about? What's great to get here at?

What would you get at Marus? What's amazing here at Marios? Well, they have a great air hockey game in the back room. Have you ever played a great air hockey game ever in your life? You would just go, oh my god, that was great, let's do that again.

No, but that's but we're dealing with a simpleton. I mean, this is Tony right, you know totally. It's in total character for him. Walter is he can't stop self flagellating. He's seeing negativity in every interaction and he's highlighting he's just highlighting his lack of self confidence.

And now Louis comes in, and he comes over, and he gives a lane and Walter the business, and he goes and sits with the rest of the cabvies, which in itself was kind of odd because they never want to sit with Louis. There's been episodes where he comes in and they all get up and leave because they don't want to sit with them, but he sits with them. And here's where your Schalmiel and Schlimazl lined from the top of the episode comes in. There's this explanation that Louie gives for a Schlamiel versus a Schlamazel, and I'm not gonna I won't bore the audience with the joke because I can't do it justice. But basically he makes several jokes like this.

In the episode where the Schlamil is is, he says, what's the difference between a Shamil and a schla Maazel? He says, Walters a schla Maazel because essentially, the Schlamiel is this hapless guy, and the Schlamazol is even more hapless. He's an even bigger loser than the Schlamiel, who's obviously a big loser. And that's the point that Louis keeps making over and over again, is Walter is like a loser amongst the losers. Basically, I don't think I missed anything there, did I father alone?

Oh? God no? And it just goes on and on. He does it a few times. So they go back to Elaine and Walter and they're still perusing the menu, and there's this odd bit where there's candles on the table and Walter is looking at the menu and his menu ends up catching fire, and somehow he keeps his cool and he puts it out, and the rest of the caves they observe this, and they're all averting their eyes in shame.

It just seemed like such a weird again at a left Vaudevilleville. The tone in this episode, I'd like, I don't what are they doing. Elaine would never have gone out with this guy, not even out of pity would I don't believe for a second she would have done it. But there's just signal after signal sign after sign that this this is just a wasted evening for her. And then they have this bit where the menu catches on fire and then he calmly puts it out, and then he's got to awkwardly try to read through the charred remains of the menu.

And like I said, everybody at this point is just averting their eyes. They can't even look at this guy anymore. And even Laka, who's there with caves, shakes his head and he says, boy, this guy he's a real horse's yakta bee, which I think yaktabay. Wasn't that like the strike call that he made in a previous discussed This yach debate is like aloha, like cubed. It can mean basically anything.

It's usually something bad. So even Laka, who's not exactly a ladies man, I can't believe how how pathetic this guy is. Basically what's funny is they didn't need the yact debate, just Laka going this guy that may laugh. That was really funny that part. I mean, Laka is great, he just is sprinkled so judiciously in this episode and he makes a big difference.

At this point, Walter is so distraught. He says, it's just no use. Women never want to see him again. They always will come up with an excuse. It's tactic.

By the way, Well you think so oh Yeah, this is a total move. This is a power dynamic move. I don't think they mean it in this case. I don't think the character is written to be doing it in this manner. But yeah, it's a total thing, like oh, you don't want to see me again.

It puts her certainly in a very awkward position because how is she going to react. She's just she's so kind. It's not as if she's going to be like this woman Jill at the beginning and saying I hope you drop dead. Essentially, a problem is Walter has these moments of where he's kagent where he's like, oh, I'm doing this, I'm pushing too hard, I'm saying this. Why am I telling you this story?

I know I always do this. I shouldn't be doing so. He knows he's being a dick all the time, but he's doing nothing at all to curb that behavior. And then he's only commenting on it, which is just making it worse. Oh my god, he's exhausting.

I'm exhausted at HP As I'm watching this episode, I'm clock watching. I'm like, how much longer does this episode have to go on? This is not a good sign when You're only about a third of the way in, and it feels like you've been sitting there interminably watching this dynamic playout. Elaine protests, and Walter to your point, using this bully tactic. He asks her out again.

He's all right, well let's go out again, and he says, well, how about we go out on Friday. She says, well, no, Friday is not good, and he says, well, how about Saturday? Saturday? I got this going on, and they progressed to Tuesday, and finally at Tuesday, she says, yes, Tuesday's fine, I would love to go out with you, and this catches Walter off guard, which leads us to the only moment of clarity in this entire episode. This her accepting his offered it for a date on Tuesday, prompts Walter to say, what's wrong with you?

