Episode 23 - Louie And The Nice Girl

Weird being way media nine. Mister Walters can see that guy with it now. He's an actor at the phone the name I can't Drive and the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome again tonight, mister Walters, a Taxi podcast. I am HP your co host and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone.

Father Malone, how are you this evening? I'm well, thank you. It's good to be here in a brand new season. Woo, Yes, it's a new season. It's season two of Taxi getting underway.

Here. Just a little bit of a historical context. Season two of Taxi started up on nine eleven, seventy nine, and it's also in important to note that Taxi that season, or the previous season, i should say, was nominated for six Emmys and took home three. Are you aware of the three that it took home, Father Malone, none at all. I'm assuming at least one of those was for writing.

Actually one was for comedy series. One was for lead actress in a comedy series that went to Ruth. That went to Ruth Gordon for Sugar Mama. It's a strange I don't know why she went in as a lead actress in a comedy series because she was a get star. It's a little odd.

And the third Emmy was Get This for Film Editing for a series, and that went to somebody named em Pam Blumenthal. So congrats m Pam Blumenthal. But up to I don't know, but congrats are in order. That's that's pretty aspicious. I have to take back everything I said about the editing of last season.

I guess I'm kidding. I didn't make fun of the editing at all. I don't think I've ever said a word about the editing. Reminder, of course, we are doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. Tonight we are covering season two, episode one, which is Louis and the Nice Girl.

This was written by Earl Palmerance and it was directed by James Burrows. The first shot of the season is a nice b roll sunshiny shot, summer b roll new it's new too. This isn't the same recycled stuff from first season. I'm assuming it does seem that way, and it's nice that they've put aside the usual sort of wintry. I guess maybe now that we could just say Burns is no longer on the show.

Maybe that means that the Winter of Discontent has passed. They've escaped to the ninth level of hell, the ice level. Now that Burns shuffled off HP. Yes, we're starting with the b roll, but really we need to start with the credits, because this year, the credits are coming at you, baby. It's like a three D effect this season.

In associate with seven to eleven, Get your three D glasses, Taxi and three D. You know what, the credits actually reminded me of the movie that I most associate with that sort of push forward on the credits was the Original Superman. I don't know if you remember the credits for the Original Superman. How could I forget the five minutes of credits where every single one of them takes ten seconds to slowly fly at you. It was a very long credit sequence.

You're right about that, Like how a lot of like old westerns would have that sort of introductory overture as the movie was just starting. You know, it was kind of like that. It was like this preamble to the movie. Totally what it was they snuck an overture under the credits of a movie. Who can blame them?

I mean, John Williams's score is and was iconic, but to be fair, as a what six or seven year old kid waiting to see one of your favorite superheroes fly on screen, it was kind of interminable. I will say this, I only recently came to understand that that theme Donna it very well slots into saying Superman, and like that was kind of the intent. And now I can't not hear Superman every time I listened to the theme. Was there a chorus at some point? No, I don't think there was ever any lyrics or anything, but that the horn there is meant to evoke those words, and when you think about it, they really do.

They do. And now I'll never hear that theme the same way again, So thank you for that. So the credits are a little bit snazzier. They're a little bit happier, a little more action oriented. I don't know why because the show is the same, but it's a It had a fresh coat of paint, if you will.

There's fresh b roll. It's a sunny day at Sunshine Cab. We see the cabs driving it and out of the garage and inside the garage. I think Dany for candy. Don't you think it looks beautiful?

It makes me want to, you know, go out and catch the ice cream man, the mister Softy and now, hell no, it makes me want to go into a dank, dingy garage and pull candy out of an ending machine. Mmmm. Well, you know they life isn't so fun for the cabby. So it's a simple pleasures that really count. And we'll see that at the moment Christmas Christmas in July.

Here it really is. It is. So we cut inside and like you said, the cabbys are at the poker table playing their usual cards. The person who restocks the vending machine, I don't know what you call them, comes in the woman Dolly's in a bunch of candy to replenish the machine, and all the cabs excitedly jump up. We've never seen them do this before, but we're led to believe this is a custom in the garage, and they all line up because they all want the fresh candy.

Bobby sort of initially, he hangs back at the table with Alex, and he reacts kind of incredulously at these adults fighting over candy bars. But then when Alex notices she's brought quote malted balls, they too rush over to get in line. Makes me not like Alex Rieger on this. I assume he's referring to woppers and whoppers were never really that good of a candy. If we're being honest, whoppers are gross and if you like them, I'm sorry, but you're a gross too.

