Episode 41 - What Price Bobby?

Weird way media. Nik. Mister Walders, you see that guy. With it now, he's an actor a phone. I'm a cant driver.

I'm the only camp driver in his place. Good evening and welcome to night, mister Walters, a taxi podcast. I'm HP, your co host, and with me as always is my co host, Father Blone. Father Blone. How are you this evening?

I'm good. I don't have anything funny to say. I'm really excited to talk about this episode. We're talking Taxi Season two, episode eighteen. This is What Price Bobby.

This was written by Ken Eston and it directed by James Burroughs. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. We begin this episode, We've got another great b roll of glorious times. Yeah baby, oh my god. But thematically this really really works for me because we're seeing these cabs roll down the street.

We cut inside. It's Bobby. Finally Bobby's HP. Come on, man, don't jump past the fucking b roll of the this boulevard of broken dreams, times square. This is this is a theater episode.

But more importantly, at one point they show a burger king in uh on one of the streets, right. Yeah, I saw that. It reminded me that. I love when sort of usual standalone brick and mortar restaurants have to adhere to tenancy within a building and so their sign just has to be flat on the side of the building. There's something I just love that for some reason, instead of like a big sign like rotating out front, it's the sign just slapped against like marble.

And along that point, there's something kind of funny about when like a franchise or a chain has to conform to the rules of the city in order to have a location. There I'm speaking of in Boston. If you go downtown to Fanuel Hall, there's you'll find like Dunkin Donuts, as you'll find a lot of places in Massachusetts. But they're very particular about the signage. So instead of seeing the usual orange and purple signage with Duncan, it's done in a like a brass and steal.

It's like this sort of gold and gray signage because they want it to blend in with the rest of the buildings around it. Speaking to that, it's really hard to open a franchise on Cape Cod for the very same reason. So if you go to like Truro or something like that, and you go to seven eleven you'll find Wooden signs for seven. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating.

There's something unique about that. But I agree and this that's a great look at Times Square in whatever he's nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty, it was a very different place than it is now. Now. You go in the middle of Times Square, there's like a giant will call kind of a theater thing where you can get your same day tickets for Rent whatever, the umpteenth production of Rent. But here it's just it's the CD Times Square that we've all heard about and it doesn't exist anymore.

So it's kind of fun to see that thematically. As I said, it makes sense because we cut inside the cab and it's Bobby driving the cab, which is it's nice. It feels like forever since we've had a Bobby episode. We'll find out. What Bobby does is he cruises the theater district at night because he's looking to pick up on agents or anything that will help him further his acting career.

So he picks up Yeah, it is actually really smart. I haven't heard him say this earlier, because once you hear it, you're like, oh, he must just do nothing. But that, yeah, it makes perfect sense because he's desperate to further his career in any way he can. Of course he'd be he'd want to like fulfill his obligation as a cab driver, but hedges bets and increase the chance that he'll be discovered. Obviously it doesn't happen by now, but we'll see what happens in this episode.

He's driving at the same time HP cruising times Square puts him in the crosshairs of Travis. You don't want to compete with mister. Bifcol No, No, not at all, not at all. A very different universe going on there. So he picks up A woman hails Bobby's cab.

He picks her up, and Bobby is almost immediately struck by this woman who's in the cab. It's apparently the character's name is Nora Chandless, and according to Bobby, she's one of the biggest actors managers in New York. She's played by a woman named Susan Sullivan. I assume you were familiar with Susan Sullivan by them alone. I do not know who Susan sulimon Is.

I did not look her up. I loved her in this episode. Who is she? Are you serious? You're you're not putting in beyond here?

This isn't a. Bit no wow. I see. She was such a familiar face to me growing up. She was in she was in The Incredible Hulk.

She's been acting on TV and in some movies forever. She was in Darman Greg. She was in a. Lot of different you know what. I did look her up and I didn't find anything sort of specific that I hit on, and I was like, oh, that's what she's from.

So to me, she's it's mainly from taxi. Yeah. She was also in There was a sitcom called It's. A Living with My God. I love It's a Living with Gail Edwards, your luminous Gail Edwards.

Perfect. She was in the first season of It's a Living, which was a big You don't hear about it now, but at the time it was a really I I remember it being a very popular show. It had Anne Jillian, it was It took place in like a restaurant at the top of this building, and all. The white dress French maids, right, and there was a guy there who played piano. He played piano and sing bad lounge songs.

It was he sort of reminded me of who was that guy in in Three's Company who was Jack Tripper's friend. Yeah, I know, I can see his face. Richard Klein. Yes, And and the character he played on Three's Company was named Larry. He was Larry Dallas.

