Episode 50 - Going Home

You see that guy with it now he's an actor at the phone driver and the only camp driver in this place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters Taxi Podcast. I'm hp R co host and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone, How are you this evening? I'm good, cam you liver.

I'm saying that because we're gonna visit We're gonna visit being town in this episode. And that's a that's a bit, that's a being town phrase that I'd like to reinvigorate and spread like a virus. Calm your liver. Oh my god, everybody call your liver. We get to it.

When we get to it. Just calm down. So we're talking Taxi Season three, episode five, Going Home. This is written by Glenn Charles and Les Charles, the Charles Boys, the Pride of Henderson, Nevada once again. Right, and obviously the Pride of Boston as the co creators of Chairs.

Need I say. It's directed by James Burrows. Of course. A reminder we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. By the way, I get complaints sometimes, father alone, about why do you have to keep saying.

Hey, you know what, that's that's interesting. HP. I'm with those people. The reason is because this season we're all sick of it. Hey came you live out now?

The reason is this season in particular, it's a good example of this that this stuff's all shot out of order, or should I say broadcast out of order. So it's I'm trying to maintain a sense of continuity with the air dates, so sue me. So anyway, here we go where we start out. We're in the garage as a guy who I thought Barret bore a striking resemblance to Dabney Coleman. Did you notice the PI that comes in looking for gym looks just like Dabney Coleman Circle nine to five.

Yeah, I didn't think it was Dabney Coleman. I don't know who I thought he was at first, But Dabney Coleman wasn't it. Obviously Daddey Coleman wouldn't have shown up on taxi. He wouldn't. Well, when was this the same time.

Like around nine to five was coming out? Right? Must have been, because I think Buffalo Bill was maybe eighty three eighty four time frame. He wasn't. In fact, in the earlier episode where Banta has to babysit Elaine's kid, don't they go to the movies and like they're looking at the movie listed ninety five is playing or something.

Maybe there's a b roll. I think nine to five is around this time period in some way. Even on the show, it. Must have been like it wasn't that. I thought it was Dabney Coleman.

I just thought that that type this guy looked at He had the mustache and kind of the corduroy jacket. And he was huge. So this guy is in the garage looking for He announces to Louis that he's a private investigator named Spencer, which is an odd name. I think of Spencer for hire. Of course the TV show.

On the Boston Show, Oh my god, that's another blo. The Boston references are coming fast than hard. Here so much Boston. Oh calm my own live. This PI is looking for Jimmygdotowski, and upon hearing this, Jim bolts as fast as I've ever seen Christopher Lloyd run in anything, back to the Future, you name it.

He one floor of the Cuckar's nest. He bolts all the way. I think he basically is running to the bathroom in the back of the garage, like he just runs like hell. Back there, he looks like he was drawn by Walter Lance in a Woody would peck our cartoon run across thes. Like the legs are moving so fast that you can't even see them on a running you know, the big dust cloud, correctly surmising that this must be Jim Spencer.

This guy. Spencer starts walking towards the back, but Alex kind of steps in. I think Alex is protecting Jim. I thought it was kind of nice. Alex stopsmon asks what he's all about, and Spencer clarifies that he's a PI.

He's been hired to try and find Jim. At this point, Jim pokes his head out the door, asking if the Fuzz are still here. Tony clarifies to Jim that it's not the Fuzz, it's a private Dick. Do you know what the etymology is? By the way of private Dick?

Why is that shorthand for private investigator? Fo them alone? I don't know how detective turned into Dick, but somehow it mutated there boy that became a shortened version of detective. Although if you say detective fast and if it kind of sounds like dick, I suppose, And so when you say a private detective to short nighte up, it's just a private dick. I guess it could be wrong.

People can write in and say, Hpe, why you keep telling us that fucking information about the out of orderness of the episodes, and Father Malone is completely wrong about the etymology of all these words. I can feel the view that the listenership of Night mister Walter is just plummeting. There's just there's too much housekeeping. In this episode, after introducing himself to Jim, Spencer recounts to him how difficult his search has been. He's, I guess because Jim has been floating around the country like the proverbial feather in the wind.

This guy's been having trouble tracking him down. But he mentions that Jim's real last name is called. Well this this conjure's images of you know, like nineteen sixties revolutionaries on the run, like in that movie Running on Empty starring jud hirsh. In River Phoenix. Did they do a bombing or something?

Yeah, and they were Yeah, I remember that. What's your name. You gotta be about that I remember is like them piling into a van and like that they at the at the end of that movie, they they abandon River Phoenix, like he just wants to live his life, and they pile into the van with the other two children who now have to continue to live this hidden existence, and they turn on the radio and they forcibly starts like near shouting fire and rain by uh oh, James Taylor, by James Taylor, right like like aggressively making them sing along to James Taylor. And I thought, God Almighty, leave them with River Phoenix. Good movie, jud hursh go check it out.

So Blaine finds this name change amusing that he changed his name to Ignatowski, and Jim says, well, it was the sixties and everyone was changing their name to stuff like Sunshine or moon Unit. He actually uses moon Unit. The of course Frank Zappa's daughter that I found that a little off putting, frankly Father Malone, that they had to stoop to that. I did too, just because moon Unit was a thing at that moment, like she was popular. Oh no, she wasn't yet.

With Valley Girl wasn't a song yet, was it? No, not not yet, but certainly everyone knew. That Frank Zappa had a kid named moon Unit and one named Dueasel and such. So yeah, it's an easy joke to make and Zampa's expense, And the fact is, Moonbeam and Sunshine were names that people chose for themselves rather than given to them by some fucking zonked out hippie. I don't know why they went with moon Unit.

