Episode 26 - Nardo Loses Her Marbles

Weird way media. Ni miss is she that guy with it now? He's an actor at the phone name and the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome again tonight, mister Walters a taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host and with me as always is father alone my other co host, Father him alone.

How are you this evening, low Bridge? Of course we're talking about season two, episode four, Nardo loses her marbles. This was written by Earl Pomerants redeeming himself. Sorry yes, directed by the director in residence, James Burrows. Reminder, we are doing the shows in broadcast order and not in order of film, so we start this episode in the garage.

Is Loca, who's sporting yet another haircut? Oh yeah, I like. It makes me think that we saw these episodes out of sequence, because he's when we first saw me, had a very high tight cut, and then the next episode he didn't, and then we're back to that original tight cut again. I know you just said we were reviewing these in broadcast order and not in order of filming, but it leads me to think that there was some shenanigans there. Loca looks a little different.

He's singing to himself as he's cleaning out a cab, and there's a bit that commences where Louis and Loca divide up the money that Loca has scrounged up in the cab. Not just the money. It's like a lot of things, right, It's everything in that thing. But you're right, starts with the money, right, It's yeah, it starts with the money. Loca holds up like a coffee can and Louis asks him, what did you get?

And he shakes the coffee can and Louis and rattles off exactly the amount of change and denominations in the coffee camp. Penny is a dime in a Canadian quarter, right, That's exactly what he says. Yeah, And do you know why I took note of that? Why because that joke would eventually be stolen by family ties. For Alex p.

Keaton in an episode that is like renowned because it's not one. I think. Like Alex is in a coma or something and he's having these delusions where he's being interviewed by a psychiatrist and he's talking about change. He loves change and money, and the psychiatrist drops change and he names off they would put that in best of clips of that of that show. And here's the joke, thieves.

Yes, it's just a throwaway line here, but it's but it works. Laco doesn't produce much money, so Louis forces him to empty his pockets, and in an echo of the previous episode we discussed where Jim goes through his pockets looking for money, there's a very similar bit that ensues where Laka pulls a crazy variety of items from his pockets. He pulls out a windshield wiper, he produces a sandwich, he produces cat cookies, and then when Louis asks what he needs with cat cookies, Laca then produces the smallest kitten I've ever seen in my life, a real life kitten. And it's all silly, but damn it it works. Oh god, yeah, you know what this joke.

As much as I complain about the Vonavillian nature of a lot of the humor on the show, this particular bit they can do in every single episode and I'm gonna be happy with it. I love when people pull weird stuff out of pockets. Because Laka has that those coveralls that gives him the freedom to pull just the craziest, Like, the pockets are all over this thing, so he's just pulling weird item after weird item. But they've really Reverend Jim was pulling nothing but rope out of his pockets. Because he's wearing all jeans, he doesn't really have any pocket space, but they made that work.

Here. They give him all the space in the world. And sure there's gonna be a windshield wiper and a sandwich in there. Yeah, totally, you said, an adorable kitten. You know, every time I see this is I don't mean to bring the show down.

I'm sorry, listeners, but every time I see an animal in a television show now or a movie from Days gone by, all I can think is that cat is long dead. Yeah, that cat has probably been dead for thirty years at this point. It's a really horrible notion, and yet I don't know there it is. And you know what, I honestly it's launched in my brain because of Marge Simpson on The Simpsons, who took a job and was looking at at one of those hanging their baby posters and she was like, as tenacious as that cat is, it's long dead by now. At this point, Lane rushes into the garage and the rest of the game you're greeting her.

They're all playing poker in their customary spot in the middle of the garage at the little poker table HP. Yeah, everyone is in cool blues today. It's like the blue Meanies took over the Cat Company. It's like Pepperland. I took note of Bobby's dark blue puffy shirt that he's wearing.

It's like a pirate shirt like Seinfeld, right, Bobby's big into puffy shirts this season, big time job on Pirates a Penzance. This girlfriend is crazy girlfriend from last season where her Pirates of Penzance hair, and he's like, that might be the future. I'm always big on this idea that if you had an action figure of somebody, how would they be dressed? Right, If there was an action figure of Wheeler, of course he would be wearing the leather jacket, the white shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, and blue jeans and the mane of hair that flops around. Right.

So whenever I see some something like this that short circuits that notion of what they would normally be wearing, it always makes an impact on me. Elaine comes over and the gang are all lamenting the fact that they haven't seen her in a long time, and she explains that here's I had a feeling this was going to be a thorn in your side. This is a bit of an aspirational episode in a way because she's, well, why why has she not been in the garage follom alone? She's busy, man, what is she busy doing taking care of kids? That's not what she says.

She's busy because she has she's working on a brand new exhibit at the gallery. It's her first exhibit and it's got to be perfect. That's This is not an aspirational episode because it's not like whether or not this job goes well means that she'll get out of a cab company. She just wants to do a good job at her work. Right, It's not aspirational in and of itself, but there's an element of that because that's why she's running herself ragged, is well, that's one of the reasons is she's working on this exhibit at the gallery.

But do you haven't even mentioned the best part, which is her lavender sweater and jeans. Well, I was getting to that, I was getting Yeah, Well, we'll discuss that here. What I wrote is I actually thought, I said to myself, I'm really on board with how they've styled a Lane in this particular scene, because she's always gorgeous, that's without question. But what I liked about this particular scene, even though it's lavender and it's the colored nicely, ultimately she's just wearing sweats and has her hair styled and a kind of a mom do, right, which I thought was very much busy. Yeah, well even busy.

