Episode 56 - Elaine's Old Friend

Weird media night. Mister Walters is see that guy with it now? He's an actor phone, I'm a camp driver. I'm the only camp driver in this place. Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters.

Taxi Podcast. I'm HP your co host, and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone. How are you this evening? He's Irish.

We're talking Taxi Season three, Episode eleven, Elaine's Old Friend. This was written by Susan Jane Lindner and Nancy Lane. There's a mouthful there, and it was directed by not James Barrow's father Malone. This was directed by Jeff Chambers. What is going on here?

Wait? What is going on here? I don't I didn't even notice it in the credits, Like I'm just so inured to reading the credits knowing it's gonna be good Old James Burrows bizarre. I I don't have any any reading on why he didn't direct the episode. I don't know who Jeff Chambers is.

I'm gonna feel really guilty at the end of this episode. Go ahead, I am. Too, because well we'll talk about it. Reminder, of course, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. We open on a cab interior Elaine.

This is a rare shot of Elane driving the cab. Usually you get like Alex. Alex seems to be like if you were going to log the number of minutes shown driving a cab, I think Alex is probably number one, don't you agree? Absolutely? You know Elaine must be somewhere towards last place.

You never see her driving. So she's driving, and she's she's driving a drunk guy around. Oh this is this is a good bit. Actually, it's good. It's a bit.

There's a nice punchline to this bit. She's bantering good naturedly with this drunk guy until they reached their destination, which is the airport. I wrote this down side note. Did you catch father Malone when they reach the destination? Did you catch Elaine's swerve hard swerve as they pulled up at the airport.

It was the bizarre and they sound effects. She was done with him at that point, that's all. She just you know, it was one of those They even had sound over the soundtrack of the screeching tires. All that was left from drunkie McGee was hitting on her. So she knew it was time to drop him off.

It was it she had driven him far enough. After getting her money, Elaine asks the guy if he's sure that he can find his plane, and he drunkenly replies, if I'm late, they're gonna wait for me, and he pulls on a pilot's hat and blaze her, which, you know, it's a great punchline to this whole thing. Turns out the guy's actually the pilot of the plane. He's he's drunk. Effectively horrifying, not funny at all.

It is horrifying, but it is funny because it's like, it's like the punchline to like a Playboy. Joke exactly, which is most of these jokes that tend to be a little bit of a ribaldry, you know, a little bit. Aren't we being bad? That's it? You've heard of pilots are drunks.

Well they are. So he gets out and while Elayne is parked there, she's filling out something in her little form. A fancy woman in a fur coat gets in and gives her a dress. Did you know who the woman was? Playing?

The fair father blone. I do not please tell me who she is? I know I've seen her in other things. I'll give you one hint and you're going to get this immediately. When when in Hollywood Father Blone visit Universal Studios, it was Babs, it was Babs, it was Martha Smith.

Her biggest credit, of course, is playing Babs Jansen an Animal. House, right, and she's in a feudal in stupid gesture playing the same role. That's exactly right. I've seen this episode dozens of times, Father Blone. I never knew that Elaine's friend was Babs from Animal House.

It was. I was as shocked as you are right now. I couldn't believe it. She shouldn't be so high and mighty. I remember her giving hand jobs to freshmen.

The fact that in Animal House she's got like the sixties up the sixties do and she's she has kind of a Southern accent, which threw me off to Yeah, she's clearly very versatile because, like I said, for years, for decades in fact, I never knew it was the same actress. So there he goes, great, Yeah, good for her. I love her. I got to I will now seek out more of her stuff because impressive. She's very, very good in this as is a lot of the people will talk about.

Actually, the woman glances at Elaine's hack license and then she there's a there's a shock of recognition on her face, and she excitedly breaks into this cheerleader routine like give me a hey, give me and Elaine hears her and and and catches on to what the year is. She knows what it is, and she joins in. Turns out that Elaine and this woman Mary were classmates and rivals at at east Side High which we talked a little bit about. This east Side High unless I'm mistaken, Father Balloon is where Joe Clark a ka Batman cleaned up that that that school, the school was going to be shut down, right lean on Me? Right?