Here's a side note about Alex. Now that we talked about Alex, Alex is wearing this yellow and blue striped polo shirt, which is it's very out of character. Alex is basically letting us know we're heading into the nineteen eighties here. Pretty much. It's like, you know, an eyes on polo shirt.

But for me, what I don't know. I think it's just a color scheme. Made me immediately think of Charlie Brown when he walked across, you know, because all he's missing is that like jagged lightning stripe across the top of it. But it's very much the same shade as Charlie Brown. And much like Charlie Brown, Alex Rieger is constantly kicking a footballs and landing on his back.

He's a loser. What can you say? The candy delivery person as we started to talk about is played by none other than Rhea Pearlman. At this time she was the girlfriend but soon wife of Danny DeVito. Of course everybody knows that, Yeah, this intro to the so called Burrow Verse would soon lead her to her Emmy winning turn.

Of course, is Carla Tortelli on Cheers. She's I don't think we can argue that she's iconic as Carla. I mean, she's good here, she's very sweet. It's a nice side to her, but I don't think she ever truly shook the mantle of Carla. After Why would she.

That's such an indelible character. And what I enjoyed about this episode was seeing that this character she's playing is the like the anti Carla Tortelli. She's everything Carla isn't. She's sweet, she's funny, she's caring. We'll see all of these things in play.

So as the cabbies are in line, they start to make conversation with Zena while she's refilling the machine. I have to say, it's a totally different candy machine. I don't know if you noticed that, because I think the old one obviously was just the prop. Because it's just they they go over there but they don't remember them actually getting any candy or anything from it. But this actually struck me as a real candy machine.

She's pushing the thing down, she's putting candy in. Listen, they had a weirdo vending machine last year, remember, because there was a conversation about getting the fresh apples. How are we going to get the fresh apples? Hp? And not only that was not only was it a different vending machine, it was off to the side.

This candy machine currently resides where the coffee machine usually is. I wonder if the coffee machine will be back in its proper place in the next episode. It's suspiciously prominent, as if it just for this one particular scene. So the cabbys can go through this business with Zena, you know, speaking of Okay, they all lined up for the candy, right, I get it, it's the fresh candy, right. But here's the thing.

If she's replenishing that vending machine, she's going to take out anything that's actually past expiration and stale, right, and then she's going to load the new candy in. But whatever candy is not expired and not stale is still going to remain. The next to be vended the new candy is going to go on top. So if you want a Mars bar and there are any Mars bars in there already, you're getting the old Mars bars regardless, she would have to hand it to you, right. I've worked at places where if you're getting good with the delivery guy, he might go, hey, we want a free canty, because it's sometimes they will take out the ones that are just expired but they're still okay, and he'll just give them away, like I'm going to throw these away anyway, Here you go.

But there the cavies are literally slavering for the fresh candy, particularly Louis. As we'll see in a minute. They're standing in line and they're making conversation, kind of driving home this point that Zena has become kind of a beloved figure in the garage. This season's Angela. Oh she's so sweet.

Oh hey, how's your family? Oh I tried that recipe you had It was so good. Ah, everybody loves Xena. There's a lot of that. I love the fact that so the first she talks to Tony and she brings Tony this special quote unquote organic shampoo that he's been looking for now.

Did you take a look at the shampoo bottle that she hands them, did you notice, no, what is it? Something from our pasts? It is it's I remember this distinctly. I don't even know if they make this anymore, but it was honey. It is it's well a balsam organic shampoo love ballsome I could my brain could not go back that far, but yes, I remember.

It was a very slim sort of cylindrical container that had kind of a honeycomb pattern on the outside because it had like wheat oil and honey in it. And they had a very very famous commercial that you'll remember at the time, Father Malone, where it would be a woman, like a profile of this woman or a close up shot of her, and she'd say, oh, I tried well a Bossom shampoo, and then I told two friends, and then they told two friends, and they told two friends and so on. And as they're doing this, the person's face is multiplying on the TV screen. So what was one is now there's like twenty people on screen saying and so on and so on. Out By the end of the commercial, we have become the fly basically.