Now it's looking fantastic. She looks great, but hb she can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. That is an Angulie reference. And this is where I cut in that commercial. This was a very popular commercial around that time for perfume, women's perfume.

I can bring home a bacon and then let you pet. You give her an hour perfume for a twenty four hour woman. I can work till five o'clock, come home and read you take any time tonight. I'm going to click for the kids, and I can guse you and gie the eight hour perfume for your twenty four hour woman. But my point is, but my ultimately my point here is that in so many episodes, and don't I'm not saying I'm not knocking it, but in so many episodes they dress her up and kind of a glamorous style.

In this case, it made sense for the character because not only is she just a mom trying to make ends meet, but she's so busy she doesn't have time to put on like the fancy vest and the scarf that's nodded perfectly, and whatever else she would wear casual is always shocking, but it's always more put together than this usually. And I'm thinking about that suspender and T shirt combo from a couple episodes ago, the red and blue number there. So yeah, this is just sort of I need to put on clothing to function in the world because I'm going in twenty three different directions but still stylish. So she feels bad, she feels like she's well, she's ever the nurturer. She feels like she's neglecting the guys, so she sits down at the poker table to catch up.

She says, deal me in, and there's a It's comical through this whole scene she keeps avoiding playing poker. She keeps saying, oh, I'm going to play and then she has to get up because she has to do something in this I'd like they call her for a phone call and stuff, but they're acting like She's like, Oh, I need to just look through my purse. Hold on, do I have a stick of gum over there? Like, well, I'm gonna go get a candy. Like they keep going like, oh, like a Wheeler doing his theatrical head to the sky.

Yeah, they're really upset because she just can't sit down for five minutes and play on one hand of poker. So she sits down and she starts catching up and after pulling stuff out of random pockets. This is our second vaudeville joke. She asks Tony how did the fight go with Gomez? And Tony says, I got knocked down in the second.

She says to Bobby, how'd that experimental play go? He says, oh, they closed it? And Alex, what have you been up to? You remember what? Alex says?

His response, he deadpants, I went to a bad play and a short fight. Vaudeville Vodville. But you know what, Earl palmerance Vaudeville a little better than the Charles Brother's Vaudeville. It works. It works line from line I'm saying, not for ingenuity.

As far as ingenuity, the Charles brothers Vonville has reigned supreme. I wonder if they ever listen to this and hear me seemingly banishing on them when I really adore them. You know, this is the definition of nitpicking, right, because they're operating at such a high level at this point a lane. This is when Elaine says, well, well, let's play some cards and catch up, and then she proceeds to enumerate all of the things that she can do while they play, Like she says she's going to eat her lunch, she's going to balance her checkbook, and she's going to go through her mail. So already this episode, they're hammering this idea that Elaine is burning the candle at both ends, and I think we know where this is going to go.

I don't think we do know where this is going to go. Honestly, we know there's going to be and all of this coming to a head, but I don't think we have any inkling where that head is going. You're probably right. So Luis comes over and he's complaining about all the messages that have been coming into the garage for Elaine. Now another side note that this is another good example of just how much things have changed since this episode aired.

And I think nineteen eighty this is obviously a pre cell phone era, so you really had to rely on people to take messages for you, Like you'd have to give them the phone number of the place you were going to be at to be reached, or you had to give them the payphone number and kind of hang about right. We saw that in the very the very first episode. You feel like we didn't grow up doing this. You No, no, I'm saying we did. This is just like, this is unconscionable now.

Nowadays everybody has a cell phone, so it's not a it's not a question of oh, I got to take all these messages for you. You have all these calls coming in Nardo, I don't know what to do. And now it's just no big deal. Now it would be Nardo, get off your phone, because she was busily answering all of those messages as they were being delivered to her. Yeah, she'd be scrolling around answering messages, listening to voicemail, all that kind of stuff.

So but like I said, all the while she keeps having to get up and do things, and it's really, uh, it's really harsh ing. Bobby and Tony's mellow. I mean, they're really upset that she can't get go through with this game. And there's a funny interaction between Bobby and Tony about how quota quote busy they are. Bobby says, oh, I have an audition in five hours and then Tony has to be at the Jim tomorrow in fifteen minutes, which is I thought it was kind of funny.

No, no, I thought it was funny. I know you thought it was funny. Meanwhile, it was not funny. Well anyway, Meanwhile, Alex is chatting with Elane by the coffee machine and he says he's really worried about her. He's concerned because she's you know, she's like I said, she's burning the candle at both ends.

And Alex is a good friend, you know, but I wish you would have a friend who would do that for you. Well I do. His name is father Malone. Of course, help me, help me. I don't you understand what I'm crying out for him?

Everybody should have a friend like you, Father Malone, or like Alex Rieger. Of course I'm no Alex Rieger, as evinced by a scene later in this episode, go ahead, yeah, I know where you're going with this. We'll talk about that. We'll get to But what I this episode, by and large is really kind of an early showcase for just how good friends they really are. She Elaine's does her best to allay Alex's fears, but then she's interrupted by another phone call and there's you know, she just can't sit still for two minutes to do anything.