It was a little bit, like I said, off putting. Alex presses Jim on why Ignatowski, and then Jim smugly says, I say it backwards, and I. Realized, you know, hpi, I figured out how to say it backwards or any Yeah, star Child, Well. It's funny you say that because I wrote down a supremely preppy Bobby. But you see, Bobby has a like a blue cable knit sweater.

And was was I infuriated by that navy blue fucking sweater they've got him in. It's like, you know, like he's going down to Tello's at the mall. What is Bobby Wheeler doing that is a Tello's reference? Are you going to talk about him wearing his Zekavarici's to the chess King? Well, I mean, this seems like an all Boston episode, Baby.

Bobby, mister preppy. Bobby says, the real reverse backwards, the real backwards pronunciation is something like ex wotang, which bummed. Jim replies, that's not even close to starchild, So unfortunately, I think, uh. And once he said that somewhere the band Kiss were invigorated and their eyes all lit up and they formed a giant robot. This wasn't this was This was only a couple of years after Phantom of the Park, where he was actually called stall Child.

I remember Ace Freeli is. Always in So somebody say my name because I need a ride to the airport. The PI does what he came to do, which is deliver a letter to Jim, which he does, and then he leaves the garage and he's out of the episode, effectively. The rest of the caves gather excitedly around Jim as he opens a letter and he starts to read it. After Bobby corrects the orientation.

Jim tries reading it, but he says it's in some foreign language and it's actually not a bad joke, Jim. Bobby flips the letter over. Oh okay, nothing Bobby does is funny here because he's wearing that outfit. Jim says, it's a letter from his father, whom he hasn't spoken to in many, many years. Alex helps Jim with the letter, which contains two first class tickets to Boston.

The father So, I who knew that Jim had roots in Boston? I think that's fabulous. He's a hometown boy and he is. Yeah, this is all the hometown boys are on display here, Jim. The fucking the Chiles Brothers.

Cheers is really starting to make sense. The highlighting of Boston as the setting. I think it's interesting, to say the least. His father apparently was making out his will and decided he wanted the family around for a visit. So Jim explains that is because they're all surprised by this, like, are you wealthy, Jim, and Jim says, yeah, his father is wealthy, and this blows the Cabby's minds, and Tony asks Jim why isn't he rich too?

Apparently, Jim explains that he and his father had an argument and they parted ways. By the way, just a little side note, a true side note here, Father Malone, did you see we have a Richard Sakai sighting at this moment in the episode, did you see him walk by? No? I was too wrapped up in the drama. If there's a lot going on, I don't blame you.

At one point, Jim gets very imperious and he's says, I'm gonna we're gonna go to Boston and whatever. And as he does that, you see Richard Sakai walk by. He literally just it's just a don't blink and you'll miss him kind of thing. But the weird part of it is he's wearing what looks to be a motorcycle cops leather jacket. It's a very weird look because usually he's in some sort of like T shirt and a satin jacket or something.

But wasn't he Captain Marvel. Originally? But that was more of the shirt that he was wearing like. This is yeah, I'm not saying he was flying around the cab company. I think.

It's a very weird look, but it's definitively it's it's Richard Sakai. I I was delighted. Jim proclaims that he's gonna go down to the airport immediately to go back home, but not before asking if anyone wants to join him because his dad included two tickets after all, because maybe he figures maybe Jim had a wife or a partner of some sort. All the cabbys at once they start making excuses not to go. Jim tries to make a game of it where he's gonna think of a number between one and ten the winner will come closest.

But of course, being Jim, he tells them the number in advance, which is three. And wouldn't you know it, all all the Cabby's are saying, oh, I picked ten, Sorry Jim, Sorry Jim? Why they all pick ten? They could have just picked anything. It's a test of how aduled Jim is, perhaps because anyone in the right mind would you go, Wait, you can't all have picked ten.

That's kind of what's the probability of that? Now? Look, look, we know who's going with him. But I have a question for you, HB who do you wish? Who do you wish had gone with Jim?

Because when the hands went up and this little contest was going on, I genuinely thought, well, this could go anyway. Here there's a couple that I think would be interesting. I think Elaine going would have put a good spin on things because we've seen her in these kind of upper crust scenarios. She's very good at bringing things down to Jim's level. She's very gentle and very caring, so she would have been fun.

I think it's also with Jim. She communicates with Jim well, and she can defend Jim. Two upper crusty type people, and they potentially will listen to her. Right, would she have been your vote to? No?

Who would you have wanted to see him go? Tony Banta? Why the blind leading the blind? Oh? My god?

Can you imagine Tony Banta? In fact, I would have I would have catered the rest of the episode to the fact that it was Banta going and made them more aryan dyite and refined when he got there. It would have been a very different episode if the two of them, because I think it would have leaned more into the comedy. But you know, it would have been good. It would have been really really funny.

Also, also near the top of the list, Laka. But Loca wasn't even in the in the garage. No, clearly he wasn't. But no, well, I mean, we don't know. You could have been in his little back room over there, like they mentioned like at one point in the conversation.

I'm just saying that would have been, like, can you imagine Victor Buono dealing with those two. He wouldn't know where to look. Because he's already. As we'll see, he gets flumxed just dealing with Jim alone, and Alex ends up having to spoiler alert, Alex goes with him, but Alex is the one who has to sort of translate for him a little bit. I don't know what he would have done.

If Latka, it would have truly been his head would have exploded. It would have been like a monkey House episode. Man, people have just been like it would have been all physical comedy weirdness. We're kind of would have been great. It would have been very weird.

So Jim goes through this exercise one more time, and this time Alex takes pity on him and he picks the right number, number six this time, so Alex will be joining him. Louis comes walking out at this point, the one and only time we see Louis in this episode, by the way. He asks what's going on, and Jim explains that he's going to be away for a few days to see his father. Now, I don't know if you had the same reaction follow alone, but Louie's response to Jim is indelible for me because they used this line in the taxi commercial that ran on Channel fifty six. Louis says Ignatowski's got a father.

