Episode 36 - Louie Meets The Folks

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

Father Malone, how are you this evening? I'm just waiting for something better to come along HP, you know, like death starting off with Vaudeville Bob. We are going over Taxi Season two, episode fourteen, Louis Meets the Folks. This was written by Barry Kemp and it was directed by James Burrows from we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming, so we're into, uh, we're kind of into a romantic group of episodes. We dealt with Riager's love life in Alex's romance, and we dealt with with the Lane and the Lane's secret admirer.

And I guess it's Louie's turn in this episode the Father Malone because we open in the garage as Tony gets off the payphone. He's crowing to Alex in Alane about a rematch with Rocky Sinecory. I love that name. It must be to your point that you always make. It's got to be the name of an editor or a script supervisor.

But Rocky Sinacory, it's a. Great name, or or somebody somebody that they knew like in childhood. Oh, I know that guy named Rocky Sinecory. Oh that's good. You couldn't make up a name like Rocky Sinecory.

It's great. So Bobby then strets in as only Bobby Ken and he's holding what he calls his first fan letter. Some weirdo who saw Bobby in one of his commercials wants him to send them a lock of his hair, a used pillow, and a shirt, which apparently Bobby has done. And what I noted here is what would Bobby do in the age of only fans. He'd be having a blast.

Yeah, he wouldn't be a cab driver. That's you make taxi now. That's where Bobby Wriler is. Bobby Whiler would be a fair and they're really well tipping fair because he'd have bookoo bucks. If he has fans like this based on a commercial, think about this.

This is like what nineteen eighty something or other, So some weirdo had to see a commercial go Oh my god, that's the most gorgeous human on earth. Contact what the product that was being advertised, to find out the advertising agency, to contact the casting agent, to discover who this actor was, so that they could then write them a letter asking for these things. He would clean the fuck up. He would. There's teachers now that take up OnlyFans as a sideline, and they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I can only imagine what a stud like Bobby would be pulling down and OnlyFans, you know, just shake his hair a little bit, show a little more of his chest with his shirt button all the way down to his navel, he'd be great. Unfortunately, this episode isn't all about Bobby and his crazed super fans. At this point, Zena remember Zina Xena glides into service the candy machine, which has once again mysteriously replaced the coffee machine. Did you notice that father blone all of a sudden. Yeah, every time Ria Proma shows up, suddenly the scent decoration goes kind of bombers.

What's up? I know I shouldn't feel this way, but it always makes me feel a little bit like they're shoehorning her. Into the proceedings solely because she was I don't know if they were married, but she was certainly dating Danny DeVito at this point. But it always feels like they move heaven and earth to fit her into these episodes when she's not on that often, but when she is on, they have to replace the coffee machine, which is where so much action happens in the garage. So I always get a little miffed by that, and it's not fair to Rea Perlman.

I recognize that, but I don't know it's just a knee jerk reaction. Do you. How do you feel about that having her back in the garage like this. I don't like her character, so I'm ambivalent to her being here. I don't think I nyffed that she's there.

I understand her necessity as a character. I do rankle at them changing the set decoration drastically every time she shows up. It's like, just have her be the fucking repair man for the coffee machine now or something, or why does she have to still be the candy girl. I don't think this in any way has anything to do. I mean, obviously they know her, probably through Danny DeVito, but I don't think that they keep having her on the show because of Danny DeVito.

I think they probably love Reaprolman, as we would all come to love Real Problem. I love Real Proman, you love Reo Perlman. We all love Real Proman, but we love Carla. I don't like Xena. It is curious.

You make a great point that they should just make her the coffee repair person, or she could be a FedEx delivery person. There's all sorts of ways that they could figure out to have her in the garage without having to put the candy machine, which only ever, it's kind of like an eclipse, it only appears once in a blue moon. There it is, there's the candy machine, and only when Zena has to service it, so it's a little long. Her work for mo Bell. They always need that phone.

The phone could constantly be breaking down. It's an instant excuse to get in there. Get her in there without having to move one piece of furniture. Makes the world of sense. And then they could call her Ma Bell is a cute nickname, that's true.