Oh she remember, she barrels through all the things she like, doesn't give him a word. I'm reminded in this episode of how great jud hersh is. Not that I need a reminder of it, but there's something about the chemistry between There really is chemistry between Alex and Elaine, and it's it works really well. I was really struck by it again in this episode. So the last call that Elaine has to take forces her to leave and rush out to the gallery, but not before she invites every all the caves to her art show on Friday.

Wow, what a turnabout. Or she didn't want them anywhere near her apartment because they were just going to embarrass the shit out of her right, and now she's like, everybody, come to the fucking thing and be your cabby selves. You know why, because I'm not thinking straight, because I'm crazy. Well, but it also indicates how much has changed in the last eight months, right, because, as we learned in the previous episode, the time frame of all these sort of hye jinks is very compressed. It's been about about a little less than a year, probably since she had that party at her apartment that went a ride.

So is everything now b PM and a PM? I think so, before paper marriage and after paper marriage. I think so because that's the only concrete evidence we've gotten of the passage of time. So I can only assume that it's been about a year. Party at Elaine's house with all the gallery weirdos was before paper marriage, so it was probably longer than eight months.

Okay, she's come around. She's no longer abjectly embarrassed by everything the CAB's do. She wants them there. But to your point, it's always good when your friends aren't abjectly embarrassed. Well, and to your point, she's not thinking straight either, so that could be factoring into her decision making.

So then we cut to a cool shot of cabs rolling down the street at twilight as we settle on b roll of an art gallery. I couldn't make out the name of the art gallery. It's like very fuzzy. I think it said Ryan Gallery. Did you see that?

Did say Ryan Gallery? What the sign that's missing is this is not the gallery we saw last time? Because this is not the gallery last time. There is that episode where Elane picks up that prick, that guy who ends up trying to stiff Clark. That's the one that's that's the apartment episode.

That's the one with the weirdos. Yeah. Yeah, So we saw the gallery then too, and that that was not this gallery. So we have a mystery Marioss on our hands. It's just going to appear randomly throughout the city.

So we cut inside to the guys coming into the gallery looking very very swanky. They really stepped up their game. Bobby is in the cream colored jacket with an open white shirt and dark pants looking he's he looks great. And Tony is wearing kind of a slate colored combo with a light brown shirt almost I think it might be Linen. He looks just so easy breezy.

He looks great. He does. Unbeknownst to everyone, those pockets are full of tinfoil. Right, and Alex comes in. Alex is just wearing his boring blue blazer and red tie outfit.

I think that we've seen him wear that several times. Same episode, when everyone came to the to her house to the party exactly, Bobby says they were going to go to Marios because because Elaine greets them, and Bobby says they were going to go to Marios first, but Alex said, they have food here, so and I don't know if you noted this, but that got such a big laugh from everybody in the audience, like this idea that they're just freeloading off of the you know, the art gallery opening. I thought it was great. It just really time. That was funny.

Now it's just sort of an accepted practice. What are we going to do. Let's go get some new Wait, there's free food. We'll go to the free food thing. Now it's a matter of course.

But then it was kind of shocking, like, oh my god, they're there just because of the free food and not to support their friends. How horrible. Yeah, there was sort of ghost just to reinforce the point, Tony says that it's a good thing they got there before, and he freeloaders scoffed it up. But to your point, he makes mention of like I think, Lane says, well, here, help yourself, guys, but don't take all the food. And Tony says, somebody tells him, don't put it in your pockets.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he says, you should have told me that before I lined my pockets with tinfoil. So she was right to be embarrassed. I think the set decoration for the gallery I found really charming. It's not only are there paintings covering all the walls. There's big paintings, there's small paintings, There's all this stuff.

There's there's pedestals with art objects on them, like this thing that looks like a prism from Dark Side of the Moon multicolored. There's track lighting on all of the walls. Some of the paintings have little note cards like inscriptions tell you who the artist is and what it all means. I couldn't pay attention to any of that. Man, Mary Warrenoff is standing in the middle of the fucking scene.

I'm getting to that. Holy shit, Mary Warnoff. In fact, in my notes, I wrote all camps Mary warren Off exclamation point. Look out everybody, because I had such high hopes. Because suddenly Mary Warnoff is on taxi.

Well, she's the first of two amazing get on this episode. I was shocked at both of them. When the cavvies come in, Elaine is talking with this beautiful artist who was played by Barry Warrenoff. She's probably best known for her association with Roger Corman and Paul Bartel. She was in Eating Raoul death Rays two thousand, of course, Rock and Roll High School, to name a few.

And I also remember her as the mom in the Suicidal Tendencies video for Institutionalized. Oh I've never seen that video. I remembered that video fairly well. I remember her in it. Fun fact that I learned today, and IMDb I AMDB reports that she was the childhood sweetheart of folk singer Harry Chapin.

Well, I did not know that. Interesting. Yeah, she's a fascinating lady. I love Marijorna Thin give her absolutely fuck all to do in this episode, but god damn, I was so happy to see her. Yeah, because by this point she had already done all these cult classic movies with Roger Corman.

Right, I mean already done, Jane, Absolutely, she had already eaten. Rol Rouel was after this, wasn't it? It was eighty two? Oh yeah, you're right. Suddenly I thought this episode was from eighty four.