There goes my spore theory. A lot of laughter. For whatever reason, that one line was part of the commercial for Taxi. I'll never forget that burned into my brain. I do not remember that particular clip package, so I didn't have the same reaction.

Although the line grossed me out. Why did it gross you out? Because it brought to yeah, spores. It brought to mind like the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, How how wet all those spores were? And then I thought of, you know, Christopher Lloyd emerging from one of those pods and everything is sort of sticky and strang.

I guess I could see that. I thought it's a funny line, and if we're only going to see Louis for a brief moment, I thought it was a good little cameo of comedy for him, So I liked it. You know, like Christopher Lloyd, like open mouthed and his eyes aren't there yet, still growing. Moist and damp, and oh my god, it's kind of gross. So we cut too.

It's not just any bee roll Father alone. It's bombed and b roll it sure is. It's the golden dome of the fucking state House, the most ugly state house in America. Are we to understand that they dispatched like a second unit director to Boston just to get that one shot of the state House? No, they from Los Angeles said, who's our affiliate in Boston?

Have them send us some footage of kind of a ritzy area because it's Beacon Hill, really was what they're trying to imply there. Even though the shot that they give us of the house, I'm like, where the fuck is that? The quality of this State House Bureau supports your theory because it's a very quick zoom out from the state House. It's it literally is maybe a second and a half. It's not a very lingering shot of Boston, just enough you can get the sense of it, and then that dissolves into this shot of a kind of a pastoral estate with a car pulling in.

I don't know. It might have been somewhere in the Berkshires, but but that belies the state house footage. So I'm not sure where that house would have been located. Where would you. Think are we talking in the show where they're supposed to be telling us where it was?

Yeah, So if we're going to try and here's what, here's this is what I think they showed us that shot of Boston. We saw the sort of ritzy housing, and then they said, and just cut to this other house shot, which looks like a shot house in Pasadena. We'll cut to that and people won't know the difference because they won't know that behind those buildings there aren't these like sort of urban neighborhoods. That's the the practical answer. But but if you're going to extrapolate where Jim's father lives, Oh, Brookline, you think that Brookline's not that greeny.

In parts of it crazy, it's not. Really that that that rural. I don't think did you find it to be rural? I just thought it's suburban. It looked very very It was more than just tree lined.

It looked countryish to me. We have to agree to disagree. It just looks suburban to me, Brookline probably fits the bill, although I would think is that the ritchiest area that he would have been living in. Oh, they would be living in Bay obviously, right, that's yeah, probably, so that's probably it. We cut inside where there's a butler opens the door for Jim and Alex.

Alex is as he should be. He's dressed in a nice brown suit, while Jim is still wearing his Canadian tuxedo, looking as disheveled as ever. Jim and Fan. He's still so adult. He mistakes the butler for his father, when Alex corrects him.

Then this haughty guy in a suit, this kind of chunky guy in a suit, comes downstairs and very drolly says hello to Jim. It's Jim's brother Tom. Do you are you familiar with this actor who plays. Tom Walter Alkowitz. Yes, yes, I'm familiar with him.

I remember him on a television series with Jeff Conaway where they play fantasy characters together, where Jeff Conaway was kind of the rake and Walter Alkowitz was was like the muscle, like the little John type character. And for some fucking oh it's not. For some reason, it's an interesting choice. I thought to have him holding a package of cracker jacks. But please continue with Walter Ali Sudden, We'll get back to those crackerjacks and all of that bullshit.

So you're right, it is Walter al Kowitz. You're absolutely right. In an interesting turn of events, he would join Conaway. It was a actually Jeff Conaway's first post taxi role on the short lived TV series Wizards and Warriors, where you're right. I watched every episode of that show.

Years and years later. I think Warner Archives put it out as a complete series DVD, which I own. What you didn't know this? You could try it? You have not shown this to me?

How long? Because friends no more? Well this was in the last two years I bought this. It wasn't Now I have to turn my back on you klingon like. I tried watching it.

It doesn't really hold up. Is it better or worse than Tales of the Gold Monkey. Stephen Collins of course with yeah, noted, noted trouble person. The best thing and my best thing. I mean, the most ironic thing about Stephen Collins is that he was in He was the reverend on that show Seventh Heaven.

Do you remember that where it was the idea was like, fuck this, I'm gonna pose nude now I got to get out of here. I just thought it was interesting that he's holding himself up to be this paragon of virtue and all this, and this guy is like the biggest creep anyone has ever. I mean, he's his career is dead, like there was no coming back from what happened to Stephen Collins. And even to this day. I try to watch Star Trek the Motion Picture.

It's a very difficult watch now because he's such a creep. Listen, it's always been a difficult watch with those outfits. Mike, Mike, Mike White. Hold on, Mike White makes a joke about Star Trek devisor to make sure when Bones first shows up and he's got the beard and the medallion, the line should be, Jim, we got to save disco. But anyway, that's Walter Alkowitz.

I think he just recently passed away in the last four or five years, So rip Walter Alkowitz. He's a very familiar face. He's been in a bunch of things. I think he did a lot of TV guest roles that sort of thing. Jim gives a big hug to Tom and introduces him to a vaguely embarrassed Alex because I think Jim mistakes him for his father again or something.

There's a lot of they're really leaning on Jim being a complete drug casualty in this episode, which is something I didn't really love. They even kind of made him seem like a child like, very very childlike in a lot of ways, which I thought was slightly off putting for me. It's clear that this brother Tom is disapproving of Jim. He just has this a feat snobbery that kind of takes hold in all of his dealings with Jim. And by the way, this isn't the last time we'll see Tom.