That's I don't know, because there's Larry. David has supplanted him in our. This is true. But anyway that we're with his off topic, but that the piano player and it's a living always reminded me of Larry from Three's Company. Anyway.

I remember Susan Sullivan best, not for any of these shows she did or movies, but she was the face of tail and all in commercials throughout the eighties. I don't know if you remember these. They usually like because she had a very sort. Of out of body experience, now that you mentioned. That, Yeah, so she I don't know what made her well.

She had a very clinical and kind of cold and stern approach in these things, Like she would usually be walking past some kind of medical equipment and then she would bring up a computer and say, well, Tailanol has the ability to cure your headache much faster than the leading brand. And here's where I cut in a commercial from Tailanol. Today, hospitals can use modern advances to help locate the source of pain. When it comes to relieving pain, the pain reliever hospitals use most is thailanol. Look, last year, hospitals dispensed talanol ten times more than the next four brands combined.

So the next time you or someone in your family has a headache, ache, or pain, shouldn't you use thailanol to thilanol the pain reliever hospitals use most. So that's what I remember her from. But here like a stern, mommy kind of thing that she does. She's perfect for teaching people about what medicines they should be taken. Well.

I always found her, and maybe it's because this was what she was called upon to do in these commercials. And also, I mean, in a sense in this episode she's very cold and not very vibrant and not very not a very warm person, certainly not in this episode of Taxi so I she's beautiful, but she just always struck me as being kind of like she should have maybe been a vulcan. In an episode of Star trek. She just has a very analytical, cold way about her. I don't I can't describe it any better than that.

But she's great here. Having said that, she's fantastic, So she's in the cab, Bobby's driving her to her destination, and Bobby is going on and on about how how lucky he is that he that he picked her up, and he's this young and up and coming actor. All of this stuff that we've seen Bobby do and countless other episodes, he's aspirational episodes. I think we're in aspirational territory here, follow he he. He even says that he cruises the theater district hoping to meet someone like Nora does.

So then the b rollkerchief is in their back pocket. Times Square. He's looking for somebody, right. I knew when I said cruises the theater district that that would that kind of. You set him up.

I'll knock him down, brother. His full coat press is making little or no progress with Nora. He even has resorted to taping his eight x ten glossy to the back of the seat. But I think she mentions that someone true in like a mustache in in a gap tooth and says love Louis, so Louis already gotten. Sure it's signed as always Louis.

He actually wrote as always Louie. I forgot that part. So she's Nora is rebuffing him. At every turn. He keeps trying to say, I'm a great actor.

I'd be greating turns HP. We're big fans of the poor Man's Process. The driving sequences here. At one point, Bobby takes a turn and they are so synchronized, and they move in such a manner that it felt like an actual turn in a car. It was real enough that I'm talking about it right now.

I thought it was amazing. I noticed that it was. He takes a turn, and they both leaned to in the same direction at the same time, and. She leaned like crazier because she wouldn't be anticipating it because she's the fucking passenger in the car. Usually when they do that, everyone kind of like leans at the same time because they're all receiving the same direction at the same time.

So Susan Sullivan right right on, good on you. She's great. So and even it gets to the point, speaking of the poor Man's Process, Bobby is at a stoplight, and we can see the reflection of the red light in the mirror or in the windshield. He at the stoplight. He even turns full around to ask Nora to see him in this little small theater production that he's got going on.

You know, he's not seat belted in or anything round. He like comes through the glass like chase. It like a proscenium, and he's like sticking his sticking in some self out there. And eventually she says, oh, he hates green, and sure enough the light has turned green and he gets back into the driver's seat and drives. So he's talking about this experimental play that he's in once again.

I think Taxi has done us at his service by not showing us any of these shows that he's in. Because the play is an experimental play called Stall, and Bobby describes it that it's about twelve people stuck in a stalled elevator and God, we only ever see anything once. Don't you want to see the rehearsals. I totally want to see this. It sounds awesome, people snuck in an elevator on stage trying to rehearse some fucking wheelers in the back.

It sounds because you got to figure this is so small and experimental that probably all of the actors are terrible, so hammy and so overwritten. I would just I really. Want to see it now, HP, because now I'm imagining it, and I'm imagining it as theater in the round. So there's a square in the middle of the room and all these people are bound by this square. Oh, that could be good.

That could be awesome. So Nora tells Bobby that if she's ever in the area, she'll try to see it. But it becomes this thing where he gives off this vibe that he's like, oh okay, like he knows that she's trying to brush him off. Yeah, but it become bin escally. She says like, well, no, you don't think I'm gonna go see it, do you, And he's like, well, probably, I don't know.