He's got nothing to do in this scene but get hit on by Bobby. And she looks great. She's beautiful in the scene, but she doesn't have anything to do. To your point, do you ever see No, Mad's no, No, it's John mccernan's first film. I did not see it.

Is it any good? What's it about? Brosnan? And he's like a French like a journalist, and he's following these this tribe of people like in the Early Morning Horess of Los Angeles. One of them is Mary Moorenoff.

One of them is also animant. It's really good. Check it out. We keep making reference to that episode where Elaine hosted a party for all the people at her gallery, and the owner of the gallery is this woman named missus Hazel Team, and she's featured pretty prominently in that apartment because she finds out that Elaine as a cab driver and they have a conversation about that and what have you. Now, I don't even notice she's in this scene, but she has even less to do than Mary Warrenoff.

It's weird. She's in the background. No one ever makes reference to her. She just wanders around. Did you notice her?

I did not notice there. I thought I was very scene. I'm only looking at her in the midst of all the little fires that Elaine is having to put out because she's in charge of this exhibit. One of the other artists, a fellow named Philip Polvoy, has a nervous breakdown in the midst of all this and starts taking his paintings physically off of the wall. This actor is, of course, Robert Piccardo.

Man, it's like a yeah, it's like a Joe Dante reunion or something. This was only his third acting credit, which I found surprising appearing and get crazy. He's in Amazing Stories. He was in Back to School this same year. He was in The Howling.

He's great, he's the were wolf at the be Yeah, he's in The Howling. I remember him really well as he was in Inner Space. You remember, Oh my god, Cowboy Cowboy. He's an old cowhan from the Most of our listeners might remember him best as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Okay, greedy Robert Pricardo is now when you say the doctor, when you refer to Star Trek, you're talking about him.

He's the doctor. We have all these legends of independent cinema and comedy doing nothing, just taking hup space in the scene. Man, they do nothing at all. He's got that one bit. Mary Warnoff has nothing at all, zilch.

Elaine, at this point, is in the midst of a full on freak out. One of the owners, the intriguingly named Sandor Kovaks, which I think makes him sound more like a Kryptonian than an art gallery owner. Totally. He sounds like he's the Ghostbusters should be investigating his descendants. He saunters over to Elane and to complain that the champagne is flat and they've had complaints.

And he's doing this in a voice that makes him sound like he should be golfing at Bushwood Country Club. It can only be described as muffy, that's right accent going on, Oh muffy, Elaine, this champagne is not quite up to snuff. Yes, yes, this is all too much for Elaine and she puts her face into the champagne and blows bubbles, like you want bubbles? Here? You got bubbles?

He kind of like, oh my word, he clutch them. He responds in this muffy tone. He says, that's what I should expect from a cab drive up. Oh my god, what he should be golfing with. Judge smails at this point.

It's ridiculous. Alex has to physically carry a Lane out of the gallery because she actually takes a swing at him missus just before. But she's getting carried out of the gallery just before she smacks her head on the doorway. As she's getting carried out. It almost seems like it wasn't meant to happen somehow.

Jeff Conaway yells low Bridge just in time for her to duck so she doesn't smack her head on the doorframe. It's amazing. It's so beautifully timed. If it's a mistake in Bravo, if it was planned a Bravo, it was so precise, the timing of it. I thought it was really brilliant.

It makes me like Wheeler. I'm liking Wheeler a lot in these episodes this season, Like he just keeps getting better and better from me. The character is really coming into his own because the first season it's very much about how self centered he is, but now we're seeing a different side of him and it's way more endearing. Totally seems like a good friend. Now we cut to a purol.

Yeah, is all the principles are involved, So so what do we see? You talk about it? Well, we cut from the sort of swanky party and the caricature of the rich man to the outback where Alex riger in his death car is being pursued by toe cutter on looking for some gasoline out on the wastelands. Because it cuts to Alex driving on the street, so they cut the footage of actual jud Hurst driving a cab. It might be New York, it might be La probably La, right, although they would sometimes go to New York and do a bunch of pickup stuff with the actors, which this might be.

But anyway, he's not just driving. He's hanging out the window and shouting at another car who seems to be cutting him off or trying to cut him off, or won't pass or will pass. Unremarkable, one would say, a scene, except it's in like Benny Hill like fast motion. Like I said, Mad Max is an Apple comparison. Most of that early those early movies, they would speed up the camera for you know, to make everything look like it's going faster, but they also have eighty yard Jed Hirst like what are you doing?

Get out of the way, So like none of it it ends up looking like a Fellini movie or something that they've like badly dubbed. I don't know. It was very unusual, very watchable. I could watch a lot of it. This is what I was alluding to in the last episode, I believe where I was talking about James Burrow's making some really interesting directorial choices, and this is a perfect example of that, because you could have just conveyed the notion that Alex is driving a lane home in a cab with just simple b roll like we've been used to of a nondescript cab driving down a nondescript street in a nondescript timeframe.

But this is actually Jed Hirsh swerving maniacally in a somewhat undercranked scene, and that makes it look like it's happening much faster than it actually is, and he's shouting crazily about Hey, get out of the way, or what do you do? It was amazing, It was all over. It was all of five seconds worth of film and I was transfixed. Hey do you think that was weird? No, it's not audience because way do you hear what The next scene is.