Tom comes back in a season five episode a follow up to this. Basically, I remember that episode He's a Dick in that he is a. Real dick, but Jim earns his grudging respect by the end of this story arc, if you will. Then, a bubbly blonde woman runs in excitedly to see Jim. It turns out to be Jim's sister, Lilah, who then proceeds to come on aggressively to Alex, suggestively asking him if he wants a bite of her peach and she like plays grab ass with Alex throughout the episode.

It's very very. Odd now so far brother Tom has cracker Jack's sister Lilah has a peach. Continue. Are we leading up to something here? Father below Angela Metusaville?

Anyway? Continue? So we dissolved to Alex and Jim walking into a huge wooden pointed office. It's massive, it's one of them. It really is beautiful.

It's a great set, two stories and ship that. The set reminded me a little bit too much of that Martin short sitcom about lawyers that we talked about in a previous episode, because there's this viral staircase to the library. But it looks great. Everything is wood paneled. It looks really good.

I've accused them sometimes when they go in, when they lean into a rich person's office or home or a condo, it can sometimes look gaudy. This, to me didn't look gaudy. This looked sumptuous. And every bit of that money is on display. I thought, that's some brahm and shit, some Boston brahm and shit going on with with the fucking globe in the corner.

The globe the size of a buick. Yeah, and the couches and the chairs all look really like leather, real leather, and it looks very, very, very cool. They did a good just once again. Two couches seated in the middle of the room facing each other, which like feet apart, and I thought, wow, that's really weird. Who would do that and why?

So they walk in. Alex admires this huge painting of a woman and asks Jim if it's his mother, and Jim says yes, and they have a little there's a little of oddvillion back and forth about the mother. I don't remember the specifics of it. She never took off those gloves. Yes, yeah, yeah, then a voice.

It's great painting, by the way. It almost looks Victorian though. That's the weird part about it. Well, you got a figure with King Tutt, Yeah, resigning here. I was getting to that.

I'm getting to that. But you figure she couldn't have been that old. I mean, it was a very I guess it's just a very stylized painting of this woman. Beautiful painting. You're right, yeah, Like you know, HP Lovecraft had no fucking business in nineteen ten, writing in the style of fucking eighteen forty, but he was doing it.

So you hire somebody to do a painting of your wife, you say, in nineteen sixty fifty, nineteen fifty, I guess we're talking about because he hardly knew Jim, or she hardly knew Jim, and vice versa. He said, give me, give me one of those comic book covers, make a superhero. But she also looked very, very young. The woman in the painting looks very young to me, So it makes me wonder A when the painting was done and B when did she die, because it's clear that she's been dead for some time. I don't know the answer to either.

We fade to commercial. As we fade back in, Jim's dad comes into the office in the form of, as you mentioned earlier, Victor Buono. This is the moment, by the way, Father Malone, that I had mentioned that Buono in this episode is forty two years old, a full ten years younger than you and I. At this moment in time, I thought that was just so fucked up. It was bracing, is what it was.

By the way, six months older than Christopher Lloyd, six months older than Christopher Lloyd playing his father pulls it off. He's so convincing. Most people listening might be more familiar with him from his Academy Award nominated role in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, But as you already alluded to, I remember him and I think you do too. This King Tut from the Batman sixty six television series. He's indelible in the role, so spectacular that I can't really say Batman at this point is underrated, because I think it's finally properly rated everyone recognizes as a classic of camp TV.

Obviously, Yeah, we finally figured out that everyone was in on that joke. Jim's father walks in. He has an amused smile on his face upon seeing Jim. There's something really beautiful that we're going to see Jim's interaction with his father, and it takes some turns from where one might think it goes, because the basic premise that we'll see is Jim is the wayward son that went his own way and maybe went against the family and their wishes. And it would have been really easy for them to make this like the snobbery looking down on Jim and the conflict that arose.

But really, what we're going to see here. What we're already seeing is real love and affection between Jim's father and Jim. I think it's really beautiful that Jim's father is so happy to have his son here and really wants to understand, like what happened to you? Like where have you been? What have you been up to?

And let's just enjoy each other's company, don't you agree. I think what you said about Victor Buono's smile coming in that bemused smile, I think Victor Bono is a bemused smile, like if it was if a bemuse smile was a human being, that's who it is. There's something so deeply comforting about Victor Buono. Well, at the same time, he's very, very funny, he's very very talented, he can do all of those things, but at his heart there seems to be a decency and something that you genuinely just like and having that no matter how they wrote the role, they cast Victor Buono, which meant that's the character they wanted. They wanted a decent, loving guy, even if there are problems with Jimmy Natowski.

It's so heartwarming and so because in sitcoms we were so conditioned to these things following a very specific story arc and characterization, and this is a left field from that. I really love that about this episode. Jim makes a bunch of innocent jokes about how bald his dad is. He can't for some reason, Jim just keeps hammering this idea that wow, you're bald dad, and he makes a bunch of jokes. Now, is this the childlike thing that you were mentioning that Jim was to childlngth in this episode, because that's what it felt like.

This is the scene that reminds me of, like, you know, where a kid has no faulter like look at that fat Parson. This is the start of that for sure, because, as you said, like a child will say whatever comes to their mind, not out of any maliciousness, but just because, as you said, they don't have a filter. That's how they've written Jim for the majority of this episode. It doesn't kill my enjoyment of the episode, as we'll eventually see we talk about how we're going to rate this, but it was just a little too much because I think at a certain point, Jim, as drug addled as he might be and as burned out as he is, I think he can still recognize basic manners and how to act in public, certainly how to treat his father that he hasn't seen in ten or fifteen years or whatever.

It's just a little much for me. That was my impression of it. Do you think, perhaps, though, that it might have just been a tactic on Jim's part. I don't think so, because that implies that he's capable of subterfuge. But I don't really think that he is.