While Xena is busying herself with the candy machine, Louis creeps in and tries to say hi to her, but she curiously she responds get lost and Louise and harassed by this, and he tries to play it off, but Zena is having none of it. There's something going on. This is going to be We're witnessing the formation of the A plot in this episode. She's upsetted him, and I think I know why, but let's see how it unfolds. Privately, Zena insists to Louie that all she asks them for was a simple favor and he couldn't even do that, and Louis counters that something like this could blow everything up, trouble in Paradise.

Louis tries to act tough, but Zena calls his bluff and she hustles out of the garage as Louis kicks the bench in frustration. The cabbys all start to gossip about what's going on, and actually, funny enough, Bobby makes the most sort of salient point of all of them, and he says it must be hard for Louis having no friends to talk to in times like this, which I think is a very savvy thing for him to say. You know, he's an actor, he's an act. You know he's an observer of human behavior. He can certainly see the good Louis.

As we know, he has been gearing up his entire life for his one man show, Louis de Palma, so it only makes sense that he's cluing right into Louise's despair in this situation. In this HP, I might be jumping ahead. But during Zena and Louis conversation, is the Emperor and the slave girl mentioned here? Yeah? It is?

But yeah, okay, So Louis says, I don't want to meet parents whatever, and she says, well, there's nothing. I don't want anything to do with you, and he says, wait, we can't. You know, basically we're not going to be having sex anymore. But he phrases it as no more Emperor and the slave girl, right, and then she stands up and you see that they're both the same height. And now for the rest of the scene, I have to imagine Danny DeVito in Rea Pearlman, who are married in real life, doing Emperor in the slave girl in their abode, and it was off putting.

This scene, this whole scene was off putting because we had gravelly hyperactive Louis de Palma. I did not like this act. I did not like this scene in any way. I just wanted to say that before we moved on. Yeah, I it is.

It does pose a curious image. And you use the word rankle earlier, and I think it's a perfect way to describe the scenario. But yeah, it is. He'd have laurels on his head, right. You know he's got a cape sure Ria Prolman.

How is her hair? I don't know. I'm already thinking too much about it. See I see. I think that's way too advanced for him.

I think he's probably just taken a bed sheet and wrapped it hurriedly around him like a toga and maybe like one of his belts around the I don't think he's going to party city and buying an Emperor costume. I think he's whatever say and Louis is using. It's she has a towel with a whole cut in the middle, like over her on a slave girl. What I What you're saying is getting to the heart of some real problems that I have with this episode, and we're going to continue to get into it. But I don't really love desperate Gravelly Louis.

There's something about that that just doesn't. I know, it's all part of humanizing him and making him less, you know, less of a monster and more of a real human who has needs and foibles and all that kind of stuff. But I call me crazy, but I really I just I like the imperious sort of Louis that is, the master of the garage that everybody likes to poke fun at, that he's always in the mix, as Louis often is not the monstrous Louis, but the Louis that is just in the garage, barking orders at everybody. And this is setting kind of a dangerous precedent for me. Do you feel the same way or is this Are you enjoying this peek into another facet of Louis's personality.

HP, Once again, you have crystallized my thoughts exactly. Yes, I think this goes fundamentally against Louis de Palm's character, which is, ultimately he doesn't give a fuck what any of those cabbies think about him and his life. And if he's having a fight with his girlfriend over there, his reaction wouldn't be ha, No, everything's fine, everybody look over there. It would be get back to work. What the fuck are you looking at.

Are there not people who need rides? Are there not crabs that need to be fixed right now? Mind your business or fucking go home? That would be Louis de paulm And it would not in any way undercut what's to come, which is sensitive Louie is actually freaking out about this situation. Couldn't great more?

Or what we're getting here, I'm afraid is we're getting the Louis that tremulously says to Zena, take me to the place that you cry, which might be the most horrifying line that Louie. Certainly did you bring it up. Because that is the last time that I got the same vibe from Louis. Is the sensitive, caring awkwardly moving towards his relation. Iugh, it just it gives me the chills just thinking about it.