We now cut in to the familiar confines of the cab. It's Alex driving Elaine home and they're continuing this conversation. Alex is insisting that Elay needs some help. He's seen her basically melt down in front of this gallery owner. She should see a psychiatrist, and she's resisting the notion, so he pulls over.

She says something like, I gotta be tough. I don't have time for this. I've got two kids that I depend on me. I can't afford to do this, and Alex says, you know what, you have a responsibility to those two kids to get the help. He suggests to Elaine that she's too scared to realize that she's just as fragile as everyone else in this world, which is a little heavy handed, but it happens to be true.

But the scene takes a little bit of a turn at this point. I think this might be what you're alluding to. Elaine gets this expression on her face. She says, I don't know, maybe I just need an arm around me, and Alex obliges. He puts his arm around her, and then she says she could use a pat on the head.

Oh my, shame on you. He does it. He pats her on the head a couple of times, and then suddenly she falls into his shoulder, into the crook of his shoulder with a very it's the look of love on her face. A look of love. Yes, let's call it that.

Suddenly the mood in the cab has shifted radically. Suddenly, Seymour, I hope. So she asks for a kiss. Alex, being human, being a man and being human, goes to kiss her, I think on the forehead or on the top of the head, and she at that moment she cranes her face up. It's the old switcher room.

We've seen it in the favorite joke in the world. I engage in this joke a lot. I will point to my cheek and to say to my girlfriend, kiss me there, and then do you spin your face around? And then ah, we're It is so sexually charged in this cab. At this moment, she gives them one full a kiss full on the face, and as they're kissing, you see the confusion roll across Alex's face.

No dilemma. Why must I always be the one with a moral dilemma? Alex pulls away and Elaine is just keeps trying to close the gap between the two of them, and there's he can't go far because he's in They're in the front seat together, you know. She kind of reasons to Alex. Look, they've cared about each other for a long time, and Alex can't say that the thought of them getting together has never crossed his mind.

And he admits that it crossed his mind once. He says the day she wore the red and white striped dress. He says, that was the only time that the thought ever crossed his mind. This will come back, Oh right, yeah, Okay, let's say that was the first time the thought crossed his mind. Let's be honest here, Alex Rieger, don't tell us it was that one time that you saw in the red dress.

I'm not buying it. I think he's being charitable. He tries to start the car and she grabs the keys out of the ignition and kind of takes them away so he can't start the car. This is I mean, this is a crazy scene. What am I watching here?

I don't know? Is this taxi anymore? I don't know, but I'm with it suddenly, like an Adrian Line movie. It's like nine and a half weeks in a cab, right, it's so sexually charged. You'll have to get them, Alex.

And then she drops it down her cleavage that it's the only thing missing here. I do need to start the cab. It's not really my property. I will have to get those keys. It's no secret that Mary Luhnner and by extension, len Nardo is a very, very sexy woman.

But this might be the first time that she has exuded sex in that way. Am I wrong about this? No? She hasn't turned it on like this before. And what sucks is there is an actual moral dilemma hair because she needs help.

So all I can think is God, Elane needs help? What is this evolution of spirit? Alex is one hundred percent correct in all of this. Every fiber of his being is probably screaming like, what do your nuts? Go for it?

They'll ever be a better time than this, but he realizes that she's vulnerable, that she's emotional, that she's at a real tipping point as far as her being fragile and being upset about everything that's happening, he would be taking advantage of her, let's face it, Oh yeah, in her right mind. It would be meaningless to her and fracture their friendship. Eventually, Alex is the better man. But but what's great about this is they don't pretend that he doesn't have a strong urge to follow through with that proposal. Oh yeah, He's like, let's revisit it, kind of a thing, like, yeah, this is not a this is not a you're not thinking straight.

This is you might not be thinking straight. Right, I'm still a man, after all, I'm not that good. It would be easy to portray him as this boy scout that is above it all. He makes it clear that he's really not above it all, but he just has the willpower to resist her temptation. Which I love about this scene.

I know I point a lot of echoes on chairs, but I'm going to do it again. There's a scene where Sam Malone has to turn down Rebecca Howe sanctually and at the time, she's a mess, and she says why why don't you want to? And he says, well, you're kind of gross right now, and it very much echoes this scene in that complete opposite way, you know what I mean, Like he's doing it for the absolute rhy reason. It's right, I don't care about what a fras will state. You're in You're just unappealing to me.

Alex is He's honest, He says, some part of him wants this, but he doesn't want to ruin their friendship, and frankly, he doesn't want to take advantage of a woman who's being very vulnerable. Elaine finally gives him an ultimatum. She says, look, I'm busy, yes or no, and Alex says no. And the look on Elaine's face is amazing, because this may be the first time in her life that a man has rejected her full court press. That's the impression I got, what did you think?

Totally? Well that and there is that yeah, but she's also realizing how serious her situation actually is. Maybe she's a little embarrassed by what, you know, by putting herself out there to that degree. Alex is still insisting shed go to see a therapist, and she finally relents, if for no other reason, she wants to prove Alex wrong, and she tells Alex take me home. Alex throws in as he's driving.

He says, look, hey, if the psychiatrist gives us permission to uh, and she gives him this dirty look. Oh my god, like she could kill him. That dick thing to say after turning her dad, Like that should have been the way he turned her down. He's realizing that his golden opportunity is slipping away. Yeah, and he has to do something to try and get a rain check, almost like, well maybe kind of is any possibility.