And they start to argue, and it finally gets to the point where she says, damn it, I'm gonna go see that show. H Here's what I've written in my notes about this. Yeah, Bobby is the original reverse psychologist. It's like watching bugs Bunny at work. He somehow, like you said, using this reverse psychology, he gets her to agree to see the show that she had no intent.

I mean, she's a busy woman. She's like the biggest actors manager in New York. Why the hell is she going to see? The fucking actor in the world is saying that the same shit to her all day long while she's trying to get from one place to another. He somehow gets her to agree and she leaves the cab and Bobby drives off.

We cut to the garage and Elaine comes in and starts chatting with Tony about a call she got from Alex. Apparently Alex is on a ski trip. Side note, we both know where at where judd Hirsh is, don't we right? Is he fighting with the Gypsies? No, No, battling Eric Roberts for control of the family.

So the real reason that jud Hirsh doesn't appear in this episode was because he was evidently he was shooting what would become his OSCAR nominated turn as Doctor Berger in the movie Ordinary People. So they've got to invent that. Yeah, so they have to invent this silly excuse for why Alex, and it becomes a bit of a b plot. It's very thin because obviously he's not going to leave the show, but they have to invent this excuse for why Judhirsh isn't on set. In fact, at the end of the episode, we'll see like you finally see him where he is.

I'll talk about that in a minute. But this was a pickup that they filmed after the episode had been shot, because he's probably in like a backlot somewhere at some different studio, so they have to. Was this the case of the script, was that they just mentioned where's Alex, Where's Alex? Where's Alex? And then at the end they said, oh, we need to actually film and show people that Alex is still part of the show.

It must have been, because throughout the whole episode, all you're hearing are these secondhand conversations via Elaine, mostly that Alex is on a ski trip and he never wants to come home and all this kind of a business. Oh and also another side note, we have a Richard Sakai sighting. Did you see Richard Sakai? He's uh was he reading a newspaper? He was, Oh my god?

Okahp Now we've mentioned it before, but I guess I don't recognize him because isn't he usually Captain Marvel or something like that. He usually has that weird shirt with the yeah but no not here, So I. Wrote, who is this creep in the corner? Blue jeans and a London fog raincoat buttoned up? Like what is he hiding?

Is it laundry day? Is he even wearing a shirt? That's what? So? Yes, I did notice him, but I didn't realize that with Richard Sakai that's him.

We hear this from a lane that Alex has expressed to her that he's never going to come back from his ski trip, and this is throwing the rest of the Cabby's into a bit of a worry. There's some light jokes made about it, but it doesn't really go anywhere, and it's just this method of injecting Alex into an episode in which he really has no presence at all. At this point, Bobby runs into the garage. He's so excited because Nora actually came to this awful sounding experimental play, just like she said she would. He's really riding high on the possibility that she might take him on as a client.

Then a call comes through on the garage payphone for Bobby, and it's Norah Chandliss's secretary. She wants to see Bobby in her office right away. Hey, things are looking up for Bobby. What can go wrong? Father Malone?

Huh? Do you hear that? HP? It's the sound of aspiration. It's the sound of the merry go round.

Getting so close to that brass ring, Bobby can almost taste it. Is it gonna work out? You want to spit it out, you know, because it tastes too bitter. We fade out to a huge skyscraper right next to Radio City Music Hall. Actually I had a question shot.

Actually yeah, I thought, Wow, I'd love to look out my window and see Radio City Music Hall every day. It was great. But what I was going to ask you was, do you have any idea what that what that building was? Because it's so close to Radio City, I figure it must be some famous building that she has her office in. I assumed it was some evil corporation on step building, probably what I assume about most buildings.

Probably. But I thought it was a nice. Not bound by New York. I just mean buildings in general. Sure.

We cut inside to a bit of a gaudy office. It has some French. The furniture is like this French looking, frilly furniture with curved legs. It's not really my taste, but maybe that was the style back then. I don't know.

Well, I think it shows that she's an artistic woman and she's a single lady, and she's in charge. She can bring home the banking and fry it up in the pan. The woman w M A n that's what I think. Her decor looks like. I already played the honestly.

Okay, that's fair, that's fair. Bobby is inside pacing nervously. I don't know why he would be in the office unattended, pacing, but anyway, you figure she would have like a lobby that he would be forced to sit in until he's gained entrance to the inner sanctum. The secretary put him right through. She's like, yeah, the secretary, thats what's going on.