But that's what we've that's what we've got here. It's pretty uh, It's it's a very an auspicious beginning to this episode. Getting back to the scene at hand, here, Jim hearing all of this, hearing Bobby talk about how Louie has no friends and anyone he needs to talk to someone, Jim foolishly volunteers to talk to Louie, to the mixed protests of the rest of the cabves and you were talking about vaudeville. We're about to get a dose of vaudeville here. So Jim enters the cage.

To Louise's consternation. Jim lowers all of the cage shades and starts leading. Now, what we're getting here, let me in myself for a minute. Here. What we're getting is we keep making the point that this is Jim pre acid, casualty, fuzzy headed, stoner all of the time.

This is the more sensitive Jim, the Jim from Elaine's secret admirer, the one who considers himself a man of the cloth and is more of a sixties idealist. So he's in this cage with Louis. The shades are down and he starts leading Louis through a meditation exercise. After a few oms, they do this a few times, you hear the sound of snoring, and Tony exclaims it worked. Now, I didn't remember this part at all from this episode, but I knew exactly what was coming.

Did you not have the same feeling going into this? To no one's surprised, The cage shades roll up, and Jim is in fact the one who is asleep after the meditation exercise. He's the one who's snoring, and Louis is the one who's like, get this guy out of here. So Bobby and Tony physically carry Jim out and lay him on a table in the garage while Louis asks Riager to speak alone, and Riager asks where can they be alone? Which is curious because he's forgetting Laca's secret tool room get away in the back where he drinks breafnish and probably sleeps on the job.

But for some reason that doesn't come to mind here. Or how about go upstairs or go around the corner to Marios, like, what are they talking about here? Okay, go ahead, it does It is a. Stretch for a really, really dumb joke. Louis gets on his little microphone there and demands that everyone the garage except for Riager, and this leads to another slapstick routine with Bobby and Tony.

They dump a still sleeping Gym into a rolling trash barrel and slide him out of the garage to applause. That to me sound sounded curiously canned. Did you notice that through this whole episode there's the like, the applause and the laughter just seemed a little too ecstatic. I don't know, it was a little disheartening for me. I know I didn't, but I think sometimes people audiences just are that fucking cuckoo for cocoa crops about seeing people do funny shit with television cameras running.

But before before we move on with jim rolling away and that thing, you noticed it was on wheels like they didn't want to burden poor Tony Banta and Bobby Wheeler was actually lifting Jimmy Natowski one more time that would have broken them. Yeah. Here's here's what I found amusing about the entire scene. When they're in Louise's cage, they've pulled down on the shade so no one is privy to what's going on in there except the two extras who are standing next to the door where they have not pulled a shade down so they can They're just literally staring through the grate at whatever the fuck is going on in there. I just watched them the entire time.

That was the best part of the scene because everything else was garbage. The joke was lazily set up. Then get him out of here. Get him out of here, shake him awake, fucking hit him and it'll go ah and leave. They pick him up and he's unconscious.

Did he hypnotize himself? It was weird. It was as if he had been given some kind of a drug or something, because he's unresponsive. I would be checking that man's vitals. If he's not able to be shaken awake.

Maybe he had a cardiac event while he was going through this exercise. It was a little odd. There's a version of this world where Banta and Wheeler are rolling Reverend Jim's corpse down the sidewalks of New York City. So, but I'm stuck on this idea. I didn't know.

So as this sort of pantomime bit is playing out, you're saying that there were some extras that were staring right through the grate in the. Cage when you walk in walking when you walk into the garage, like right there with the garage or meets the meets the little cubicle office thing that corner, there's two people just standing there. They've been there the entire scene. And so then they go up into the thing, pull down the shades and they just turn and look through the grate. I noticed the people hanging out there because I always noticed the extras there.