No, she makes it very clear in one look that that ship has sailed. Alex rig Yeah. We cut to the inside of an exceedingly well appointed therapist's office. Everything it's great. It's the word is texture.

Everything is done up in mahogany, rich dark wood. There's a couch off to the side. I mean it's a big office. There's a giant desk in the middle. There's a paint a miracle by the set deck here at taxi.

Elaine is in there. She's alone. It's weird that she's wandering in this guy's office while he's not there. I don't know where he was or why she's allowed in before he gets there. But here we are.

It doesn't seem to have an anti room, it's just the office. She's you know what you do when you're alone in an unfamiliar office. She's perusing the paintings on the wall and looking at the desk and what have you. And finally the therapist comes in. She's looking at a painting of a hobo clown.

Oh boy, the hobo clown. Every house seemed to have one. The psychiatrist comes in and it introduces himself as Bernard, Doctor bernardins which side note, if you looked at the end credits the character, and the end credits, the character is listed as doctor Richmond. So I'm not sure why he went weird. It was very weird.

I can only assume that he's actually not the therapist. Maybe he's like, I don't know, like some escape mental patient who's pretending to be doctor Edmonds. I don't know. But nevertheless, yeah, that's exactly that's what I'm going for here. So he comes in, he introduces himself, and he's played by a guy named Tom.

You will He's a character actor whose credits stretched back to the nineteen forties. He's been in everything from The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe. He's been in Studio One, he was in Trapper John MD. A lot of TV. This guy's been in a lot of stuff.

I have to say, Taxi has a knack for casting these kinds of roles with offbeat, charismatic actors, and he's a wonderful example of this as we see it. He was on Beretta with Robert Blake. Wow. Yeah, a lot of TV, a couple of seasons. Yeah, but like you mentioned that, like he's in Adam's Rib, he was in The Girl Can't Help It.

This guy was. He was a heavy hitter as very as far as like comedic performances. Taxi has this ability to get these offbeat actors, these actors in some cases like him or like a Jack Gilford, who have this long history and comedy and film and TV, and they just they bring such a wonderful playfulness and honesty and charm to the role. And he's great. He's like just the kind of warm therapist that anyone would want to have.

He's funny, he's charming, he has this wonderfully expressive face that can get a laugh all on its own. You know that in the sixties he had his own show. It was the Tom Mules Show. Yeah. Really was it like a variety show?

You know, it was like a sitcom. It was. He was like a real estate agent and and a wife and a teenager and stuff. What has to happen is Elaine is so uptight about seeing a therapist that he has to be completely disarming and in a sense let her drop her guard so that she's not so afraid of seeking help and she can open up. And this actor does that beautifully.

So they make their introductions, and doctor Collins asks her opinion on the Clem Cadittle Hopper painting that she was looking at. She admits she says it stinks, and she hopes that he didn't pay much for it, and he says, I didn't pay a lot. I painted it vaudeville. He says he uses his painting to gauge patient honesty, which I I think I don't just it's wonderful. It's exactly the kind of thing that a therapist should, would, would and should do.

And a therapist who knows that he's a terrible painter. He knows it's crap, but it gives him a peg on the kind of person that he's going to be dealing with. Right, So they sit down and they start the session. Elaine is still super nervous about this whole thing. She's talking NonStop, and all doctor Collins is doing at this point is listening.

He's not saying a word. She's insisting there's nothing wrong with her, and she even pulls out this is like shades of want Epstein and Welcome Back Catter. She pulls out a note. She asks him to sign the note. He looks at it, and the note basically says, I've examined Elaine Nardo and I find nothing wrong with her.

And da da da it's her. She's going to give it to Balx, please excuse is totally saying, signed Elaine Nardo's therapist. He takes the note and she she says, well you sign it, and he says, oh, right right now, And he's playing along with her in this really funny way, but because yeah, very been used about the whole thing exactly, And she says, well, maybe we could talk for a little while. I mean, if you got nothing else to do, and he says, well, you know, we're here for an hour. Let's give it a shot.

So he entreats her to sit down, and finally she does. She says, all right, well, throw the ink blots at me. You're gonna ask me about my dreams and everything. She says, He's just like, no, I'm not going to do that. No, and she says.

He says, well, I have a very much more radical approach to treating my patience. And she shrinks back and says, well, what do you mean? He says, talking Everything about this guy is so warm and friendly and gentle, and I love him. I wish he was recurring, right. He's like the therapist that everyone should have drops in on every once in a while.

Eventually we're going to get to Laca's split personality, and that would have been a perfect opportunity to bring back this guy. So treat him. If they start to talk, and he asks Elaine to describe a typical Elaine Nardo day, and she proceeds to lay out this crazy list of chores that she has to do each and every day. She's got to get the kids up for school, she's got to make breakfast, she's got to do the laundry, she's got to go here, she's got to do that. All of this stuff and all that Doctor Collins can respond with as wow.

He says, how long you've been doing this for? And she's all a little over a year, and he says wow. He's allowing her to understand that this isn't normal, and now we are all Elaine Nardo HP, that's true. This episode is a prophecy of the horrifying future. Kind of, She does say it all.