It's but it was so you couldn't escape this commercial. It was a very popular shampoo. It does have organic in the title, but I would question whether by today's standards it's in fact an organic shampoo, but we'll suspend our disbelief for the sake of this episode. Also, if you have Saliac, putting a bunch of weight in your head might not be the best move. We also learned that Zena has made puppets for Elaine's kids, which Elaine is very grateful for, and Xena even finds time in this line to flatter Bobby about an O'Neill revival that he recommended to her.

Of course, all she has to do is like He says something like, oh, how'd you like it? And she says, I liked it, but the only thing that would have made it better is if you were in it, which is it's catnip to Wheelers. He loves her at this point, so Louis breaks up the line with a threat about whoever stays in line gets the last pick of caps or what have you. He strolls in and exaggeratedly savors the first baby Ruth. This is so weird.

Can I just say this? This scene is this is the weirdest power trip I've ever seen ever. Okay, I need to listen, preach, guys. You literally drive around New York. I'm guessing there are plenty of bodega's and convenience stores and everywhere else that you can get the best fucking candy in the world.

They're bakeries and delicatessens. Like the setup bothers me how thoughtful I want to call her Angela. Now Zena is like, I know they needed a shorthand to show us how nice she is as a person, but something about her going down the line and fixing everyone's life for two seconds really bugged me. And now here we go anyway, Nardo asks Zena for a change for a dollar. But Zena is dumb struck.

And who is she dumb struck by? Father Bahlone. The name of the episode is called Louis and the nice girl come on. So there you go. So she's dumbstruck by now side note, Nardo is, and I know you noticed this because I know it right now, Nardo, Here's what I wrote, Nardo and Red Nardo and Red Ai, I know, Buoeno, that's what I wrote, But not only that, I question the logic of the light purple pants.

It made her look like she was Doug Hennings's assistant or something. It was very very peculiar, very too bright, too loopy with the color scheme. Did she have on purple? I couldn't see. All I could see was the fucking red or robed her in.

Oh yeah, no, it's like a light purple slacks or jeans. I couldn't tell. Maybe corduroys. Not good, not a good look for Nardo's better than this. We know this.

Nardo is absolutely a gas that Xena is turned on by Louis. But Xena is shy, so she asks Elaine to introduce her to Louie. Now, clearly Xena has been at this for She says, she's been doing this for about a year. So she's been coming often enough to the garage to where everybody's on a first name basis with her. But so she's developed all of these different rapports with all the cabbies.

How is it that she's not been introduced to Louie in almost a year. I couldn't throw that out because he's always in that cage. And if she has to deal with anyone, she has to deal with the manager of the garage. Guess who that is? Oh right, Louis.

Also, what is she messing with the soda machine for? She's not a soda machine person, but she has it opened for some reason, Not that she has anything to replenish it with, because that candy rank is just feel with candy. Are you guessing my tamber with this particular episode, HP, I'll go further. This episode feels like it's a leftover script from season one. I had a very similar reaction to you.

Elaine goes over to talk to Rieger, and there's some vaudevillian reactions between Elaine and Riger when Xena. Xena gets this notion that Elaine wants Louis for herself, which there's some silly, sort of guttural reactions from both Elaine and Riger. And when Elaine resists making the introduction, Alex just scoffs and says that Zena is an adult, and he offers to introduce them. The weird thing about this is he introduces them and then there's about five or six different junctures throughout the rest of the episode where the fact that he becomes almost a pariah for introducing Xena keep giving him shit like, Oh, but I feel okay because at least I didn't introduce them, like the fuck are you talking about their two adults?

They even did she even need the introduction, just go up and say hi. Anyway, I think part of it is I think there's a lack of I don't know, a lack of realism and their interactions. I don't know anybody who could be that painfully shy and yet have such a great rapport with literally everybody else in the garage. Somehow she got through to everybody else. But for some reason, Louis is this on an unattainable person that she has trouble, you know, talking to.

It feels like a Brady Bunch script, just like rewritten for cabbies, like oh, would you introduce me to him? Greg? Like what the hell? Alex walks zena over to Louie's cage, during which Louie announces a new rule over the PA. He says, yes, they do take out calves with bald tires.

What I love is he has this little handwritten sign that I think he's going to like paste on the outside or tape on the outside of his cage that literally says like calves could be taken out with. I thought that was pretty There was a nice funny touch. Alex In uses Zena to Louis after all this build up, which immediately makes Louie, who curiously is still eating his baby Ruth that I think he got from the machine a full ten minutes prior. Like, he's still nursing this baby Ruth candy bar. It's kind of disgusting.