Which is exactly what I'm thinking as I'm watching this. What's wrong with you? Nardo? Don't you see that this guy is bad news? Why are you gonna waste your time with this guy?

Just there's nothing appealing about him? She could do? She had look, she had Tom Selik in her cab eight oh four. Remember when she didn't have sex with Tom Selleck. Yeah, okay, let's move on with this episode, shall we.

We cut to the garage. Bobby, Tony, Alex and Burns are chewing the fat. Thank god we get to speak without tam borr Man. Right. Even now, in just talking about this episode for the past ten minutes, I've been thinking, oh my god, can we just get to the garage.

I also noticed by the way Tony opts to sit on the back of the cab instead of a chair like a normal person, like every at every turn. Maybe this is an actorally thing, this is his way of setting himself apart from the other cabs. But they're all just standing around. But Tony's gonna sit like a tough guy on the back of the cab, the checkered cab. I don't know, totally in character.

You just are bugged by Tony Banta. You know, this isn't actor choices as a problem. This isn't you know, tough guy. You just don't like Banta. I might have to face that fact.

At some point I thought he was so I don't know, he's so lunkheaded and just tries to be such a tough guy. But it doesn't really ever pan out for him. I don't know. He's too lethal to be a lovable goof? Is the problem lethal?

Like we've talked about his propensity towards violence. Is that what you're doing, Banta is a fucking box, Like he could fuck you up. He is a lethal human being, and he's incredibly attractive, and then he's a dummy but also sometimes aggressively stupid. So I get where you're coming from. These things just they add up in my mind and eventually I just go, this is dumb, Like, why is he doing this?

Cabbys are sitting around talking and they can't believe that Elaine has gone out with Walter every night for the past two weeks. It's two weeks later, and I guess Elaine has been seeing this guy NonStop since that ill fated Mario's date. Elaine comes in and the guy's shift topics immediately, and Louis gives her a hard time and he makes some more Schalmeil schlamazl jokes at Walter's expense. But the thing that's incredible is this actually makes Nardo grab him by the ear physically to get him to stop. I was surprised that it exploded in a bit of physical violence on her part.

Again, we're in cloud cuckoo land here. Baby Elaine pulls Alex aside and to ask him some advice, which prompts a little bit of sophomore oohoo from the rest of the caves. So she confides in Alex that she knows that everyone is wondering why she's dating Walter, and again that goes for the audience too, like why are you seeing this guy? Pity? It's all penny, and her explanation is just more pity.

She makes it clear that it's all out of pity. She compares him to that scrawny dog in the pet store that no one wants that you are drawn to because he's so sad and pathetic. This is solid footing for a relationship, the fact that she pities this guy and she's been seeing him for two weeks. Out of that pity ohship, that relationship is going to last, and it's going to be fruitful and she's going to feel very fulfilled by it. In the Understatement of the Century, Alex remarks about how dating Elaine has really improved Walter's confidence.

Duh, dating this gorgeous woman from the garage isn't going to boost this guy's confidence. Ridiculous, of course it is. This is this guy's dream come true. Somebody who can stand to be in his presence for more than two or three hours at a time. It's incredible.

You put a leper on the arm of Marilu Henner and suddenly he's going to be high stepping down the street. I'll tell you. Elaine tries to explain it a little bit more, and she says she was struck by how sensitive and caring that Walter is with her kids like a child. He's like a child, is what she describes here. My daughter, her friends didn't get her a ticket to the Nutcracker, and she was crying about it, and then he was crying about it, so I had to take him to the Nutcracker.

Oh my god, Yes, you want to continue to date a child. Better yet, why don't you have sex with that child? At this point, though, in a rare moment of clarity, she says that she admits that she's going to have to break up with them, which, for some reason, ill, well, this is funny, So Alex. For some odd reason, Alex protests instead of what he should have done, which is say, thank god you came to your senses. I don't know why I set this guy up with you.

I apologize, but he starts to protest, like why are you gonna have to break up with this guy? He's a nice guy. But she says, and I quote that Walter is making certain suggestions, and he says, what do you mean? And she says, like, how about a roll in the hay. At that point, she should have said, look, I don't think we have chemistry.

I think we're done. You have the wrong idea. I thought you were my friend. I thought we were having some fun see you. But she's conflicted about this, which is crazy.