So this is east Side, New Jersey, right, yeah, yeah, east Side That Yeah, that movie lean On Me starring Morgan Freeman. And now they can call me Batman. That that trailer that that we all saw. It's a it's a terrible movie. Uh, it's awful, awful movie.

What was the other once the really good Ones stand in delivery? That one's really good. H lean On Me is the pale imitation of that film, but it is a rough and tumble fucking school. Nonetheless, because it is based on a true story, and evidently Elaine Okay Honor attended this high school. She I have newfound respect for Elane.

She she would have had to have been one tough cookie to survive at east Side High with all the hygienks going on. By the way, you mentioned standy Delivery, I agree with you that it is the superior movie. Hats off to Jimiscalante. I don't know if he's alive or dead. I hope he's alive, but who knows.

I know Edward Janes almost is alive, and I think you had mentioned didn't you call him a world class grump recently? I did? I did? He just seems that way he does. He does seem a little grumpy.

Not as grumpy as Harrison Ford, but pretty grumpy. Oh. I think he's way more grumpy than Harris far and I think he has more Oh yeah, and I think he has more reason to be grumpy than Harrison for why is that? I think he's underappreciated, where as Harrison Ford might be over appreciated. Just you know, obviously he's an icon and he is given his status.

But I think almost has always been out there like slugging it out in the trenches and maybe hasn't gotten the amount of respect he deserves as an actor. You might be right, but I have to say I probably think of him and Blade Runner at least once or twice a month. That scene at the end. You've done a man's job, sir. It's too bad she won't live.

I think about that all the time. I can't get it out of my head. You know what I think about the very first time he showed up on Miami Vice and Don Johnson Sonny Crockett walks into his office and Edward James almost says, tells him to go back out and knock, and Don Johnson does it, and it's all real. You can tell that this is Edward James almost telling Don Johnson to go do this, and Don Johnson be really mad that he has to do it. It's awesome.

Wow, it's easy to forget that he was on Miami Vice and that was the show. Not to get too sidetracked, but that was the show in the eighties. There was no cooler show on TV. Now you watch it and it's kind of goofy because they're, you know, driving Maseratis with white sport coats and pink shirts. But man, there was nothing cooler than Miami Vice.

Back then, we're back to talking about Elaine, who, as you said, her maiden name we find out is O'Connor. So well, that makes it tough, little northeastern Irish girl. Enough temperature rising, So the two of them we find out her. This woman's name is Mary. They spend some time catching up Mary in Elaine, and it becomes clear that Mary is looking down on a lane for driving a cab.

Mary big leagues Elaine by bragging about she runs her own ad agency, she owns a co op in Manhattan, she summers in Europe. She even has a steady fella who is an international lawyer. And Elaine, of course she can't compete with any of this. But when Mary starts patronizing her, basically, Elaine comes up with, what's the It's a tried and true sitcom trope of the make believe boyfriend, right, Brady Bunch, George Glass, Jan's boyfriend. In fact, there was a fun co pop of George Glass.

Do you remember this? They actually had a Jan with George Glass and it's just there, It's just Jan with an empty spot next to her. They believe George Glass. I thought it was brilliant. In Elaine's case, the only name that she can feebly come up with is Maxwell.

Howser, nothing that good. She comes up with bill Board. Mary must be a dummy on the level of Bobby to not know what she's doing because Elaine's driving, and she goes, oh, yeah, and I have a boyfriend. His name is uh bill board. She looks out the window and look sees a billboard.

His name is McDonald's Hamburgers. She claims that Bill is a professor at Columbia and is it all around fantastic guy. Mary tries to set up a dinner date so they can all meet and catch up, but Elaine keeps making these excuses why she can't do that. HP. Yeah, HP, have you been in this scenario?