Sure. Nora comes in and she agrees with Bobby that although the play stinks, he was really good in it. She likes what she sees and she really wants to work with Bobby. And at this point he's jumping up and down like a cartoon like bugs Bunny or something like he's going crazy. He gives her a big hug, and immediately Nora starts a signing Bobby things to do, like he's got to see her photographer, he's got to go to her hairstylist, to her.

War stuff you hear in Hollywood and the casting situation like yeah, we gotta fix your hey kid, we got to change your name. He fixed. Yeah, I don't know about that, knows well, well, look at them. She goes to this whole list and Bobby makes a vowed to Nora that he's again he's hammering this idea. He says, I'm really good and she says, oh great, then we'll start tonight.

Here are the keys to my apartment, and she hands him the keys and she plans this big old smooch on a speechless Bobby as we fade. Commercial clutching my pearls, but I'm clutching my pearls the listeners at home. I'm not sure what Bobby really expected. I mean, he's been he's encountered nothing but failure throughout his whole ten year career, however long it's been, And how did he think that this was going to be any different? He's he truly is Charlie Brown kicking to that football.

He fancies himself a cocksman, so you know, like he Bobby Wheeler should be like cool. It's an unsavory situation no matter how you slice it, but you would figure, I mean, he's not a man with a lot of scruples the thing. Yeah, Like, this isn't Latka, you know what I mean. This isn't even Tony. This is Bobby.

Bobby fucks over all of his friends all the time, just thoughtlessly. Like not It's worse than if he's being mean. It's just thoughtlessness, you know. So I agree with you, but I think the fact that it's hitting so close to his true passion. He really wants.

To his profession. The thing he ignos everybody for is this job. So yeah, okay, this is the top of everything on his mind. He wants to do it, but he wants to do it the right way. And yes, under different circumstances he might be up for a good time, but this is you know.

This isn't how he imagined it. Maybe, and you can't help feel a little bad for him, especially given that now we have decades and decades of stories that have come out of Hollywood of this kind of thing. Happening pretty routinely, so it's it's hard not to feel a little bad for the position that Bobby is in. Let's go oh yeah, no, no, no. Bobby as a human yes, I feel very bad for But at the same time, I think we've seen Bobby doing some shit.

I think the actual Bobby Wheeler character probably wouldn't have a problem with this moral question. Agreed, agreed, agreed. So we cut back to the garage. This is a super bizarre bit that they do, and I'm not going to do it justice because I never do, but I loved the weirdness of it. It's Jim and Laca are at the poker table and they've got that little travel chess set open in front of them.

No moves have been made it. You can see the pieces are still in all their starting positions. And what the first thing that's interesting is, like the whole garage, they're all crowded around them. Did you notice that they're all watching them intently. They haven't done anything yet, They're just staring at this set of chess pieces.

And in one of the weirder jokes this whole season, Jim kind of throws his arm his arms up and says, I give up, and Loaca replies it's chess, and Jim kind of goes, oh, I knew it or something, and he gets up. The two of them shake hands and they just walk away. They've established that it's chess, or Jim has figured out that it's chess. They don't move, they don't play the game, they just shake hands and walk away. It's beautifully bizarre.

On the one hand, it is a beautiful New Yorker one panel cartoon. On the other hand, it raises the possibility that at least once a week, a stool is set up and then two stools facing it, and then somebody puts down something and Jim and Locka stare at it and try and figure out the name of the thing, and Loaca doesn't speak the language, but Jim is so brain fucked that he can't love that. I loved I wish this was a runner. I wish they kept doing this, the. Way that they get up and solemnly shake hands like they've just won this chess match or they've just played this long arduous game of chess.

I loved it. I just thought it was beautiful. Like I said, it was wonderfully bizarre. Then Elaine comes in. By the way, she's resplendent in a billowie purple silk blouse that I thought made up in spades for that green rhyanstone sweater thing she was wearing in the last episode.

I thought she looked great. She comes in again. She declares to Tony that she's really worried about Alex. This whole business about Alex being away at the ski trip. It's like, like I said, they're trying to convey the presence of Alex without actually having Judd Hirsh there.

You know, this just reminds me of Kirk Douglas giving his advice on the best sort of screenplay. And it's the one where for the first act everyone walks around saying, where is this character? And that's the character you're play, and then you come in for the second act and you do amazing stuff, and then you leave, and then for the third act everyone says, where did he go? Where did that character go? That's the best role you could possibly get.

That's sort of what's going on here. Where's Alex? Has anyone seen Alex? It's like, we know he's gone, you've already pointed it out. We can come back to it, but don't keep doing This isn't a Bee plot.