Like I said, great Cuckoo Town. She knows she's got to break up with him, and she just needs the reassurance from Alex Riger, who sent all this horrible nonsense in motion, to say, yeah, if that's what you're doing, don't you should definitely break up with them. Alex Riger sucking pumps down on this shit. He takes it away too far because when she says to Alex, well, there's just no chemistry, like we don't have chemistry, he it sets him off and then he calls he calls into question Elaine's quote instincts and how they've gotten her and these are his words. They've gotten her divorced, They've gotten her poor, holding down two jobs, working nights.

He's really upset with her, like the notion that she's admitting confiding in Alex really that there's no chemistry, Like she doesn't want to have sex with this guy, she doesn't want to be in a relationship. But he's taking offense to that. My head is exploding even thinking about it. Alex Rieger is a pimp in the worst possible way. I almost expected, like at the end of this episode, this good good, this ends up being like who is that director Neil LaBute?

Do you remember him? Neil LaBute? And you find out there's this twist at the end where you know Alex was actually doing this to prove some awful point or win a bet with someone in the garage to and is acting in this really Machiavelli And like, all right, I remember when you threw that party and that hot blonde was going to have sex with me and then you cock blocked me. You've announced everyone that it was nothing but a cabby. Well here it is, baby, You and Tambar these machinations have been leading up to this twist where Alex knew that they weren't right for each other, but he wanted to mess with her life and twist it around so that the breakup would be all the more sweet to somebody who was basically cock blocked at that party.

Maybe that's the explanation. I don't know. I don't know if about the Charles to know if they're that twisted to write something like that. But the fact that Alex is getting so bent out of shape over a personal decision that is nobody's business but Elane's. There's some mission that Alex is on that I cannot get on board.

What right does Alex have to pass judgment on a lane? Doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, you know, when Alex, you do the exact same job as she does, What are you doing so right in your life? Well, she actually has aspiration to get out of this business. She says that the worst part is Walter is coming over tonight and she has to make up her mind about what she's gonna do.

We cut away, We get, we get a brand new exterior b roll shot of Elane's apartment. Did you notice that I did first time for everything. Yeah, apparently the storm has passed. It's a lovely blue sky day. There's no visible snow, but there's bonus points because the trees themselves have no leaves, which I thought was a nice touch.

The other thing I noticed about that shot is that it's strangely kind of shaky. It felt to me like I was watching an eight millimeter of a family like film, like home movies of a family that someone's like. This was Jeffrey Tambor's private investigator. He has stocking nardo at all times. It didn't seem like a telephoto lens that's trying to shakily find somebody's apartment.

Way. This episode of Taxi brought to you by Brian de Palma. So we cut inside and this is another great Burrows directorial touch. I'm sure you picked up on this as well. F Out of Malone.

Where you start on this, it's this extreme closeup of a frying pan frying up eggs. Did you notice that? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I focus on how cool the shot was because I'm incensed by part of this scene. I was incensed by the whole thing.

But we pull back and it's Elaine She's dressed in this like very fluffy bathrobe kind of thing. It's like this pink. It's like almost thick like armor. It's a very thick to be working over a stove. I'll just say that.

Okay, you were fearful that she was gonna light her robe on fire. Listen Earlier, remember everybody, when I said I really like Ralph T. Shlane and all the wonderful work he's done in the costumes here. Okay, remember that, all right, because now I need to send an urgent prayer. Mary lou Henner, Mistress of Space and Time, please get a message back to whatever date they filmed this episode.

You'll know, stop putting a Lane Nardo in orange. I know I praised the liberal use of yellow and orange earlier, but come on, man, put her in the yellow if it's an and or a situation. This was a rare but critical misstep. Don't put her in orange, thank you. Earlier in the episode they also have her in it like at this orange top.

Don't do that. We pull back from this zoomed in shot of eggs frying on the stove, and we see her in this bathroom bringing eggs to the table, and then we see. I think she calls to somebody in the other room, and initially I thought it was like the kid or I think the audience is supposed to believe that maybe it's her kids or something. But no, our favorite US Congressman Walter Griswold comes out of it's either the bathroom or the bedroom. It's the bedroom.

It's the bedroom. And then he says no. She says, can I get you anything? And his reply is the most disgusting thing possible. It's like confident Walter is much much worse than regular Walter.

Can I get you anything? A little applause? I was so good in bed, you should be applauding me, goddess. I will say, though, as Elaine is puttering around getting breakfast ready, she did seem maybe it's just me in my mind, but I did detect some notes of self regret, maybe a little bit. She didn't see much.