Have you ever been in a meeting someone who was once your peer and they're doing better than you and you feel inferior to them. I had this happen very early to me in my in my life when I was in my early twenties, where somebody had clearly made it so much further in life as far as what we're told is success, and I was basically working a cash register. When I when I, when I interacted with them. Oh absolutely. I had a similar experience where after I, after I graduated college, I was rudderless.

Basically, I ended up working at Circuit City. It's no longer around, but it was basically like a precursor to Best Buy. I was just clerking it. I had no real, you know, nothing really going on with myself at that point, and I would see it was local, so I would see people that I went to school with and so forth coming in all the time, and I would obviously feel a little bit inferior because here I am graduating to know what I was going to do with my life, and there they are. They look like they had all the answers.

I don't know that I ever went and invented something on the order of a billboard to make myself seem like a big league, but certainly I can relate to Elaine's feelings in the scene sounds like you cant too. I found that that particular interaction I found to be monumental in my life because I did feel, as Elaine feels in this episode, kind of disrespected and puny and reevaluating one's life and you know, have you accomplished this or that or the other. And what I discovered about myself then and there was I no longer gave a fuck what anyone has to say about me and my life life and what they value as success and what I don't. And then in certainly now when I haven't followed up on this human being necessarily, but I now know that if the level of the success that they had achieved was completely based on they had married somebody wealthy, and they were trapped in that fuck relationship for the rest of their lives.

And I bet they were just like a housewife for the to this day. Who knows. I don't know anyway that thank you people who look down on us. It can. It can lead to some wonderful things like this episode.

It can. And on a semi related note, I will say I've noticed as I get older, I just get I give less focks about everything, like things that would really bother me when I was younger, like this kind of thing status, worrying about what people thought about my job, or what this or that or other thing like it's an inescapable truth as you get older that that stuff matters so much less you realize, like if you look back now on I know I'm sidetracked here, but if you look back on things that you worried about in high school socially, or college even or what have you, like that that's all bullshit. You learn that as you get older, and it's it's it's a much more comfortable place to be and hopefully, I don't know people can reach that happy place because it's you know, we spent so much time worrying about this stuff and worry about what people think.

This thing with with Elaine is very relatable because I think we've all felt disrespected and patronized and made to feel small by somebody and that's not cool. I agree with you that this is all very relatable and then very well written. I think we fade into the garage and Elaine stomps in. She's still upset. Alex's vision in blue.

She's wearing blue. Yeah, she's a vision in blue. She has this blue sweater and kind of a blue thing underneath it. I will say that the scene of her driving in the cab, We've talked about this in previous episodes. Sometimes they style her as somebody who would who would logically be driving a cab.

Maybe she's got a quick ponytail. She's not, she's wearing sweats or whatever. But this episode in particular, right, I did note that as she's driving the cab, she's wearing a very chic sweater combo kind of thing. It makes me wonder would she really be wearing that? And when she's driving, he's picking up a shift after a shift at the.

Gallery. Yeah, probably that makes sense. Alex tries talking to her about what's bothering her, but she refuses to chat. She just she's going on and on about how miserable she is. Bobby actually presses her on what's up, and Elaine talks about her running with Mary from the previous evening.

Side note. While Elaine launches into her story, father Blone, did you happen to notice Bowser from Shannanna is apparently now a cabby at Sunshine Cab? Did you notice this? Okay, it's not the actual Bowser, but yes, I did notice a doppelganger for that fella. It's a don't blink you, no missic moment.

But while she's talking and relating this story about her friend from high school and Extra is wearing blue jeans a white T shirt, slick back hair and a leather at it. He's a dead ringer for Bowser from Seanaa. Everybody remembers Bowser. He is the fella's name father Malone. His name was John Bowman.