They resolve to try and do something to get him back, but that's it. They just leave it hanging. There's no resolution to this. It's just kind of left. You don't know what they're going to try to do to get him back.

They just kind of say, we're going to figure it out, and they never get back to it. Bobby, at this point walks in and Elaine and Tony start peppering him with questions about Nora, and he says that she's going to represent him, and they both start jumping for joy and they're happy for him, but Bobby is very muted in his response, and both Elaine and Tony pick up on this, but Bobby plays it off like I'm preparing for this audition. I can't really. He keeps getting pressed for details, and he rushes through the broad strokes of what he's done so far. He had his hairstyled, he got a photographer, then he went to bed with her.

He throws this in very casually, that they've slept together, and ever uncouth about the whole thing. Tony reacts with, here, you're sleeping with your manager, like he's kind of like elbowing and Bobby go. Down and gets some cake. Boss, Let's go play some Maya hockey and talk about it. Bobby tells Tony to be quiet about it, but that's not before Louis announces it over the microphone.

To the whole garage. Now, but here's where it gets a little bizarre. Elaine and Tony don't react the way they should, which is with concern and revulsion, Like they should really feel bad for him that he's been put in this position, but for especially Elaine, who probably had her share of sexual harassment. Elaine does, though, I mean the following conversation, She's like, well, it's not like prostitution, and he's like ha ha ha, like he gives her that kind of thing. She's like, oh no.

But not before before we get to that point, she asks Bobby if Nora is attractive, like that fucking matters. It shouldn't matter that she's beautiful or ugly. She's putting Bobby in this really, really shitty position, but. We don't know that yet. I mean, he's just saying he fucked her.

He's not saying like she made me go to bed with her, Like their reaction is that, like he's it could be anything. He hasn't sad, like, I feel uncomfortable doing this. They know Bobby will likes to fuck, and here's this manager and hey, I went to bed with her. Don't tell anybody. We've seen enough of his reactions up to this point.

When she kissed him in her office, he did not react with a smile or anything suggestive. No. No, you're saying their reaction to this knowledge is not commensurate with what actually happened. And I'm saying they don't know what actually happened. I'm saying that we can tell from how Bobby has been acting about this whole thing that he's at a minimum, he's uncomfortable with it.

Like it's not as if he's walking in like cock of the walk saying, hey, guess what, guys, I'm sleeping with my manager. He walked in nervously and they said what's wrong, and he said, I'm really nervous because I got this fucking audition tomorrow and I got a new manager and everything. Oh yeah, and I'm sleeping with her. Elaine asks, like I said, if she's attractive, but Bobby doesn't want to talk about it. And finally Elaine and Tony kind of come to this realization that he's basically prostituting himself to your point, at which point, yes, they finally offer some real concern about the situation once they understand that this is not Bobby's choice to do this.

Even though this is this should be the best moment of Bobby's career up to this point, he feels cheap. He just doesn't feel right about it. This isn't how he planned it, you know, happening. We fade out, and we fade into another high rise at night. This is actually we're gonna find out.

This is Noura's home, her apartment. We cut inside. She's lounging on the sofa doing to your point, she's doing more stereotypical like wheeling and dealing on the phone. Bobby dejectedly walks in and she wraps up the call she's on. She asks how the audition that Bobby went on went, and Bobby says that it would really, really bad.

He threw up during the scene that he was auditioning. Apparently he grabbed the chili dog on his way over there and it didn't agree with his stomach, and he threw up and he couldn't even really audition. Despite this, Norah says that, hey, he got the part cat on a hot tin roof on Broadway, and he gets again. He flip flops, he gets excited. He says, Oh, you know, actually, I think I was actually better than I thought.

I think I threw up in character. But Nora pretty quickly sets them straight. She basically says to him that, look, you already had the part before you even auditioned, because she wouldn't give the producers the actress they wanted for one of the roles unless they hired Bobby at the same time, which I'm assuming. Father, I mean, you know better than me because you've understood this part of the business or you've been You've seen this maybe in your time in LA but I assume this probably happens all the time, where managers are finagling and making deals of quid pro quoll, like you can have this actor, but you got to hire this person at the same time, right. I'm assuming this is at.

Least used to be common a new practice. You know, the original studios had everyone under contract, so it was constantly like, hey, we would like that actor for this movie. Well, we would like that your actor for our movie. Like it's yeah, it's always been a constant thing in the nineteen eighties, you know, the time of Mike Ovitz and Cia and the rise of the this sort of agent driven scenarios. They would put together packages basically, so they would not just shop a script, they'd shop the script, the director, and all of the actors because they've represented all of them.