He's tiny, he needs to take little bites, so he immediately Once Louie gets the sense of this woman who's interested in him, he starts acting really creepy towards her. He asks Zena to go with him to his cousin's wedding. Yeah, that's what he says, a free meal. Who can argue with that, And not only does she accept, but to seal their deal, he gives him another baby Ruth. Must be love, Yeah, it must be love.

The cabbys are watching all of this with apprehension. We cut to another b roll. I didn't match them up, but to my eyes it looked, if not exactly like the b roll at the very beginning of the show. It must have from the same shooting day as that first because it's the same Golden Hour Sunshine on the Cab Company, but it's a slightly different angle. I think that's continuity.

I'm just glad that it's not snow because we had plenty of that last season. We cut into the garage as Louis strolls in looking rather disheveled, and he's wearing a conspicuously buttoned up trench coat, and this may be another trench code from The Lost and Found. Well, what it made me think of is when you see somebody with a trench coat buttoned all the way up in a TV show, it means one of, let's say three things. One they're a spy. Two, they're some kind of what they would call in the old days a masher, like a flash er, So somebody who's got some perversion and they're gonna flash you.

Is there a third like a Is the third just a normal human being wearing a trench coat. No, the third one is somebody who has something to be revealed for the sake of or they're hiding something like last season we saw there was that one episode where Wheeler was wearing a trench coat for the sole purpose so that he could be lifted off of the ground with that big hook that cable, you know. In this case, we're getting number three, which is he's hiding something that will reveal a bit of comedy. So he comes in, Louie's crowing about the night that he and Zena had together, and to absolutely no one's surprise, he takes off the coat to reveal that he's literally only wearing pants and a tie. He's wearing no shirt, no undershirt, nothing else.

He's basically naked from the waist up. Elaine, as we made mention of, she's still sore that Alex introduced Zena and Louie, and Bobby insists that no one asked Louie anything, which is probably sound advice because in this particular situation, it's clear that Louie is desperate for somebody to say, oh, how is your date, Louie, to which Louie is going to spill all sorts of sallacious details, right, So Louis, I hate all this. So Louis strolls out of his cage. He's getting himself dressed, and he's continuing to brag and brag about his dallions while all the caves do their best to just try to ignore them. Alex is particularly annoyed at this thing that Louis does every time he mentions Zena.

Louis has this laugh every time he mentions the name Xena. He does it almost unconsciously, and it really bugs Alex. This will come back. We'll see this kind of come back full circle at the end of the episode. Mark they're planting these seeds of genius here.

Let me just say that, here's something I noticed. When Danny DeVito goes he does it all the way at the back of his throat, but when when Alex Rieger jed heirsh does it, he does it fully upfront with his tongue. He was just in profile, so I noticed he kind of looked a little bit froggy when he was doing it. Side note, Louis goes to whisper the details of his date to Bobby, but he's already whispered them in Alex's ear, and Alex responds with revulsion, and then he goes over to do the same thing to Bobby. But to get to Bobby's ear, he has to move this giant mane of hair from his ear like a rug and Bobby.

What I loved is Bobby reacts with this very Travolta esque sort of disgusted. He says, I don't even let people I like touch my hair, which made me think of Travolta and Saturday Night Fever. We're in a new season here, right, so we'll notice that Banta got a haircut, right. He's looking a little trimmer these days, a little more clean cut and wheeler. I think maybe got hair extensions, because he's gone even more of that may.

It's so funny when he goes to whisper in the air. It is it's like a lap of hair that he just sort of like pulls aside. Yeah, he's going to nudge it over with his hand. It moves like a very thick carpet or something. It's very it's very odd, but not half as odd as The weirdest thing about this whole scene that we're watching here describing is that every Cabby reacts with disgust at Louie's attempt to divulge the details of his day.

Basanta wants him to tell him, but like Louis won't. And I guess that's comedy, but I'm just like, just tell Banta. Banta wants to hear it. I was caught up with the fact that Banta Is has this disturbing smile on his face as the palm is wandering the table looking for somebody that he can grow about this date to. But it's just so creepy this smile, this sort of vacant smile on Banta's face.

I couldn't shake it. It really disturbed me. In a rare bit of true react to Paulma sees this, It just makes a wide berth around. He doesn't want to deal with Banta. It's too creepy, too creepy even for Louis.