They're always awesome, but I didn't notice that they just stared at what was happening behind closed doors. They wheel Jim out. Rieger protests a little to Louis, but eventually he relents and listens to Louise's tale of woe. And Louis gay wait wait, wait, wait, sorry, I'm sorry because there's an effortless bit of physical comedy here that took my breath away and they did not linger on it at all, which is he blew. He goes to slam the entire garage door shut as everyone's fault filing out, and riger goes with them, and then before he can get even a little bit further, there's another door that opens up within the giant garage door, like a regular door, and he opens that and grabs Rigor and pulls him through like as the giant door is sliding.

He pulls this other door open and pulls Riger from the other side and then closes that door. It's masterful. It was like something out of the Three stooge as it was because it's so effortless, the way that he just grabs them and pulls them through. I didn't a you're right. I didn't note that because I'm cutting to the chase a little bit here.

But you're right. It was really nice, nuggative physical comedy in the midst of all of this hackiness. I would say, it's the best thing in the episode, but something better is coming. And I would agree with you there, And I wonder if we're going to agree on what we think is the best thing. Duh, we know it's going, yeah.

We do. So. Luis gets right to the point that Zena wants Louis to meet her parents, which I think we all knew that this was going to be. Well, the episode title gives it away. Of course.

Evidently Zena is very very close to her parents. This is very important to her that they meet the man that she's dating. Louie's not opposed to meeting them, as he's been seriously considering marriage and kids, which is fine whatever. Louis describes her parents as decent people, which is really worrying him. Zena's father turns out is even a minister, which actually delights Alex when he hears it, which is funny.

I think he cackles when he hears that. You know, Alex loves when Louis just digs himself into a hole deeper and deeper. We've already knocked this episode quite a bit, and I think we're going to continue to knock it here and there. But one thing I think we can agree on is it is always fun when they pair off, Louis and Alex, because they kind of are the anti of each other. Alex is the essentially decent person, the honest, the old, the last honest man, and Louis couldn't be more corrupted if you tried.

I mean, he's written that way. So it's always nice to see how they pair off against each other. And I don't know that part of it is sort of delightful to me. How did you feel about that? Well, they're like the elementals of Sunshine cab right.

They're both lifers, they're both permanent residents. One of them is good and one of them is evil. On occasion, they're going to sit down and talk because they are really ultimately the only ones who can relate to one another. You've said it more eloquently than I could have there, which is they're two sides of the same coin, if you will. As much as we're gonna knock it, that part of it's fun.

I mean, jud hirsh and Danny de Vito are pros, and it's fun to watch them work with each other here, even though the writing, let's face it, is failing them. We have established that Riger is Batman, so obviously Lucas promised the Joker. I mean it actually makes sense. Well, he's the penguin, That's what he is. We all know he's.

Batman's actual nemesis is the Joker, Come on, and that louis more Joker than penguin. Here, he's more chaotic than the penguin. Oh, actually the penguin is a penguin's a gangster really, but his penguin was not a gangster, so I don't know. Yeah, his penguin was subterranean, which I think suits Louis much more than the sort of burgess Meredith penguin, So yeah, I would agree with you there. Louis asks Alex to come with him to meet her parents, his reasoning being that Alex can make a good impression on Louis's behalf, and also he can try to keep Louis from embarrassing himself, and after some begging and pleading, finally Louis offers Alex two hundred bucks to help him out, which, of course convinces convinces Alex to do it straight away, and we fade the black.

Did you mention that we were going to be beating up on this series? I'm meaning on this episode because yeah, because I hated this entire setup. Yeah, me too. It's funny to hear you say that you hated everything except for one thing, and I had that exact same reaction. And we're getting to that.

But to get to that, we've got to wade through all of this SITCOMI bullshit and all of this hackiness and all of this Faudevillian nonsense. Hey can you see that? Can you see the way the lights are flickering? Those yellow lights? They're waking out one at a time here, So we cut to one of Taxi's patented voyeuristic b roll shots.

This is one of James Burrow's stock in trade up to this point. It's a creepy it's an outside shot in the evening. It's a creepy camera pan up to an apartment at night, which is apparently the Sherman residence, Sherman being Zena's last name. But I always it always gives me the impression that it's some creepy person in this who's kind of glaring up at somebody's apartment or somebody's condo. That I know what they're doing, they're establishing where the scene's going to take place.