I think he's an innocent. I think he's naive, but I don't think it goes all the way into this immature behavior that they kind of painted him with. Oh buy that. I don't know. I agree with you ultimately.

I just think it could have been something, you know, like it felt that way after like the third time about yeah, but where's his hair? And then like yeah, okay, but that doesn't explain why he's so fat. If there's a negative that I'm gonna levey at this episode, and again we're getting ahead of ourselves, but that's really my biggest pet peeve about this episode. They could have they could have been a little more understated with his behavior and his loopy, cock eyed way of looking at the world. I guess the way he's written here makes me think that they wanted to put Lot go with him, right.

I guess he's oftentimes flaky, but rarely have we ever seen him so oblivious to basic manners in this case, like he's really. Yeah, you know, remember the episode with a Lane where he was like he wanted to do something nice for her, to make like the whole secret admirer thing, and then he ends up cutting up his own van for her, Like, where's that guy here? He's just you're right, they're just doing the burnout thing because it's a cheap joke machine. They could have made him more understated, and it wouldn't have really made much of a difference ultimately in the characterization, I thought so anyway. Finally, Jim admits that he's missed his father, and mister Caldwell replies that, well, you could have called.

Jim says that he's been calling once a month for the past ten years just to hear his father's voice, which is actually a very nice sentiment. But unfortunately what we discover, of course, because you have to you can't just let that lie. It's got to be followed up by a joke Jim has had the phone number wrong for all of this time, because he looks at the phone and he says, set your number, and he says yeah. He says, oh, that's that's why you haven't heard from me, because I've been calling the wrong number for all this. Time, and like that there's a family out there that's been harassed once a month by Jim mcgnatowski inadvertently for years.

Well, because he does say I didn't mention this, but while he's talking in the garage, he does make reference to the fact that he's been calling his father and he says at one point, like the person says, like, for the love of God, please stop harassing me. But now knowing like at the time, you just figure it's just his father, not knowing that it's Jim and getting annoyed. But you're right, there's some guy, some fair somewhere, God knows where that's that's feeling that's been hounded ten years. Mister Caldwell then admits to Alex that he doesn't know how to talk to Jim, but Alex assures him that Jim has grown incredibly in the last year and a half that they've known each other. Which I actually I'm surprised to even think about that that it's Jim has now been at the garage for about a year and a half, so.

And I just there's a moment when they're the conversation they're having. They're both the couches I mentioned, Victor Bono sits on one and Alex and Jim sit in the other and when they get when they finally like get up, it's after Jim has said the fat line, you know, but why are you so fat? And when Victor Buono rises, he reaches out like almost like he's clawing the air, like the frustration is as such that you know that if Jim were in striking distance there would be some major violence going on. But then comes right back down into the sweetness, and it's a great moment. Just wanted to bring it up before we forget about it.

There's a funny bit where when they're not actually sitting on the couch, mister Calwell sits on like the armrest and Jim sits on the armrest, and I think Alex is about to sit down on the couch, but then when he takes note of the fact that they're both sitting on the armrests. He then chooses himself to sit on the arm rest. But you're right, it's because of these two couches that are effectively kind of forming one large couch facing each other. I mean, it's a conversation pit sort of situation. I kind of get it, but at the same time, I was weirded out when there was no one sitting there, and I was really weird a out when they were sitting there.

Mister Caldwell tells them that the butler is going to show them to their rooms, and he takes their leave of them for now. After Jim's father leaves, Jim tells Alex that just being there is stirring something within him. He says he loves his dad, he doesn't love his brother, and he doesn't really know why, which is I thought it was an intriguing way that he kind of delivers this. He says he likes his sister well enough in the butler, and he says that Alex has been terrific so far. He's very happy to have Alex there to support him.

He asks Alex if they can go home now, but Alex, like talking to a child, says well, no, Jim, we're not done here yet they've just flown probably what is it from New York to Boston. It's a two or three hour flight, two hours, let's say, right. Two hours to look forty five minutes. What do you mean forty five minutes? It's a forty five minutes fly.

From from New York to Boston. Yeah, man, forty five minutes. It's the least you take the concord which is still going at the time. This idea that he's this helpless child that doesn't understand that they've come all this way, Like why would he possibly think that, Okay, now we're done, let's go home, daddy. It just it kind of looks like we go home?

What are we doing here? Who are these people? Right? I just I want to go home? Can we go home?

I want to go home. It just infuriated me somehow, Well that's a strong word. It didn't infuriate me, but it just really really bugged me. Well, I thinks, look, things are pretty bad for the yellow lights. Because that because at a certain point it becomes like rain Man, Alex is now Tom Cruise and Jim is now Dustin Hoffman, who doesn't understand the you know, ways and means of communication.

You know what I mean? No, that is the absolute perfect comparison, rain Man. That's what this fact that would have felt like right then, what it continues to feel like every time Alex has to step in. I'm telling you, anyone else in the company, cab company, who if they had gone with him, this would have been a better episode because they could have kept all the sentiment too. But just another crazy person to go pingponging off of him, like while he's doing all this nonsense would be great.

It would have been hilarious. I totally agree with you. Now, So we dissolved to the dinner table. Everybody at all the family are seated there, and everyone's plates are piled high with all kinds of food. I think I saw like a roast, there's a salad, there's mashed potatoes.

Ah. Now the crack of Jack's and the peach makes sense, don't they? This family the family of Obaitas Jim has escaped into Thinness, Jim. Has he's dressed a little bit more appropriately. He's wearing this sort of rumpled tie a button down shirt in a sweater to look more respectable.