But here's the thing, Doctor, I set aside some time every day to pamper myself. And he says, kind of as a joke, he says, oh, I bet it's all of five minutes, and she says, yeah, but sometimes even twice that. Well, at least it wasn't. I do allow myself a moment where I scream into a pillow for five minutes, like I do on occasion, run over a hobo right just to feel something. Yeah, I'll take pampering for five minutes on the level of sadness over vehicular homicide.

The genius of doctor Collins is he's just letting her talk. He's not interrupting, he's just letting her go and to be honest, like this part of the episode gets a little heavy handed for me because we now know where this is going to go. It becomes a monologue for Elaine Nardo to through talking about her day, she starts to dig into deeper issues, like you eventually learn through this anguished monologue that she's delivering that she's been doing this since she was eight years old. She was responsible for three little brothers, which to my knowledge, we've never heard about before this episode or since this episode, which is a little bit cheap if you ask me. He was raised in a tenement in the Lower east Side.

The end result of this is that Elaine has a kind of an emotional breakdown from all of this talking. And so she's finally had a breakthrough. And yeah, she finally owns up to the idea that she needs help, which finally in the sewer. And then one day they closed the sewers. I found it, like I said, rather ham handed.

What do you need? Do you need a piano? I'll get you a piano. You can't play it, get out of the way. Let the next guy again.

Is that a mister freedom reference? Yes, of course I think about that speech like every day ah, that is great. My ask to you is, what did you make of this monologue, this Elaine Nardo pouring out her guts to the psychiatrist. I think, look, I agree we didn't need to hear her star. I have taken care of three brothers.

Clearly, this is a human being who has been taking care of everyone her entire life. And whether or not it started when she was a child, what she's going through right now is enough, and maybe they could have focused a little bit more on that, and that alone should bring her to the realization that she's overwhelmed and might be a little bit cucku. I know cuckoo is a technical term, so I'm not judging. I know what she meant. She's just a little bit overwhelmed by the circumstances that she finds herself.

To your earlier point, I think we're all in this state now away surely, and like Elaine Nardo, I think most people are now waking up to that fact. Right. But I agree with you that the focus should have been on the here and now and not I remember when I was a child and my father threw me in the water and I couldn't swim, and I you know, I that's I don't need that. No, she's got two kids, she's trying to balance two jobs. That's enough.

But nevertheless we cut to back in the garage. It's another I think it's supposed to be like ten weeks later. I think they say something to that effect. It's sometime later in the garage, and here we will witness an active cruelty by Elaine Narda. It's very cruel, the ultimate active cruelty.

One might say. Alex drives the cab into the garage, into the main stage, if you will, But he comes in from stage left, in the stage right. This should indicate that something's going to happen to this cab, because it's such a rare occurrence, but it doesn't. He just drives in and gets out to be can switch. James Burrows is keeping us on our toes.

He's like, Oh, you think something's going to happen. You think there's going to be some plaster falling from the ceiling and a second, No, just fight. Focus on the drama. The real action is in the red and white dress. We're getting to that.

But before we get to that, I made a note he's gonna bring his booking on a little to Louis's cage, and he walks by the poker table where they always play poker, and there's three different people. It's almost like an alternate reality Cabby Bunch. And there is one woman who's facing the camera. She's like a female version of Wheeler. She has the same hair as Wheeler.

She's got this leather coat, she's got this intense look on her face. But it's a woman. Did you notice her? I didn't notice female or eager, but I hope she recurs. She could be Bobby Wheeler with Bobby with an I Bobby Wheeler, you know, is it bizarro Bobby?

It was? What's the opposite of an actor? Something? Yeah, that you don't show perform You're not performative at all. You just want to work in the cubicle somewhere as it like word processor or something like that.

Yeah, like an office drone or government employee or something. Yeah, like a like a CPA. Ppa, is are the opposite of actors? We've solved it. So as Alex has walked to deliver his bookings to louis cage, Elaine glides in and to your point, she's wearing that red and white dress but what I love is just by walking in with this dress.

She gets a huge laugh. She said nothing. I love the reaction that pop had got from the audience. I thought it was really funny this we're married with children. They would have gone yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

On that same note, I wonder if you noticed she walks in and there's these three sketchy cabbies behind her. They're right near the stairs that go up to mister Mackenzie's office. Did you see them? Much like a scene with Mary Warren Off, And if you're going to put Elaine Nardo in a dress like this, I'm not going to see any background players at all. Sorry, background players of the world.

Do you know how much I love you. The best part of it is they're all blatantly checking out Elaine as she's sitting there in her red dress. Watch it again with them. Yeah, they're like ooh, like really looking her up and down. Alex and Elaine are commiserating about her therapy appointments, and she says it's going well.

And the reason she came. I mean, she's not there to drive a cab. You don't dress up in this beautiful dress just to drive a cab. For eight hours or whatever. She says she came in because she wanted to talk to Alex and admit to Alex that he was right that that night in the cab when he rejected her advances, she was avoiding her problems, and she says this wouldn't be the right time to have a physical relationship.

You can still see the regret on Riager's face when she says this. This is a fuck you, right, It kind of is yeah, yeah, yeah, without saying it outright. It is a fuck you, and it's the best fuck you of all time because it seems sincere. But the red and white dress is a fuck you for turning me down, you fool, which is weird and antithetical and complicated. And Earl palmerant's good for you, man, What a good ending.