John Baumann Bowser, gotcha. And he used to co host the Hollywood Squares. He would he would split duties on the Hollywood Squares and but it wasn't he wasn't hosting it as Bowser. He was hosting it as himself, which is a very did you ever see these episodes? Remember that?

Yeah, Like it's when he had hair like not slicked back, and it wasn't slicked back. He wasn't from the fifties. Yeah, he wasn't talking like this. He was just he was like Jerry Seinfeld. Basically, he was just John Bowman.

You know, I was. I was taken to a car show as a very young man to meet Bowser, who ah the world of wheels, Yeah, who signed an eight x ten and and did his signature like you know, like a pre billy idle like fist kind of thing. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Every episode of the Shaw Nana Show, he would they would they would saying good night sweetheart, and he would always start going dood dodo and he would pump his fist in time with him doing that dot dodo dot do. I'll never forget that.

I I remember that show even now. Do you remember the Shannana TV show they had? Or oh my god? Yeah? Why do you think I wanted to meet him at the car show?

It wasn't because I admired his appearance at would Stock. It was like there was a member of Sha Nana that was a dead ringer for Billy Crystal. Did you ever notice that there's one guy, Yes. There's one greaser guy. And and Billy Crystal did not help by constantly doing a greaser type character.

Yeah, olive loaf, Okay, thanks mam. Yeah, he would always do that. Yeah yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's your shotan a moment for the day. So look look for that extra if you watch this episode, it's it's peak extra.

It's perfect. So anyway, Elaine is still feeling one up by Mary Alex and Bobby. Mary, Mary, why you bugging? So Alex and Bobby are trying to talk some sense into her, but she says they don't understand. Elaine explains that she and Mary were real competitors in high school, and seeing Mary reminded Elaine that she wanted better for herself.

You guys don't understand your slobs without goals. You guys have no future. I have a mature one. This is enough for you. I have settled you, guys.

This is what you've achieved. Elaine. I'd like to point out that you're not even on the shift. You don't have a shift tonight. You're just here to beat us.

You're just here for no good reason. You're here, You're not here for a purpose. You're just hanging out. You're loitering. Essentially.

Elaine says that she was even voted most likely to succeed in the yearbook, and now look at her. She's driving a cap Alex keeps trying to cheer her up, and Loka, this is great. Laka chimes in with his own take. I think he's done a variation of this in another episode Father Alone. I don't recall which one, but he starts out he insists to a Lane that all you need in life is friends to be happy, all you need, all you need is friends.

But as his monologue goes on, he starts adding things into his He's like, well, but but but you also need the food and clothes. Oh, that's it, just friends, food and clothes. But then you need a nice car. Okay, so it's a nice car friends, And. It reminds me.

Clothes reminds me of the end of the Jerk. The all I need is this paddle ball game and this remote control. I need this, Like it reminded me of that. And and yeah, well, like what did they write in the script here? Kaufman vamps for three minutes.

He does, but I'm I'm so delighted by it because it's really funny. So then he goes through and he keeps adding things to the list and basically defeating his own take on the whole uh on the whole subject. It also reminds me of that Steve Martin wish for Christmas where all the children of the world would hold hands, and then he goes, oh, if I could have two, though, it would be all the children of the world to hold Remember this is a Saturday Live monologue. Smigel wrote it, and he's like, yeah, all the children and then it gets like progressively more and more selfish, and he's like, you know what, forget those. Kids, and like, I just I need a jet boat and a LACKA admits he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he just goes back to his repairs.

And I think that's all you really see of him. For the You need a woman that makes you foam at the mouth age with the. Foam and the side of the mouth. Yeah, yeah, it's I again. I can't do it justice because it's fucking Andy Kaufman, but it's it's it's awesome.

So Elaine still can't figure out why all this great stuff happened to Mary and not to her, and she says the worst part is Elaine figures Mary felt sorry for her, so Elaine started to lie. Alex keeps pressing her about what she said, and she admits that she lied about having a boyfriend. Elaine is essentially wallowing in shame as the payphone rings and Tony answers and tells Elaine that it's Mary Parker. Okay, this is my only real strike against the episode. Why did she give her the number of the garage?