And then Lila makes another sexually suggestive comment to Alex, which it was rather discomfiting for me. I have this side note. We've discussed Alex's brand of sensitive manhood in the past, you know, comparing him to guys like Alan Alda. Of course, but do we really follow blone? Do we really do we really buy him being so irresistible to these women?

Which women are we speaking of? Well, in this case, there's no, no, no, no other than Lila, because Lila's a special case. The woman that he was on the ski trip with, the blonde with the bluest eyes he had ever seen. Okay, no, that one makes sense. Okay, we've seen what we will see.

Elaine make passes. Listen, that doesn't make any sense at all. Suddenly you change. Elaine Nardo should be saving herself for only one person. And that one person would be you, Father Bologna.

I'm eight years old at the time. But she should wait, and she should know the date of my birth just off the top of her head. I'm talking about Mary lew Henter. Alex is a decent guy, and he's smart, and he's a handsome fella, and he can dance and he sing and all these other things. He lives.

He's cultured, So yeah, I do believe that he can get all of those women. In the case of Elilah, and that's just the stereotype of the over sex rich board woman, that's all that is. Like, what's weird is they've given her that trope, but they've given the brother nothing. They really have, which is why it's nice that Walter Alkowitz comes back. I think it's only the one episode.

It might be two because there is another reference. Well spoiler alert, there's an episode where Jim has to go back because his father has passed away, which is. Which he had done. Like he dies a year after this show aired, I believe. Right right, I don't remember.

I'm sure his brother was in that episode two, but he doesn't feature as prominently as the one from season five. But it's nice that they give Walter Alkowitz more to do because he is quite good. In that last season episode, Jim's dad makes a comment to Lilah to stop acting cheap, which kind of supports your theory that she's over sexed and maybe he's seen this before from her. Mister Caldwell goes on to ask Jim to tell them, but he calls him James. By the way, which I love.

Oh, I love it too, because it's so natural the way he says it, you know, and that's a pack that's such a parental thing, like I don't care what you're calling yourself. I named you such and such. It's very parental. And it got to me to the point that my notes here I go, I flip flop between Jim and James just because of that. So he asks Jim to tell them about his life since he dropped out of Harvard, and that surprises Alex to know that he even went to Harvard, because he never knew that information.

Another side note, they're taking great pains to paint Jim as being a rebel even when he was younger. Mister Caldwell says he was very special. He always had it, was very headstrong whatever. But we will see from a future episode. There's an episode, there's a two parter we're going to talk about called I think it's called The Road Less Traveled, and we see Jim the moment at Harvard where he first tries a pot brownie.

There's nothing rebellious about Jim at all in that episode, so I'm calling into question. I think there's a little bit of ret Conning going on with this because there's nothing rebellious about Jim infect it's the opposite. He is too straight laced in that episode. That's right, Well, we'll get to the episode. But yes, it is like it's a mistake.

It's like a jacko and hide thing, like it's I'll take this thing and we'll just to dispel anything. Then oh, now I'm Jim Ignutowski. It's a werewolf transformation with just a guy and no effects. It is. I just think in retrospect, there's no way they would have known in this episode that they were going to go on to do that.

Can I positive theory? Yeah, of course, this just my theory, But I think this might be what they were trying to say right before Reverend Jim Mgnotowski, or at the time James Caldwell went to college. I think around that that would be around the time his mom actually died, right and the family's reaction was to overeat, and James's decision was to lose his mind over. I think that's what they're getting at it. That makes sense.

I never thought of it in those terms, but that makes sense. Sure. In fact, mister Caldwell mentions that Jim got excellent grades his first semester at Harvard, but then the second semester he makes a crack like he wrote all of his term papers and finger paint. And I guess, based on what you're saying, maybe that was the line of demarcation between his drug use. Maybe after that first semester was when he took that first bite of a pop brownie and he was never the same after that.

Maybe he only made it one semester. Well, that was Tom and Lilah and mister Caldwell are filling their grief with food and Jim's filling it with narcotics. I'll go with that. So mister Caldwell wonders, like, how have you spent the last ten years James drifting, living off of handouts, getting stoned. There's this real note of disapproval in James.

In mister Caldwell's voice, he really expresses disgust for the lost opportunities and asks Jim if he feels ashamed or any remorse for the missed opportunities, And to Jim's credit, he doesn't. He wouldn't change it at all. You know what, Can I speak to that a little bit here? Because I'm not a mister nine to five type guy. I really never have been.

I'd never joined any corporation or followed any of that shit. I've always been just a hand to mouth sort of a fella. So I've often been plagued with questions like that. And the notion that you would feel shame at all for not following somebody else's path is so fucking stupid, And I'm glad Jim at least finally snaps out of his infantile reverie here to defend it. No, I didn't, and you know what, and by the way, like the sort of the vitriolic way Victor Bono spits out where you stooned, He's like, well.

Yes, what you're saying kind of lends credence to your earlier theory that maybe this is all a bit of a tactic on Jim's part to get by this whole awkward situation. Maybe he's playing it up a little more than he should, because what ends up happening is this argument grows and increases in pitch between Jim and his father, and Jim really is standing up for himself and what he's done because he has nothing to be ashamed about. He lived his life the way that he wanted to live his life, just as you live your life the way you want to follow alone. There's no there's no excuses made for it. I'm just what God made me, sir, as Paul Bettedic would say years later.

And this is spinal tap. There is another possibility for Jim's sort of childlike behavior, mescal in. Mister Caldwell says that he had hoped that the years would have changed Jim's attitude, but he says, he Jim clearly that you don't give a damn and you probably never will, and he gets up from the table. Mister Caldwell gets up from the table and demands that they leave the house at once. But of course it's.

No longer appreciated, is that what he says. Something to that effect. But what I was gonna note is that when he gets up, he makes sure to take his keeping plate of food with him, because they've really hammered home. I mean, I think you're right. I think he's got an eating problem.