Listen, you know he says when he says at the top of the scene, Louis says that the five weeks has been whatever, strenuous or whatever. So now we're led to believe from previous scene to this scene, it's five weeks later. All for this episode, we don't get the five weeks of the other cabbies' lives here. Nothing happened in that cab company for the next five weeks. We've got to get jumped to this point to continue this story.

For a story that is extending over the course of more than a month, very little happens really in this episode. As we're going to see through the discussion of it. But yeah, it is a long way to tell a very slight story. I agree. Hey, we see Jeff again.

Jeff is back. Everybody. Yeah, Jeff opened the episode. He's like Candy Machine is and the Girl's coming something like that. I love it.

I could not be happier. Burns is gone and now Jeff is becoming more prominent, and we'll see him becoming even more prominent as the seasons go. But it's great because he's so wonderful. Jeff announces that Louie is expected upstairs, presumably to talk to the boss, so before leaving, he tells the Caves to tell Xena he's going to pick her up at eight tonight, and after he leaves, the cabbys debate what's going on. Either Zena sees something in Louis that they don't, or she's just crazy.

Both seem plausible to the Caves, and then Zena comes in and asks to speak to Alex alone, and weirdly, she brings up again. She brings up the fact that Alex brought them together. Like I said, everybody seems to have an axe to grind with Alex over the fact that he introduced Zena and Louie. Is this the nineteenth century? All of a sudden they needed this formal introduction, and now that person has to take like Jane Austen's taxi.

Why, mister Riga, you do go on? Zena confides in Alex that even after seeing each other for like you said, for five weeks, she and Louis haven't gotten physical yet, to Alex's surprise. You know, for all of the sort of bragging that Louie's been doing, it's all a cover. He hasn't had the guts to even touch Zena yet. Louie hasn't even held her hand.

She says, it's been five weeks. It's very d so. But the news delights Alex and we fade out for commercial. Oh excuse me, hold on, You're not fucking just fading out on this scene yet, sir. Because when she's telling this to him, when Alex realizes that Louie has been lying to them and doing this whole charade for the past month and change, he starts stifling laughter.

But he does it by keeping his mouth shut. He's swallowing the laughter. His act of stifling laughter genuinely frightened me. It is what I imagined as a child, the inside of an asylum would look like. It's terrifying.

It is. It's a very odd a little lot of character for Alex. Alex could have played Pennywise the clown. As it turns out, after this strange display, we, like I said, we fade out for commercial, we fade back in and the b rolls back. It's the nighttime exterior of Marios.

And I'm so happy that it actually says Marios. There's an actual facade outside of this bar restaurant and it says Marios. And this is further emphasized because there's the weirdest zoom in. It zooms all the way in so that there's make no mistake, this is Marios. It zooms from in the street, presumably all the way so that you can read every curve of that m every swish of that s I wonder if Mario it's James Burrows, after watching what had gotten cut together last year, what he was forced to cut together for exteriors for Marios, told the second unit, listen, when you go out there, you fucking make sure that it says Marios.

The b roll. They're stepping up their game with the season already. I'm very, very excited to see what the rest of the season has to offer. I'll tell you what Marios at Night has to offer. The worst fucking buffet in history.

I was about to get to that. Oh, glasses and fucking paper napkin dispensers and once again yellow napkins. Super weird. I wouldn't. I don't want to try any of that.

That's what I wrote. So we cut inside and Alex Olane Antonio are sitting at a table. But my side note is exactly that. It says Mario's buffet now consists solely of napkin dispensers, at least five full dispensers with the yellow napkins. There's a bunch of glasses, there's a tray of silverware.

There's not a scrap of food anywhere the nighttime crowd. There's no buffet at night. There was though, there was when, Oh it was with breadsticks, but that was a particular themed night. No, no, no, they when when Alex took Mama Gravis out to lunch, remember there was a buffet on the thing again lunchtime, we're dinner service here. There's no here, I guess I guess that makes sense.

I can see that Louis floats into Marios and tells them that he has a hot date tonight, but he has time for one beer, which I think the grossest thing about this is that he asks Tommy for a beer and there's already a there's like several beers already poured on the bar, and he just takes one and hands it to Louis. Yeah, that could have been sitting out for a while. It's probably all warm and gross us. Nothing wrong with warm beer. It's wrong with you.

You're not I thought you were zooming in from London. No, no, no, no, that's u plus. You know what makest disgusting is you know it's near, so it's doesn't It's not even like they're drinking alcohol. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're drinking tepid, tinted water. Put the head on it.