But it always seems a little more creepy than that to me. Do you Burns. I thought you were going to say, it's Martin Scorsese and taxi driver, you know, in Bickle's cab. Oh, it's much worse than it's somebody playing the downfall of everyone, not just the murder of his wife. We cut inside as Zina's mother, Missus Sherman, is answering the doorbell.

She's carrying a little tray of cheese and crackers for the evening, and she brings it into the living room. She answers the door and Zena enthusiastically greets her with a hug. But again another Vadvillian piece of comedy, Xena's mom mistakes Reager for Louis and she gives him like a big hug, and then she conceals just a touch of disappointment when Xena corrects her and says, no, this is Alex Rieger, this is this is We're gonna see this repeated when mister Sherman comes in as well, I'm gonna spoil that right now, Zena. By the way, Xena is wearing a bright red vest over a white buttoned down shirt, which makes her look a little like did you ever see the video for Too Much Time on My Hands? By sticks?

Dennis the Young favored a gambler type outfit with this curly hair playing the keyboards, she looked like Dennis the Young and Stix did you do? What did you think of this artorial choice? Yeah? I guess he did. Maybe a little bit of Doug Henning in there too, but it was an odd choice.

She always seems to be hosting a children show at work, and even then she might that might be a whole other chose you. That could be a Sesame Street children's show kind of a thing, or electric company. Yeah, you feel like if she took off that that delivery uniform, maybe she'd have like rainbow suspenders and a couple of buttons that say wow. Louis tries making some complimentary small talk, which leads to an offensive comment towards missus Sherman, and this elicits a warning grunt from Alex. Alex is already keeping an eye on Louis.

Louis redirects to the cheese and cracker plate and he starts scarfing it down like crazy, and Louis demands that Alex say something classy to better reflect the kind of person he associates with. The whole thing is getting awkward really fast, and I know that's the point of the scene, but it's so like ham handed and over the top that I felt it was awkward for a totally different reason. What did you think how this is playing out? So you know what this feels like. This feels like a b plot featuring Lenny and Squeaky from Laverne and Sherman.

It does feel like a Livert and Shirley episode, right. And I'm not bagging on Lavernon show because this type of comedy is fine and they did it very very well, because they were very smart about they knew they were trading on cliches. These just seem to be the cliches, and as funny as they look, I don't I'm not one to revel in uncomfortable comedy. I'm not a cringe comedian enjoyment sort of fellas, so watching Louis consistently embarrass himself here is not my cup of tea. And I think they think that that's enough to transcend what are the oldest sitcom fucking tropes of all time?

Here, Well, you can do. I guess you would call it cringe comedy. And when it's done well, for me, it's something like a Larry David, like a Curb Your Enthusiasm, where that show really exclusively traffics in awkwardness, and to a certain degree Seinfeld as well, that works for me because it's so much more that their brand of this type of comedy is so much more low key and so much more biting and socially interesting, Whereas this is the type of cringe comedy where you see somebody trying their best to do something and failing miserably at it and just getting worse and worse and worse, and it just makes me feel like I want to turn off the television because I just can't. I can't take it. It's so awkward.

I don't know. It's the writing. The Larry David version of cringe comedy is finding yourself in a escalating, ridiculous situation based on social niceties that have to be broken, and you sort of relate to him. Ultimately. The cringe comedy the taxi writers are trafficking in here is somebody walks out of a bathroom and toilet paper is sticking out of their pants.

It just didn't work for me either. Missus Sherman leaves to go check on roast. And a side note, I haven't really mentioned the apartment set yet. It's fine, but when you see Missus Sherman lee for the kitchen, she what I thought was interesting was she goes through a set of bifold doors to get to the kitchen. It looks like she's going into a closet or the laundry room.

That's what I associate with bifold doors. It's usually a utility room of some sort. But yet that's she's going into the kitchen. Was this the custom in the late seventies early eighties? And I'm just misremembering Father Balloon.