So yeah, I mean that's it on a grand scale. But something like this, like well you want this actress, Well, I have a young up and comer that I'm really looking to break out, and that's a smaller part in your thing. Let him in. It doesn't have to have any of the sort of nefarious thing that's going on in this episode. It just would happen, I'm certain of it.

We don't have to like the fact that this is happening. But this strikes me as something that was probably very typical. Maybe it still happens to a certain degree, I don't know. And Nora actually points out to Bobby correctly in this case, that all he wanted in that cab ride was a great manager, and this is what a great manager does. They wheel and deal and get their clients parts through hook or crook basically, and that's what she did, Bob.

He is still stung by this. Again, I think this all comes down to the idea that this doesn't conform to Bobby's fantasy of how he saw his big break coming to be right having to sleep with Nora, and she says to him, Look, I still think you're a very good actor, Bobby, but I'm also very attracted to you physically, and she doesn't care if one affects the other. It doesn't matter to her. Again, I think she's playing it very cold, but maybe it's more realistic than I care to admit. Yeah, and I just I'd like to speak to one thing you said, because I do think that Susan Sullivan does sort of project the kind of an iciness to her.

But I think that's more from the advertising work than this particular role. Because yes, what you're saying is icy. I think it's just the sort of assertiveness of the character as written. I'm not getting her as an ice queen. I'm getting her as someone who likes to fuck, but she's also in charge of the situation and abusing her power, So it's ichy.

But but I'm not getting Nicole Kidman from this woman. The fact that she's able to boil this down to a very cut and dried calculus of how this transactional part of their relationship I think is a bit cold and a bit analytic over the analytic. But again I'm laying that at the foot of the character and not the actress. Either way, I think she's playing the part as it should be played. Whether I'm reading something more into her performance, I think she's doing a good you know, she's playing it as she should.

Bobby still feels like he did something really terrible sleeping with Nora to advance his career, but again she's unmoved. She doesn't really care, doesn't really matter to her. But she does say if he cares that much, they can focus on one sort of relationship, and all at once, it's almost like they count to three and they say what they want that relationship to be, and of course Bobby says he wants a business relationship and Nora wants a personal relationship. All this haggling back and forth eventually just causes Nora to lose interest altogether, and she asks Bobby to leave. And this is maybe where some of this iciness comes in.

At a certain point, she just says, this isn't worth it anymore. This is becoming too much of a headache. If she really thought that Bobby was that great of an actor, maybe she would have fought for it a little bit. But I think maybe it's a sertiveness, maybe it's iciness. But she finally just says, you know what, just go, I think we're done here.

You know, there's no emotion, there's no pilavering about it. She just kind of says, you know what, I think we're done. Yeah, But you know what, man, is that iciness? I think if any but he said to you, you said to someone you were interested in a relationship with, I want to have this relationship with you, and they said, well, I'm really only interested in what you can give me financially, in business wise, you'd be like, well you can go. Because here's the thing.

Yes, she's sleeping with him, but she wants she's willing to put aside the business part of it, but she wants to continue the relationship. So obviously she was interested in him. Like, I know, this was an icky thing, and I know women have been put up with, had to put up with bullshit like this where they had to sleep with people and whatever. But this is not exactly the scenario we're getting in this episode. This is you want to come to my place and have sex, and he does, and maybe he didn't want to, maybe he did whatever.

But here at the end where she's like, well, I don't want to be. Your manager if that's a problem for you, because this is how it's put. If it's a problem for you, then I'm your manager and your lover. Then we have to separate those. So I would rather be your lover, is what she said, right, And Bobby does not entertain that relationship, right.

But don't you think when the first in the scene where she's laying out, Okay, I want you to go to the hairstylist and I want to go here, and by the way, we're gonna you know, we're gonna get at it tonight. Don't you think there's a tacit kind of understanding that she's conveying that, Hey, if you want to continue that, if you want me to be your manager, this is the cost of doing business. You don't feel like that's tacitly conveyed in that scene. Yes, But I also say that at the end. Once she's not saying either you fuck me or I'm not gonna represent you.

She's saying, you've decided that this is an icky thing. You're telling me it's an icky thing. And I'm saying I would like to continue the relationship with you sexually, possibly romantically with you, and we don't have to do the manager things. And he's saying I don't want that. I just want you to be my manager, and she's saying, okay, well, then you've made the choice.

I guess it's not as if she's going there and saying, look, if you want to go far in this business, you're gonna have to do some things you don't want to do. And that exactly. It was never a you want to get that job. I can get you that job. I can pick up the phone right now and get it for you, but you're gonna have to fuck me tonight.