I saw an interview once with George went because he how much beer did he have to drink? On cheers right, He always had a beer in front of him and I remember him complaining about that that non alcoholic beer, how just wretched. And they'd be sitting out with all the lights from from the stage on there terrible. So Louie's salacious chit chat is too much for a lane, and she leaves in a huff, which is kind of a character for her because normally I think she would just have a few choice words for Louis, but in this case, all bets are off and she's like, this episode is all over the place. But I will say that Nardo, it was in a calming blue outfit and she looked dynamite.

So Alex tells Louie kind of in vague terms about his conversation with the with Zena, which prompts Louie to hustle Alex away from the table to have a bit of a private chat and uh, after insisting that Zena is lying, Alex demands that Louis just quit talking about Zena because it's not fair. Zena is a nice girl and why should Louis be spreading these rumors about her. But Louis then wants to open up to Alex about what's really going on now, the reason that Louie hasn't touched Zena because she's, in his words, his first and Alex scoffs at that. Now this is a bit of kind of harsh reality and oh a bit of seediness to the whole proceedings that this act should be titled Louis de Palma Horrormonger.

When Louis says that Zena is his first Alex scoffs at that, because apparently, when he says, when Louis was a cabby, he had a reputation for taking quote interested fairs to the bad parts of town. Let's say that the customers who want to have sex with prostitutes to whorehouses and then participating, Yeah yeah, and then Louie's bragging that they wanted to pay me. It was a little too grim for me. It wasn't to me, that wasn't comedy. That was kind of upsetting to think about Louie and what he was involved in and how wretched the whole situation was.

Can you imagine Times Square in like nineteen seventy one and holy look like the Deuce see that show? I love that show? Well, like here, like the combat Zone remember the comments here, Well like there, sir, I live in Las Vegas. Yeah yeah, so for me it's like my whole town. That's true, but it's legal, so it's not nearly the idea.

Yes, that's right, because we're more civilized here in Nevada. Yeah, but just something about the idea of Louie going to these whorehouses and career, I don't know, it just seemed rather sort of kind of gross and sad to me. For Louis Xena, it's different. She's considerate and she treats him sweetly. She's the first girl that he's ever been out with twice, he says, his first nice girl.

And Louis was brought up believing that there were two kinds of girls. There were nice girls and there were girls you have fun with, and he's having trouble reconciling that with Zena being so nice to him. I'll just say that Danny's Vieto is doing some BlimE work here. Like, I really feel for Louis de Palma, which is a hard thing to do given how bristly he is, but I could barely pay attention thanks to this glistening sheene around his lip. Now.

I don't know if it was a stylistic choice that they were saying that Louis was like sweating because he was so nervous, or maybe the lights were just making him sweat, but it made him look like one of those those balloon inflating clown heads that you go when you go to a carnival and you have to fill it with the water. With the Watersolstal, I mean, it continues that not only am I thinking about lou To Palmer having sex with prostitutes in the early nineteen seventies New York, but now I'm looking at him like sweating profusely from his top lip. It just was very off putting. I'm sorry. Not only do I agree with you, I didn't notice it so much in this scene, but when we get to the scene with him and Zena in her apartment, it was very, very evident that he was He had sweat going on all over the place.

For the sake of the character and what he's growing through. It actually worked because he is nervous. But I think, I mean, if I had to guess, I'd say maybe the fact that he's acting opposite his girlfriend at the time maybe put a little bit of extra pressure on the scene for him to make it work. I don't know, but You're right, he did have a lot of slop sweat going on. During this conversation, Alex says to Louis that he should just break up with Zena and spend the rest of his life seeing cheap women to satisfy his lust.

And in true sitcom fashion, Louis advice to heart Bill, why don't we have a soundboard quote from We're gonna make one of those we gotta do it, We gotta do it. So he he agrees, and he takes this as good advice, and he leaves to go to Zena's apartment. So we cut to another bit of New b roll the Blue Building. This one I thought I found rather ominous. Suddenly we're in creep show or it tails from the Dark Side, which makes sense because Tommy, well, I'll reiterate Tommy at Marios is TJ.

Castronova, who's the producer from the entire series Tales in the Dark Side. It's a wonderful tie in. But for me, when I saw this sort of brick it's like the back of an apartment building with a brick facade with the fire escapes and everything, and as a zoom in on one window, to me, it reminded me of something out of the movie Rear Window. I mean, that whole movie is basically the brick facade. But that's what it looked like at night.