I think he eats his depression. So I think that was one of one of two plots that they were going to work, and a certain part went they we'll just leave that behind. That's fine. We don't have to keep going on that food thing. We've done food a bunch.

It's a cheap joke. Anyway. I at Victor Bono's this expense. I didn't like it. And then Alex gets up to talk to mister Caldwell, but of course not before over sex Lilah.

Actually she I think she actually pinches his butt, which I was kind of horrified by. But whatever, what an ass I mean? Can you blame her? They cut to the office again and mister Caldwell sitting in his office gazing up at the painting of his wife when Alex comes in. How often do you think he does that?

Probably a lot, a lot. I think it's his way of communing with his wife, his dead wife. At this point, it's weird, man, Yeah, it is a little weird. Alex tries to talk to mister Caldwell, but he interrupts him to say, Alex, you may not believe this, but Jim was always my favorite. James was always special.

You should have seen him as a child, to which Alex I thought this was rather patronizing. He says, I do like this idea that he's so innocent in child life. Right, But he has been behaving that way through the entire episode to your point. Right, But if we're looking at the entirety of Jim and Alex's friendship, it's not like he's acted like a child this whole time. It's a cheap joke at fucking Jim's expense.

Well, but in this case, it's not a joke. It really is like the rain Man thing. He looks at the world with a different set of eyes than we do. Do you think I had responded sometimes then it would have been okay. Yeah, probably right, I think so.

Sometimes sometimes Jim is a fucking drug addict, fucking burnout. Sometimes you can't even talk to him. Honestly, if Jim acted this way through the entire course of his life, they wouldn't give him a hack license. He wouldn't be safe to drive because he I would get nervous, He would forget which pedal is the gas and which pedals the break. They make him sound like he's got something really wrong with him, and he doesn't.

Well, he does, but not to the degree that they're painting him to be this special. Yeah, he's not shellacked, he's not completely out of it. It's you know, He's not brain damaged, at least not to the degree where he can't function in society. He's not some magical Stephen King character. For God's sake, laws yes, yes, oh oh, and that's how God lame character.

The stand, Alex insists to mister Calwell that the only damage that Jim has ever done is to himself, which is the truest thing that Alex says in the whole episode. So digg it, man, he's a good guy. You should catch your son some slack man. What I like is that there is no real conflict here is hp like ordinarily in this scenario, in a sitcom situation, you get you get the well, we had a conflict about this. Jim was supposed to take over the family business.

Jim was supposed to do this or that. He was supposed to follow in the footstore. He was supposed to marry this, you know what I mean. There is none of that. There's just a sort of a general disappointment.

There's a general Jim ended up like he is, and we could no longer relate. This is a little like a Tennessee Williams play. The family's gathering. They're going to figure out what to do with this guy's fortune. Some people wanted for various reasons, but it's the stakes are very low.

You're right, mister Caldwell actually gets to the point. Now, this doesn't make sense to me because I don't know. I'm not certainly I'm not a tax attorney. But what he says seems a little fishy. Apparently the tax laws are such that he's required to give out the bulk of his estate.

Now he's not elderly, he's not in the last throes of death. Why would he ever have to give away the bulk of his estate while he's still living, breathing healthy. Well, hb. That is an actual law in Boston that when they commuted to Chicago it became a different but also perplexing law where Catholic orphanages have to pay taxes in order to continue to survive. I see, so then you got to get the penguin.

You got to you gotta take care of the penguin, and uh, you know, go to the Cook County Assessor's office and yeah. Same sort of same sort of law on the books. Is uh uh fueling this need for Victor Buono to suddenly separate his fortune and give him to give it to his children. They didn't need to add that point. It still could have just been I just want to see Jim.

I just want to see my son after ten or fifteen years, and let's let's break it down. Let's let's let's reconnect. How about this. I'm not feeling very well and I've been thinking about mortality lately and thinking about my wife and the situation that the schism that I no longer have a family and I'm gonna have to give my money away. Would you give this money to Jim if I were to die tomorrow?

Would you think he could handle one million dollars? That's the question that should have been asked. He kind of gets to that, but it should have really just been, Look, I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm thinking about my legacy, and I really just wanted to see what Jim's up to and reconnect with my son that I haven't seen for many, many years. But given this idea that he's got to break up his estate now, he apparently brought Jim there to get a sense for where his head's at.

He even asks Alex, would you give Jim a million dollars Alex replies that look, Jim doesn't care about the money. He never did. He just came here to be with his family, But mister Caldwell is skeptical. To prove the point, he asks Jim to come in, and Jim comes in. Mister Caldwell announces to Jim that he's giving away most of his estate and Jim is going to get nothing.

And Jim's response to that is bulky doak, He didn't care. Give it to that guy with the wavy hair. You mean your brother. He's supporting Alex's assertion the money never mattered. Mister Caldwell doesn't believe it.

Alex said to Jim again. Alex is in the Tom Cruise role here. He says to Jim, his father thinks that you came here just for the money. Now, this really enrages Jim to a degree that we haven't seen it in this episode. He insists that he came here to see his dad, see his family, prove that he's back on his feet and they don't need to worry about him anymore.

He says he came here to find out who he is, who the family are, and where he came from. This speech finally causes mister Caldwell to accept that Jim isn't here for the money. He's convinced. He says, Jim, you're not without charm, my son. He offers him a deal.

He says, Jim, come home in role in school. I'll make sure you get the best education that money can buy. All you have to do, Jim, is take some responsibility for yourself and lead a decent life. Upon hearing this deal, Jim say, he replies, goodbye, Dad, and he just walks out of the office, which is really it's a little heartbreaking seeing him kind of walk out on his dad like that. But kudos to Jim.