There was never that conversation. It was just this sort of what is this, I don't know, we haven't even talked about it, what our relationship is, and at the end, I don't know. Maybe she did want to pursue a relationship with him, and he doesn't fucking give that the time of day. And let me say this, on top of everything else, if that offer was on the table, Bobby Willier is a fucking idiot, because you know what, she's an attractive woman and they obviously have a good time together, and you know what, stick around long enough and be a fucking good actor and she'll probably go. You know what, you know who'd be good for this fucking part, Bobby.

There's something for me though. There's still something about the lack of emotion as she's making these decisions, particularly in this scene, that doesn't sit well. Like I said, it makes me. I'm not saying it would be a loving relationship. Sure.

Bobby then clarifies to her that, okay, so then it's over both our business and profess and personal relationship. And what's more, I don't actually get the Broadway part after all, And she says, yeah, of course, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put myself on the line for you now, I'm not representing you anymore. But then Bobby puts on this big show of how well I'm gonna leave, But you know what, I'm still I'm leaving with my self respect. And he turns to leave and here's where it gets. Here's where the iciness comes in a little bit more.

And maybe this is a little harder for you to argue. Fatherm alone. Norah says, no, you're not gonna leave with your self respect because you would come back here if I told you to. And he kind of says, yeah, whatever, and she says, all right, you know, Bobby, come back, and he thinks for a second, he goes okay, and he walks back in, and she looks at him says, now, Bobby, you don't even have your self respect. Down't get out right.

So it's not enough for her just to say get out of here. She goes through this extra step of stripping him of his self respect by pointing out to him that, you know what, you're full of shit. If I told you to come back, you would so fuck you. You have no self respect? Is that again?

Is that icy? Or is that the person who just said I would rather just do business with it you than be involved with you, saying on his way out, well, the reason I'm leaving right now is because I got self respect. I have more self respect than I have to deal with a fucking human being like you. What would you say back? To that.

Well, but I don't know if I would go through that exercise because what's to be gained by her humiliating him even more? Nothing? Right, it points to something in her character that can't let it lie. Now there's something about her after all. So this they keep circling back to this argument, and he keeps escalating, she keeps one upping him to prove a point.

Eventually it gets to the point where she has taken his shoes, right because she it's the same argument, but she says, you know what if I told you give me your shoes and I'll you can come back, And he gives her shoes and then she says, okay, now what you know what, Now you don't have the shoes, You're gonna go out barefoot into fucking New York. So how do you like them apples? She kicks them out again. So, now not only does Bobby not have his self respect, but he doesn't even have his shoes. He's totally humiliated by this woman for no good reason.

Right, there's some good reasons. Well what are the reasons? There might be some chickens coming home to roost for mister Bobby Wheeler. Some people over the years just then many back. I guess, mister Romeo, it's a man who forced makes his friends just so he can hook up with some rando.

You know, the man who mounts his best friend's fish on a giant, comically large plaque that he must put on his wall. There's something yeah, the same, the same friend who let those fish die so he could continue to hook up with that rand though, like, come on, you know, look, I would like to clarify something if I may HP, but the behavior of a powerful person using that power on on a young on a on a less powerful or not powerful at all person is horrific, and I don't condone it in anyway. I'm talking about this particular episode of this show with these characters in their dynamics because everything else is bullying, and bullies need to be punched in the fucking face. Okay, thank you. Sure Bobby has no choice at this point.

He His final say in this argument is, well, if you if I don't have my shoes, then I'm gonna I'm gonna bust this lamp. He picks up a lamp and threatens to break it, which somehow alarms Nora to the point where she gives him back his shoes, and Bobby takes that as his final victory over this whole ridiculous argument. So he takes his takes his shoes, victorious in his own mind. He leaves the apartment. Fade to black.

Now here's where we get the wrap up of the Alex b plot. We fade in on a b roll of a ski slope. It looks like something out of a Viewmaster reel or some kind of Disney documentary from the fifties. Did you see how vibrant these colors are of these people on this ski hill. I don't know.

I thought it was interesting. We cut inside what I presume is a ski chalet of some. Sort the Disney World of Color. Very vibrant. Alex has Disney.

Remember they show those nature documentaries. Yeah, this could be in Wild World at Disney. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just it had a weird I don't know, the colory, like too good for stock footage. It looked like stock footage but kicked up a few notches.

We're in this ski shallet. Alex is on the phone talking to Bobby about what happened. Alex says, hey, he'll be back tomorrow after all, because he ran out of money, I guess, and he hustles off the phone just as a beautiful blonde enters the room. I guess. We can only presume that the reager charm has struck again.