We cut inside Zena's apartment as she rushes to the door to greet Louis. Now here's another side note. Her apartment looks extremely cozy. That did you take note of all the detail? I thought it looked wonderful.

Oh my god, I would you're talking about that double bird cage up on the wall at Harlequin puppet like hanging creepily like standing on the fucking bureau on the left side of the room. How about that? How about that wonderful paper hole there, that giant paper clip that like wrought iron paper clips sitting in the crown. There's what appeared to be framed menus on the wall. You know, sometimes you go to a nice restaurant outside have their menus framed.

But those two giant garden cages that looked I mean, that's look. If they're going to convey the idea that this is her apartment, they didn't have to do that. You could have conveyed it with a minimum of clutter and texture. But I love the fact that these set designers take every scene as a challenge almost and to me it looked really Even the couch looked rumpily and lived in and very comfy and pillows all over it. I thought it was wonderful, but I couldn't get over those cages.

It was very appropriately decorated. But I will say this when the scene, when we get later in the scene and there he's locked her in her bedroom or whatever, they kind of cut to a shot where we can see Danny DeVito full fully and the carpeting when it leads up to that door is all buckled and bubbled. Yeah, And I thought, oh, that's a rare misstep for the set decorators. Here on taxi and I'm looking at a set. Oh yeah, that's a well.

And there's another piece not directly related to the carpeting. But as we'll get to this, but at one point she's in the bedroom trying to get out because Louis has kind of locked her in there, and she's banging on the wall on the door. I don't know if you notice, like the angle was such that you can see the wall buckling with every hit on the door. It was clearly a set, but it looked great. You know, just all look too close.

Certainly these are my minor things, and look, I'm not saying that this show has to be mean streets or anything, but the carpeting should not look like it's just laid there for this scene. But I think for the most part the effect was achieved in true classic taxi set design fashion. It looked great. I mean, the scene itself is only like five minutes. It's not a very long scene, but imagine having to build that setup is phenomenal.

Xena lets Louis in and he immediately starts acting weird. He tells Xena that he brought her flowers that he then threw away and that they're not going out tonight. He asks her to sit down, and despite all of her attempts at trying to soothe him, Louis declares that they're splitting up and she wants to know why. And Louis claims initially that there's someone else, and when Zena presses him, he tells her do you remember who? He says this is a disco heavy episode because not only is he now claiming that the person that he had to break up with because she kept she didn't stop singing Love to Love Your Baby, and that was embarrassing to him because she's, you know, so erogasmic on stage.

So not only do we get this Donna summer disco reference, but earlier in the episode, as Louis is exiting a scene, he sings Macho Man, which, by the way, this is we're almost in nineteen eighty here, aren't we over this by now? Like g love to love you Bess, like seventy five or something. When was mancho man popular? Same time? Right?

It had to be because that that would have been the heyday of the Village people when they were on Casablanca, so that I don't know, but I'm just guessing it could have been like seventy six, seventy seven. It could have been, you know, pretty early earlier than probably when this script was written. Zena keeps demanding he come clean because he's being evasive, and finally Louis admits that Zena is too good, that she's you know, he's used to another kind of woman. He's having trouble quote relating to her in a non verbal manner. But Zena says that she's nuts for Louis and that they should try working it out, and Louis asks why, I mean, why nuts for me?

And she admits that that's the same question that everybody's asking her like, why are you going up with Louis? Why are you so nuts about Louis? And very tenderly, I think she says that Louie touches her. It's a very sweet moment. She says that all the nights that he left her on her doorstep and didn't come up to her apartment, she says that she goes inside of her bedroom and she cries.

I have to say, for all the knocks we're giving the episode that the one thing that we've been saying is that Divito's performance is sublime, and here it's really hit a peak. The look on DeVito's face as she makes this admission is phenomenal. You see all these emotions playing across his face, the sadness that it's reached this point, the fact that he's caused her any pain at all. It's really remarkable. Louis takes her hand and gently asks, take me to the place you cry, which might be the most sensitive thing that Louie says in the whole series.

Take me to the place you cry, Like, let's go have sex in the place of your greatest sorrow. It's a weird fucking line, man, I don't know that I would use that. I didn't take it to that degree. I can see where when you reason it out, it is a little peculiar. Let's head over to that place of woe and get funky.