I remember those not being very prevalent, but I don't remember them being out of place. I mean, certainly when they walked into the set and she motioned to the kitchen. I thought they were going to have to go through the dark room to get there. But then again, I also remember, like this is a crafty seventies way of a destroying an open floor plant, because god forbid you had one of those moosts. It was weird to me because, like I said, I always even now, like I in like, you know, closet downstairs, my utility closet is has those sort of what do you call like the sort of vents, you know, whatever you.

Call accordion doors. Yeah, And I don't know, I just never thought of it being Usually I think of something like a show like Roda where the kitchen, if you remember, is actually just separated by a kind of a bar. It's open, It's completely open, so you can see the kitchen from the living room. But this was an odd choice for me because it cuts off those But I guess I actually I take that back. There's a reason why they want to cut.

Off Yeah, you know why. I mean, they you have a set and they were like, well, are we really going to build another wall, Like we don't really have enough room to get the cameras and everything, just but one of those you know, like they they separated. Uh, you know what? These are the kind of doors that you would see on like like a train compartment or something. I see where you're going with that.

After Zena's mom leaves, Louis exclaims that he's got her eating out of the palm of his hand. His newfound confidence is then tested when mister Sherman comes in and he's even got the liturgical I don't know what there's a word for it, but it's the liturgical collar. He's got the priest's collar on his neck and everything. Is there a word for that. I'm not familiar with father Malone.

What you call that collar. I'm a fake priest. I don't know of these things. Louis goes too far again. He's over laughing at mister Sherman's jokes and making it super awkward.

And like I said, he even mister Sherman even does the same thing that his wife did, which is mistake riager for Louis in the hopes that it's not this dumpy guy who's built like a fire hydrant that's dating his daughter. Can I be honest with you, I thought we were already through dinner. It takes a long time to get through this. I promised you this, Father Malone, and I'm gonna deliver. We have another Joe Dante connection.

Do you know who this is? Lay it on me this one. This one eluded me, and that's rare when it comes to mister Dante. I confess this isn't something that I know off the top of my head. Obviously I had to look this up.

But mister Sherman is played by an actor named John C. Betcher b E C H E R hoping hope I'm pronouncing that properly. John C. Betcher. All you need to know is that he played a character named doctor Mullinaro in Gremlins.

You remember the scene where Billy's mom fights off the gremlins in her kitchen and one goes in the blender and she gets kind of beat up, and then Billy takes her to the doctor's home to get looked at, and he's like trimming the tree. I think with his wife. That's John C. Betcher. I think that's that's the extent of He's a Yeah, that's pretty cool, I thought.

I mean, he's not like me. He's not a mainstay like some of the other actors we've brought up. But this is really becoming six degrees of Joe Dante because so many people have worked with him. It's amazing. So there you go.

I was sure you would know about that. I'm surprised you didn't have that filed away somewhere. No, I don't know what priests calls her names, and I don't know all the extras in there in Joe Dante movies. Oh, obviously he like a featured player here and there. I found him very very funny.

Actually, I found both of the parents very frind of you. Particularly the next scene. After more sort of cringey interactions, Xena goes off to help her mom, which leaves the three men to commiserate in the living room, and there's more awkwardness from Louis, and Alex even cuts him off preemptively when he starts in on a story about his mother. It's very awkward. Louis continues with this inappropriate chit chat and as Alex in hale's his glass of wine and we fade into the dining room as they're seated for dinner.

Louis continues to overact and go too far with his inappropriate humor and jokes as Alex tries in vain to care Ralph Louis, Mister Sherman asks Zena about their dating history, and Alex earns a dirty look when Zena tells them that Alex introduced them. So now they're turning against Alex when they realize that he's responsible for introducing their daughter to this maniac. The icing on all of this is Louis tells the table that Zena is the first non pro that he's ever been out with, which shocks everybody, and it just keeps going downhill from there because he's got to explain what he means by a pro and it's Alex all but gives up on Louis at this point. Finally, missus Sherman announces she's going to clear the table and bring coffee, but asks Louie to stay and help her.