It's a humdinger of an ending, that's for sure. It's a puzzler. There's even a final zoom. It's a little vadvillian. It's a final zoom on Alex's face.

Vaudeville. Right, I'm not going to fault that zoom. But wait, we thought we were going to commercial, but there is actually a bumper. The bumper doesn't really amount to anything. But what I love about this bumper is this.

So what happens is Elane. We cut back and Lane strides back into the garage and she's wearing a trench coat. Did you notice this? No, come on with the trench coats already, HP, you've got your rule of trench coats once again. Well, here's the thing.

She's wearing this trench coat. It's buttoned up and strapped up completely. If you just saw her wearing that trus Yes, I did notice this, and then she takes it off and it's nothing. It's just she never takes it off. She never takes off that.

She never takes off the trench coat, which leads me to believe that it was she had the red dress on underneath the trench coat. But that was the easiest way they could. Maybe they hadn't filmed the clock, like, maybe they filmed the bumper before that, so instead of having her have to go and get a costume change, they just went and got cotters. Yeah, just trench coder because it's it could not be buttoned up any higher, and there's no like scrap of clothing visible poking out from anywhere. You're saying, this is a situation where they were like, at the end of the day, they were like, we're going to be short, yeah, and then the writers were like do this, and then costumes were like here, put this on button, button button.

I would be willing to bet money on that being the what happened, because it just seems so weird. She I mean, it almost looks like we've seen sitcom show episodes where maybe the wife dresses up real like there was a modern family where she's wearing a trench coat. Claire's wearing a trench coat nothing else for Valentine's Day. She could have been naked under that coat. But maybe Nardo was maybe that's we're seeing something else entirely.

I don't know. Intimating that Nardo had a really good fare, it was hard for me to focus on the happenings of this bumper that I was just I was so waiting for the trench coat comedy to begin and nothing. I got nothing out of it. The trench coat meant nothing. I can't even I mean, I'm going to the exception to the trench coat rule.

This is like the anti Chekhov's trench Coat. Nothing happens. There's some business around Laca he comments on the psychiatrist, but he's mistaken a pediatrist for a psychiatrist. It doesn't it's dumb, it doesn't go anywhere. The real story here is this trench coat.

Trust beyond this and anyway. That's the end of the episode. So we are we have hit the portion of this show where we're going to talk about yellow lights. What does a yellow light mean? I'm going to remind you'd be great every episode of Taxi on a scale of one to five yellow lights, one being the worst episode of Taxi and five being the best episode of Taxi.

I'm going to start with you as as our custom father Blone, what do you give? Elaine loses her marbles for Elaine Nado loses her marbo. I give four yellow lights for you and your valiant crew. Really, yeah, really, this is a good episode. She's good in it.

Everyone's rocking hard here. The stuff with the doctor is really fun. The low Bridge is a high point for me as far as the physical comedy here goes. The Vaudeville was restrained and funny and verbal, and Earl Pomerantz always manages to innovate, including the solution for this episode, Like they're friends, again, But what's that's an interesting dynamic they throw in here at the end. Here always he's always twisted at the end, Earl Pomeranz.

So yes, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I will watch it anytime it's on for yellow lights. Not perfect, because that would be crazy to say this is perfect. But in your opinion, this is but one light away from being a quintessential taxi episode. Correct it had had some Jim Ignatowski in it, I think it very well could have pushed its way there.

Well. I gave this episode three yellow lights. Perfectly acceptable, perfectly respectable. It is. It's always a treat when they give us a Narto centric episode.

I welcome those perfectly delectable who it's scrumptious And although, as I already said, the emotional climax in the therapist offices is rather overdone, I thought it was a decent episode overall. I love when they bring Elaine and Alex together and let them bounce off each other. There's even some funny banter and interaction with the other caves at the art gallery, and there's some other funny moments. The psychiatrist, as we already said, as an all timer. He's fabulous.

I wanted more of him, but you know I, at the end of the day, I thought this was a better than average episode. I'm not turning it off if it comes on TV, but by the same token, I'm not necessarily going to seek it out if I have my pick of what episode to watch A Cardo with hair right, So for me, three yellow lights from Father Malone. Four yellow lights. That'll do it for this episode of night mister Walters, father Alone. Where can the folks find you when they're not when you're not clocked into the garage?

Check me out out over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. I've got a radio drama I write and produce called Dark Destinations. That's a lot of fun. HP does the music for that. Check that out if you like old timey radio, or you can also hear the show I host called Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast.

I co host that with Chris Stashu from Culturecast and Projection with Mike White, where we look at televised horror anthology television. We're looking at talents from the dark side right now, and we're talking to a lot of its creators, and we've got a lot of cool bonus episodes. Check us out over there at the Weirdingway Media Please do, and, as I often say, if you love good audio drama, if you love great storytelling, you cannot do better than Dark Destinations. Please seek it out for myself. You can also find me on the weirding Way Media Network.

I also do a music podcast with Father Alone and Mondo Heather's Heather Drain called Noise Junkies. If you're a music nerd like we all are, please check that out. I have a bandcampsite called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Look for some new material coming soon. But yeah, so that'll do it.

Thank you so much for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, write a review, or rate us. We'd love to hear from you in any manner that you choose, so for myself and Father Malone, thank you again for listening and we'll see you all next time. Hi,