Because, yeah, man, you gotta do what you gonna do. After confirming with Alex that Jim isn't coming back, they both leave the office. As they walk into this sort of entry way again, we get Jim the the child. He yells like sing song childlike to Alex, like, Alex, what are you doing? He's not a child.

I like the setup here, actually, I like the I even though it is sing song and kind of reminds you that he's too childlike in the episode. Overall, I like the idea of him yelling and the sort of relay thing where where both Victor Buono and judhursh are reacting and looking at each other like it's pretty great. It is it's It actually turns into a very sweet send off in this episode because Alex yells back to him that he's saying goodbye to Jim's father, and then Jim yells to tell his father that it was really great seeing him again and to get his right phone number. There's something about seeing Jim's dad hear that. It's a very sweet moment for Jim because there's been all this back and forth about Jim and his life and why Candy straighten up, But at the end of the day, it must be so heartwarming for Jim's dad to realize that Jim still loves him.

There's still that love between them that hasn't changed, that hasn't soured because of the money and how that's gotten in the way of Jim's dad's relationship to him. Well, he's not walking out because he doesn't like the dad. He's walking out because of that stupid fucking money situation. So yes, obviously it's great for Victor Borno to hear that, And I like, just as an actor because Victor Borno was always really really good with props. When he says, get my dad's phone number, Victor Borono scoops the phone off of the end table and shows it, like displays it out, like read the phone number off of the phone, because if you remember, handphone like landlines used to have the phone number written on the phone.

So Alex finally leaves, and mister Caldwell then yells. Oh, by the way, this is the part where I actually fucking cried watching an episode of Taxi. Yeah, me too, I tear it up. At this part, Jim's dad yells for him, and when he replies back, his dad says, it was really good seeing you again, son, And then Jim walks back in, but he's still yelling to his dad even though he's in the same room with him. He's he yells how great it was to see you two, dad, and his dad just smiles walks up to him, and you think it's going to be this cheesy like hug, this embrace, but it's not.

Victor Buono just gives him a playful wave goodbye, and he I think he's even like kind of shaking his head still, like welly, that kid it's beautiful because it's like. He sends a flight of stairs, like he walks away from him. Yeah, it's great, Victor Buono. It's hard to imagine anybody else playing the role in quite that way and hitting those notes that he hits. It's a wonderful capper to the episode.

I think, well, just the moment when he starts yelling back, like communicating to his son in the way that his son communicates, is that was enough to Niagara Falls? Niagara Falls, Frankie Angel. So now we're going to talk about yellow lights bottom alone? What does a yellow light me? As a reminder, we score every episode on the yellow light scale?

One yellow light is the worst taxi episode and five is the best. As is our custom, I'm going to throw it to you first, what do you give going home? Interestingly, I got to experience the phenomenon of most Academy Award members when they're watching screeners in that the thing that made me cry made me immediately think, give it all the awards. When I finished watching this episode, I thought five stars fucking easily, that's perfect. And then in rewatching and I went, wait, no, this is fucking all over the place.

What are they even doing for most of this this is so clumsy here and there and over there. But but but Victor Blono, so we're gonna end up with four four yellow lights. Can't help it. It's a three episode, but Victor Bono makes it four. One agreement with you on this.

I gave it four yellow lights as well, as I've already said and over said, probably they overplay his Jim's naivete and there's other problems I had with the episode overall. But it's got Victor Blono, and it's got that father son thing and the interplay between them. It's written. It's really written beautifully if you get past the corny jokes and some of the silliness that's going on. At its core, it's really really a beautiful cameo of Jim and his dad's relationship, and Buono really sells.

It's hard for me. I can't overstate how good Buono is in the compassion that he and the beauty of his relationship with his son. So I gave it four yellow lights as well. You give it four yellow lights. Once again, we're in agreement.

So that's going to do it for this episode of Night, Mister Walters, Father Malone. Where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? You can join me over at mid Night Viewing. That is the That's my podcast. Do a bunch of different variations on that show.

We have Father Malone's Weekly round Up where we check out new streaming things, and we also have anthologies Attack, and we have a bunch of other stuff. Go check out Midnight view That's where I'm at. Indeed, by the way, I always I stump for this every time, but please check out the Weekly Roundup with Father Malone and Ripley Gene. I never miss it every week. It's a great capsule of what to expect from that week's worth of streaming options or even things that are in the theater.

But even sometimes Father Belone just says, hell, I just want to talk about this, that or the other movie. It's always worthwhile, always makes me laugh, always makes me think. So please check that out. And you're in every episode. I make the commute every every week to Las Vegas just for that.

Just for the one one quick musical sting. Yes, it's also for that. One little bit. So as for myself, you can also find me around the weirding way Galaxy of Stars, if you will. I host the Noise Junkies podcast music podcast that's a fun one to do.

Some new episodes coming soon on that. I'm also occasional guest host on The Culture Cast with Christashu. I also have a band camp site hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com where I've got some music up there. I'd love for you to check out. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, rate us.

We'd love to hear from you in any manner you choose. And what slot key. I'm also going to change things up, fam, I'm taking another page out of your handbook, Sir. I realized that. So I do occasionally hear from some dedicated listeners here and there, but I realize that I've committed a egregious sin and not giving people an actual email address if they want to get a hold of me.

It's hard. Some people have contacted me through the band campsite. It's really not that convenient. So for all you listeners, anyone who wants to reach out to me and just say hi or tell me the what you liked or didn't like about the episode, check out this email. It's Hpmusicplace at gmail dot com.

Hpmusicplace at gmail dot com. I would love to hear from you. If you have any suggestions or comments about any of the episodes, please feel free to reach out. For following alone and myself, Thanks again and we'll see you next time. Thank mister Walders.