And we're getting to the part. The only part of this episode that I liked. Is this the same moment that you're referring to falla blone. Oh my yes, and the scene following. It really saves this episode from being just complete and utter.

You know, one yellow light territory here. Tell them what happens HP so we can talk about it because it's so fucking fantastic. It is. It's this wonderful left turn that this episode takes, because you sort. Of feel like, oh good it is.

It's completely out of left field. In fact, HP, I gotta be honest, it happened, and I went did that just happen? And I rewound it and watched the scene again and went, yeah, I thought it was a I slipped into a fever dream. What happens is missus Sherman. It's just Louie and Missus Sherman in the dining room cleaning up, and Missus Sherman confesses that she didn't really need the help from Louis.

She'd wanted to talk with Louie in private, and she says that she and her husband tried very hard not to limit Zena's social relationships. She realizes that Zena being the daughter of a minister is often difficult. She finally gets to the point and she announces she's giving her blessing to the relationship, which to this point we're still feeling like this is typical sitcom clap trap. She encourages Louie to continue dating Ze, to have fun, you know, do all of those things, but missus Sherman stipulates it wouldn't be a good idea to contemplate anything more serious like marriage, because and I wrote this down, this is the best part of the episode. If he does, Missus Sherman will have Louis Hill.

She's so proper and sweet Zena's mother. Hearing these words spoken by her is such a welcome shift in this episode. Up till now, it's been such a sitcom slog. It's wrote. This is such a nice, unexpected twist.

Oh my god, it was like getting hit in the chest with a hammer, and just because of the sentiment. But then on top of it is the matter of factness, and as you said, it's a sweet, matter of factness. There's no menace in any of her words, or rather her tone. It's just going to happen. You can stay my daughter, that's fine, But if you want to marry her, I'm going to murder or have you murdered.

It's played so well because she is the typical, sweet, matronly mother. That's it's so amazing the way she delivers this line. She says she doesn't even know the name of the person she'd hire. What's the name? What do you call them, and Louie, in this sort of days that he's in now, says he has to give her the name Hitmen.

She says, oh, yes, Hitmen. Missus Sherman admits to Louie that this would probably destroy her and her husband's lives, but she says, very sweetly, it would be worth it, don't you think. She finally dismisses Louis and admonishes him on the way out to keep it there secret. And he walks back into this living room in a complete daze. You talk about like getting hit with a hammer.

He's been hit on the head with a sledgehammer. He doesn't know what to think. Now he goes in the living room. Missus Sherman brings in the coffee to this assemblage. I think Alex and mister Sherman are still talking about fishing or some other.

She hands out the cups, and after handing, she gives Louis this cup very specifically, here's your cup, Louis. Louie insists that Riager and he switched cups because now he's paranoid that she's going to poison him right in front of everybody. Great great bit of business. This is such a one eighty from where we were to where we got to because at this point, I'm just like you said earlier, this is going on forever. Boy.

They had this little secret waiting for us, and I'm so glad because it saved the episode. Zena asks her mother if she enjoyed her talk with Louis. Missus Sherman replies very ominously. She says, I'll never forget it, will you, Louie. It's like everything she's saying has this double meaning now that she is confided to Louie that she will have him killed if he decides to marry Zena so find Louie announces that he needs to leave, which confuses everybody because they've just literally sat down for coffee.

But he's so freaked out by it, understandably so that he's got to get out of there. Zena says something to the effect of, you know, mom, it would make me so happy if you could give Louis a hug and a kiss. The two of them, feeling the way they do about each other, they squirm next to each other and give each other like they barely touch each other's cheeks As we go to end credits. Such a great ending to this episode. I was so happy because this is not an episode, this is another episode that I haven't revisited all that often, so I kind of forgot that all of this transpired, and I was so happy.

I was so there for it when it all happened. What did you think of the finale? Here we it all wraps up for them alone. I agree with you. These last two scenes, the kitchen scene and then the entire follow up scene.