She wasn't dancing around the apartment like gleefully. She did seem a little bit subdued. That's my impression. Elene Nardo is suppressing a scream the entire sequence. Yeah, that would make perfect sense, wouldn't it, Because you see this guy lumbering out of the bedroom.

His tie is kind of half tied. The Charles Brothers have now made us picture Jeffrey Tambor having sex with Merily Hunter. That's a foul, the bridge too far. The funny thing is we alluded to this earlier in this podcast, is that it's clear we're watching this, it's clear that they had sex, right, but they can't come out and say they've had sex. They keep saying, they use the euphemism what we did last night or what that's essentially what they keep repeating.

We know, I mean, we're mature people. We know what they did, too clear, All too clear, HB. I was sort of tickled by the fact that they had to dance around it in the language a little bit. They couldn't just come out and say, well, you know, they're consenting adults, they had sex, there's nothing wrong. Remember that.

And surely no, I don't remember that. Was that something Carmine Ragusa said, Oh no, no. Laverne would say vodeo dough whenever she meant sex. I don't remember that. Oh okay, that's interesting.

I just remember the milk and pepsi, which I think it sounds disgusting. Couldn't. I tried it. An entire generation of kids tried it. We were all like, oh my god, what the hell it's up there with like warm milk.

Like a lot of times they'd say, oh, you're having trouble sleeping, have some warm milk? That even that seems gross to me, Like, I don't know why. You just want to file beverage with a skin on it. Now you'll now you're ready for bed. So another side note, did you notice on the wall there appeared to be not one, but two wicker bowls nailed to the wall is decoration.

I didn't know how I felt about that. You've probably felt like me, Like we're in fucking the Twilight Zone episode of Taxi where Elaine, who who curates an art collection, has the most poorly decorated apartment. And curiously, though, if you remember, we talked about the episode where she had to put on a dinner party for her gallery minions, this is not the same apartment layout that we saw in that episode. This is a totally different apartment. Did you notice that too?

It's another example of how wrong this episode is. It's a different apartment, Like this is like the multiverse. We're now in like Taxi Universe five four eight. It's not the same universe, but it's close enough. The two of them are awkwardly talking about the prior night, and once again, Walter comes off very clingy.

It's just far too needy. It's off putting, and it's it just feels like I said, I'm embarrassed, steady, Okay, I'll be devoted to you, Okay, my parents, Okay. I was sweaty, so sweaty last night. That's all I took away from this HP is that he brings up how sweaty they were during sex, and I'm just like, oh my god, now this farrety, balding, sweaty man, take me away. You know what I read in my notes.

It's like a nightmare. It's spiraling down, down, down. This goes on and Elaine tries to pump the brakes a little bit, but he just keeps spiraling with self doubt and neediness, and it just keeps going and going, and I, like you said, I feel like I'm sinking into this abyss of I'm not enjoying this at all, Like what's going on here? Finally, she has the good sense to admit that he's scaring her a little bit. Frankly, he should be scaring her a whole lot more than she is, because there she is, half dressed in her apartment with nobody around.

This guy's a creep. The fact that he's charting their whole relationship based on again what they did last night, but we know what they did last night. She finally gets through to him a little bit, and at this point he finally takes the hint, and he starts to sadly distance himself from her, and he dejectedly he takes his coat. He says, is goodbyes. Now.

There's sad blues playing over the soundtrack, bully tactic. This is what people do, what these sociopaths do in order to keep you in their sway. They got to be the most pathetic thing in the fucking world. The only trope that they don't indulge, heir, is he doesn't sort of slowly shuffle while continuing to look over his shoulder, like stop me, stop me. You know, they almost get there.

They run up right to the line, but they don't go over. He gathers his things, he leaves, but not before a last little bit of it's dumb. His coat gets caught in the door, like this guy can't even leave gracefully. We cut over to a lane, and what's interesting is her face seems to register I don't know if regret is the word or sadness. Something about this scene playing out seems to make an impact on her.

It's the one genuine moment of character from the previous episodes of Taxi. It's one carryover where Elaine suddenly snaps back to reality and goes, what the fuck is happening here? Why am I having sex with this man? He's frightening? What am I doing?