He's, you know, he'd actually what you want. If you want a job as a cabby in New York City, you'll spend some time in my shelley. It was another power dynamic we were not privy too. We cut to the garage where Bobby is hanging up the payphone with the reager Louis kind of looking on. They're both hashing over the details of Bobby's breakup.

But it's kind of funny because they're both walking to Louise's cage and it's almost like they're kind of comically kicking rocks on the way over as we're talking about the rotten luck and you know, unlucky in love kind of thing. And they get to the cage and Louis says something to the effect of, well, there's only one thing left to say, isn't there. And Bobby says what And he says, wheel a cab five forty three, and he gives them his his assignment for the day. That's it. He gives him his assignment.

We fade out and. Bobby starts cruising the meat. He puts his bandana back in his back pocket and he says, that's right, I'm back baby. So that is what price, Bobby. Now we're going to talk about some yellow lights.

What does a yell light mean? A reminder we are dealing on a scale of one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode. Five is the quintessential perfect taxi episode, as is our custom follow alone, we throw it to you. What do you give what price?

Bobby? I give it three lights? Three? Yeah, I tha really enjoyed this episode. Moral quandaries included I love a Bobby episode, and this is an aspirational episode and I enjoyed it, so that alone would give it a yellow light.

So I think three. This is an above average one for me. This is certainly better than that last one. I give this episode two yellow lights for me. For my opinion is that this really isn't that great of an episode.

But honestly, it makes me kind of sad for Jeff Conaway because what I've read in interviews about his time on Taxi and his frustration that they couldn't really give him any good stories to work with. It feels like Bobby deserves a better written episodes than this one. This. I just felt sort of sorry for him in this because it's not that interesting of a story. It doesn't really go anywhere.

No, you know, you're right. You said it during the episode, which is instead of the b plot being where's Alex, it could have been Bobby at the theater in that fucking ridiculous play. It could have been like like ten times as funny from that shit. The problem is they're locked into what. We got to include all of it, We got to include everyone from Taxi, you know, but they do.

There's a there's another subsequent episode, a very similar one where he's dealing with a critic that we actually do see the play that he's acting, and he's acting. I think I've talked about this before. He's acting in a one man play about Charles Darwin, and it's exactly as bad as you would expect it to be, but only now we actually get to see him performing in it, and how there's a malaise about him. He's so you know, he doesn't like it. He's just really bummed about this whole critic thing.

I'm not going to get into that too much here, but they do have the ability to escape the gravity and the confines of the garage when they want to. I just don't know why they wouldn't do it, because that stalled a play about twelve people stuck in an elevator. That's how could you not be intrigued by that premise and how wonderfully bad it would be? How could we not get a standalone episode that is just the play stall for thirty minutes. I love Jeff Conaway.

I'm always happy to see a Bobby centered episode. I just can't help feeling that, as I said, he deserves a better written one than this. So it's for me, it's just slightly below average. I think that feels right to me, So I give it two yellow lights. Father Malone gives it three.

That'll do it for this episode of night, mister Walters, Father Malone, where can the folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage. I have a show called Midnight Viewing. It's a twice a week show. We do a bunch of stuff on there. We cover the series Tells from the Dark Side, and we cover horror anthology movies, and we cover a bunch of current events.

Go over and check it out midnight viewing. And you have a Patreon, do you not? Oh patreon dot com slash father Alone, Where're gonna have special Patreon episodes, including one one with me and HP here, which is going to be fucking fantastic. I'm very very excited for It's. Gonna be great.

And I also want to give a shout out to the weekly roundup that you do with Ripley Jane, your awesome co host. It's a great it does drop on Sunday. They're a great way to start your week if you want to get a good sense for movies that maybe to look out for that week. Stuff on streaming. I've gotten a ton of good recommendations on movies to see just from listening to those episodes.

I think it's there, funny, they're informative. It's a wonderful capsule view of what to look forward to that week. I think they're wonderful. So as for me, you could also find me elsewhere on weirding Way Network. I am doing some new episodes of a little show called Noise Junkies that Father Malone and I used to co host way back when.

Look out for those. I also check out HP's standalone episodes of Noise Junkies. They're fucking fantastic. You will learn to like things that you maybe didn't like in the past. They're fun to do.

I enjoy it and hopefully give it a chance. Maybe you'll like it too. I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Christashu and you can also check out my band camp. It's Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. So for myself and Father Malone, thank you again for listening and we'll see you guys again next time.

Thanks for listening.