Anyway, he's being very he's being very sweet about it. So they get up, and as she leads Louie to her bedroom, he promptly pushes her in and slams the door on her. Like we've been saying. He effectively holds her into this room as she bangs and tries to get out. It's a good bit, and Louis yells to her while she's trying to get out that this really is the end.

She says, is one last favor. She asks for a goodbye kiss, and reluctantly Louis agrees. She lays one on him that is so potent that he literally falls backward on this big comfy couch. He's like stiff as a ball, like a magician. It's like a magic trick.

He's just rigid. He follows Louis DePalma invents planking, while while simultaneously giving nineteen eighties television audiences the most subtle erection metaphor ever seen Xena walks over to the light and before she turns out the light, I told you this was going to come around full circle. She gives him his patented before she turns the light off, presumably for them to start having running like rabbits. Basically, I wish she had also produced a candy bar from somewhere hidden and then said he he, and then turned off to light because who knows what was about to happen. So that's the episode.

As is our custom, we're going to talk about yellow lights. What doesn't yellow light mean? We're going to grade this on a scale of five yellow lights. One yellow light is the worst that a taxi episode can five. I mean, like I'm giving this episode, Yeah, five yellow lights is the platonic ideal of the perfect taxi episode.

Oh I'm aching for that one. I think the mystery has been shattered. You're giving it one yellow light? Anything to add to justify your score? I think I said it continually throughout the entire episode, like this feels recycled, it feels old, It feels very silly in places.

A lot of the characters are not behaving like they normally do. I don't know why anyone cares this much about candy or a relationship that Louis may or may not be having outside of work. My attitude would be if Louise seems happier because he's in a relationship. Good, Thank you, Alex. There one yellow light by the way.

Before I give my score, I want to circle back for a moment. You know, we've been giving yellow lights for the whole first season, and I thought it would be interesting. I've compiled all of our yellow light scores from season one of Taxi and average them out. What do you think thinking back on the first season of Taxi scores? What do you think your average yellow lights score is for the first season?

Father alone? How many episodes? Twenty three? Twenty two actually, but one was a two parter that we combined into one. Okay, so twenty two episodes, yes, and it's between one and five lights.

I'll say three three yellow lights average. I'm guessing a second part before I reveal the answer. Do you think your average score is higher or lower than my average score? I imagine mine is lower than yours. Do you think so?

I think so? Okay. I will tell you that your average score of yellow lights for the first season of Taxi was a two point six out of five. Okay, almost better than average, a little more my average score for the first and this was surprising. Average score for the first season of Taxi was a two point four.

Wow, slightly lower than average. Interesting. I wonder who's the real fan here now. Obviously there are some high profile disagreements on some episodes it, namely blind Date. I can tell you you gave it one yellow light.

I gave it three. But for the most part, our scores aren't that far off. No, obviously, not if we're off by like yeah, But the fact is that you scored yours on average a little bit higher than mine. I didn't expect that. It was an interesting result.

But back to this episode, shocking to nobody that I too gave this one yellow light. Thank goodness for me. There's just not enough funny in the episode for me to give it a higher score. The majority of the caves don't feature in the episode at all, and I feel like the nasty guy meets his match in a sweet girl. It's a trope that's been done to death.

Even if maybe some of that came after this episode, I just it didn't. It felt unrealistic. It felt rushed. It felt compressed. Like you said earlier, it did feel like a leftover from the first season.

It didn't feel like I've left over from like fifteen years ago. Like hey, HP, I tried that shampoo you sold me and now my hair is orange. That's what this feels like. We both give it one yellow light, So that's going to do it for this episode of Night, Mister Walters, Father Malone. When you aren't clocked into the garage, where can the fine folks find you?

Well, you can find me in a few places, mostly over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where I host a show called Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast, where we're currently heading through Tails from the dark Side and reviewing that show. I also do a radio drama write and produce called Dark Destinations, which check both of those out over there indeed, and I too can be found on the weirding Way Network. In addition to work that I've done helping out on Dark Destinations. Again, I say this a lot, but if you're a fan of audio drama, good storytelling, please check that out. You won't be disappointed.

In addition to that, I also do another show with Father Malone, in Mondo Heather's Heather Drain called Noise Junkies. That is a music podcast, so if you're a music nerd like us, please check that out as well. I also have a band camp called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Please check that out. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening.

Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, write a review, or rate us. We would love to hear from you in any manner that you see fit for myself and father Malone. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. On the next episode of Then Mister Walters. Hi