Who's am I just a puppet on a string? I shouldn't be behaving this way. But I could see it if it was relief that played across her face, like oh, I can't I'm so happy I finally came to my senses. What was I thinking? But she seems to be She takes a deep breath, and she seems to be a little bit disengaged from everything that's happening at that moment.

Any glimpse or glimmer of reality that we see is completely undercut by the fact that Walter rushes in and basically says, I don't want to leave was that bad for you? Because I was dying out there. It would have been so much more appropriate if you just walked away. And she's left with this confusion over what she let happen. But no, he comes in.

He's desperate to have her take him back, and she rushes over and she tells him, let's just have a relationship. Let's take things slow, and they share another passionate kiss as the blues playing over the soundtrack concludes, and that's it. We cut to the bumper and the bumper is even more nauseating. HB. Yeah.

If you think this whole episode has been bad, wait till we get to the comedic stinger here at the end. Oh my, it was disgusting. This is all taking place in the same day. Alex is driving Walter to the airport. He's going to drop him off because Alex knows that this was gonna happen, or it wasn't gonna happen.

They were going to have sex or not have sex. For some reason, Alex thinks it's his business to pump this guy for information, so he starts asking Walter how it went with Elaine last night, and Walter initially begs off and says, well, there's some things gentlemen never discusses. That's what you say when you want to tell somebody, yeah, we had sex without telling them, yeah we had sex. Crassley Alex says a single word which turned my stomach. He says congratulations, and they laugh and they shake hands.

He's basically like, hey, dude, good job he had sex with my best friend HP. It was a verbal high five over the fucking of Elaine Nardo. What the hell was going on in this episode? I want this episode stricken. It's that time.

It's time to talk about yellow lights. What does a yellow light mean? It's a reminder we're scoring on a scale from one yellow light to five yellow lights. Five yellow lights is the perfect taxi episode. They don't get any better than that one is.

This is the worst episode that I and I never want to watch it again. I think I know where we're headed with this, but as we do, let's start with you, father Malone. What did you want? How many yellow lights? Would you give?

A lane and a lane duck? Can I give it a malfunctioning tail light? I toyed with the ideas of watching this, like can we go down to zero HB I would like to remind you zero is a number. I don't want to set a dangerous precedent here. There's no dangerous precedent because I don't think we can ever get this bad again.

I think this is a zero. You know what, I will allow it because, frankly, I agree with you. I had written down one yellow light, but as we're talking this through and I'm reliving the episode just talking about it, if I never ever see this episode again, it'll be too soon. There's really nothing that makes me want to watch this episode again. Here's why it's a zero.

There are episodes that I'm going to give one yellow light to that I will not recommend to people, but this episode I will actively recommend people not watch it. I agree with you that we have no choice but to add a separate zero category to this. I recall this episode having watched it. Probably the last time I watched it was many years ago. I did not react as viscerally as I did watching it in preparation for this podcast.

Again, I think we're in total agreement. This one isn't even worth a yellow light. This is a terrible episode. It's shockingly chauvinist. It's the comedy is two vaudevillian.

The characters that we love are acting in irrational, uncomfortable, unlikable ways. Thank you for bringing me to my senses. I agree zero yellow lights for this episode. Never watch this one again. It's like an Ai wrote this episode.

This is going to do it for this episode. Father alone. When you're not clocked into the garage, where can people hear and see you? You can currently hear and see me over at Midnight viewing that podcast I do with Mike White from the Projection Booth and the Culture Casts Christasio. We review horror anthology television series.

We're currently reviewing Night Gallery, Rod Serling's follow up to The Twilight Zone. You can hear me over there. You can also hear me over on Noisejunkies. That is a podcast, a musical podcast I do with Mondo Heather's Heather Drain and uh how what's his name? I don't know?

So you can find me. All of that's over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. There you go, And as for myself, funny enough, I actually am featured on the Noise Junkies podcast as well, and good stuff there. Check that out. I would also encourage everybody to check out Follow Malone's Dark Destinations podcast.

That's his series of audio dramas that I've done a little work for. But if you like audio drama, if you'd like great storytelling, I would I would advocate that that you check that out. It's fantastic. And also you can find me. I have a band camp site called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com and there's some some of my audio nonsense up there.

Check that out. But that's gonna do it. If you please feel free to subscribe to this podcast if you feel if you like what you hear, please feel free to write a review or rate us. We'd love to hear from you anyway. For myself and for Father Malone, thank you again for listening and we'll see you guys next time.

Thank mister Wildears.