Now knowing what we know and what has been said and what is now not being said between these two cares fucking great. But when the credits came up, I went, what as much as I'm going to give this audacious ending to their episode its own yellow light, it really frustrated me because it made me rethink the episode. We didn't need riger in it at all, and it should have begun with her and Louie going to her parents and her telling Louie please be civilized, and then louis just being Louie, and we needed half an episode of this tension between Mom and Louie. I don't mean to fan fiction or nothing, but it made me so mad that they came up with something so fucking great in the last ten seconds of their episode and didn't recognize that the rest of it was SITCOMI bullshit.

By the way, the exact same thing happened with Burns meeting his fiance's parents, right. Well minus the threat of murder, but yeah, pretty much right. But if I remember correctly, that episode sucked. And then the parents were so cool and fun and just like, do whatever you want to their daughter, Like they behaved in exactly the opposite way that sitcom parents usually do. It was Dolph Sweet.

Remember we were like, where was this for the rest of the fucking episode. Yeah, that's a great point. I forgot about that, and he was Again, it was the parents that redeemed it in their own way. And in this case, I think it's safe to say that Missus Sherman is the all star of this episode, just in the same way that Dolph Sweet was the all star from the And curiously, wasn't that one that involved Alex having to go and kind of intercede on their behalf as well, So it's strange that he's the calling card. It's weird.

I never thought of it that way. But it's the same plot its season two of the Go Meet the Parents. We need Alex to intervene, and then the last second we're going to be awesome for no good reason. So that is Louis meets the Folks. Now, as is our custom, we're going to talk yellow lights.

What does a yellow light meet? Just a reminder, we're scoring on a scale of one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode, five is the best taxi episode. It is is also our custom. We're going to throw it to you, Father Malone.

What do you give Louis Meets the folks? One yellow light for the extras, one yellow light for Mama Sherman and her casual bent on murder. I'm with you one hundred and fifty percent here. I gave it two yellow lights as well. As we've already stated and restated, this is a very basic sitcom premise, but it's redeemed in the final five minutes by a very very dark conclusion.

There's nothing much for the other caves to do, and it's not really an episode, as I said before that I'd revisit all that often, but it was a nice dark turn at the end of a fairly doll episode. So two yellow lights from myself, two yellow lights from father alone, that's going to do it for this episode of Night Mister Walters, Father Alone. Where can the folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? Well, like Night Mister Walters. Here, I'm I host a show on the weirding Way Media Network that's called Midnight Viewing.

It's a twice a week podcast. Consistently every week we have Father Malone's Weekly round Up to a look at newer streaming and the in theaters type entertainment. And the other is a rotating show Anthologies Attacked. Me and Antonio Lapour look at anthology films of every kind of genre. And then there's the Horror Anthology podcast, which it also nates with, where we we're currently looking at Tales from the Dark Side, the television series from the nineteen eighties.

Check me out over there, and you can also find more of my stuff at patreon dot com slash Father Alone. I give my plug for Dark Destinations, but I'm gonna switch it a little bit this week. I'm gonna say everything you produce is wonderful, but I am such a newfound fan of the weekly roundup show you do with Ripley Gene. I think it's wonderful. It's just a quick kind of snapshot of stuff you can find on streaming, stuff that's in theaters, stuff to check out that's a very recent sort of thing.

I love it. It's just a wonderful encapsulation of what to check out that week. And the comedy is great. I love Ripley Gen. I think it's fantastic.

I think everybody should check that out. Now. It's a great introduction to the world of Father Malone, if I might say so, go check that out please, and everything else and check out the Patreon everything else. I've said it before, Father Malone produces more quality content than anyone else, any other podcasts that I've ever listened to, So check that out besides this show, which is I'm happy you're listening to it anyway. Now for myself, you can also find me elsewhere in the weirding Way Network.

I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Chris Dashu, and you can also check me out on band camp. I have a band campsite called Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. Please check that out if you wish. So that's gonna do it for this episode. Thanks again for listening, Please feel free subscribe to this podcast, write a review, or rate us.

We'd love to hear from you in any way that you see fit so for myself and father Malone, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you all next time. Ni