Well, I don't think she gave her the number so much as Mary remembered that she she drove for Sunshine Cab and because there's no cell phones. So she just tracked her down. Yeah, I think, okay, all right, I apologize, I rescind my own criticism. Do you figure that that seems logical to me in that case? But I agree because I kind of had a moment where I was like, that's kind of weird that she's calling the payphone and the garage.

How did she get the number? I just figure I would assume Elaine would have given her her number and been an adult, And if Mary is going to call her, she's going to call her at home. Elaine takes the call, and it's clear from Elaine's side of the conversation that she's really tap dancing around making plans, like she's like, oh no, we can't go on Friday because we have tickets to a show, so oh no, we can't make Saturday. And this is going on and on and on. Finally, right as Elaine is about to come clean to Mary about this whole ruse, Alex impulsively takes the phone away and introduces himself as her bow.

Now another little side note here, maybe you're you're talking about things that don't add up. It's never really explained why her supposed Columbia professor boyfriend just happens to be in the garage when the call comes in. That seems a little far fetched. I agree, nevertheless, with the performance that is forthcoming. It makes total sense because that guy would drop by for her lunch break to have lunch with her at the cab company.

Alex takes the phone away. He quickly makes dinner plans for the four of them for Elaine and then Mary and her boyfriend for Saturday night, much to Elaine's chagrin. I am totally and I'm on board man. We've had a few episodes where the Cabby's try to pretend to be something that they're not. Of course, there was the one where Bobby pretends to be Louis for his high school reunion.

There's something funny about when they try to put on a performance a ruse. If you will, I don't know. I'm there for it as well, and I like this part of the episode. I particularly like somebody jumping in and becoming that thing to help a friend out, you know, the the imaginary friend. I'll be the imaginary friend.

Let's do that. There is this chemistry between Alex and Elaine. Elaine has already said that Alex is her best friend, and we see that there's occasional sparks. Oh we'll get there. Well, yeah, we'll get there.

Yeah, we're going to get there in a big way. If acting is reacting, Yeah, we're going to get there. It's it's amazing. So we fade in on a b roll of a restaurant exterior. It's too dark to make out what the name is on the marquee, but where this is where they're they're having dinner apparently we cut inside.

It's the interior of a fancy restaurant, and another great bit of set dressing. There's a banquette in the middle of curved banquette with the embedded buttons in the seat, that sort of Italian banquette look. It looks great. The production design, as usual, is fantastic, but it's better lit here. And now I feel guilty saying that because I now know it's not James Burrows, but I'd liked that.

I was going to comment how much I liked how this episode looked overall. It's not too busy, it feels like a real restaurant. But they have their little featured bit in the middle where they're going to play out this scene. Elene and Alex go to sit at the banquette. They're waiting for Mary and her boyfriend to arrive.

Babs. I watched this episode twice and it's Babs. Obviously. Babs is an exaggerated caricature. I mean if she was in like a like a an updu sixties thing, yeah, I probably would have recognized her.

Yeah, she doesn't have that accent. She just plays it completely straight. Take away my national Lampo card, Elaine. She just maintains that she just wants to enjoy. She wants them to enjoy themselves and not be pitied.

And Alex is assuring Elaine that, you know, he will convincingly play a guy who is crazy about her, and that's when Mary and her boyfriend, Michael arrived. Michael is played by a guy named John Constandine. I don't know if you recognized him father alone. I can't. I know of him.

I know him from something. Please tell me what he's he was in. There was no one big role that he was known for. It's not like a. Basket seem like he was in a million episodic television roles.

Precisely. He's been in everything from like Simon and Simon. He was in the A Team, He's done a ton of soap operas. He happens to be really good in the scene. I'm gonna spoil it a little bit.

All four of them are great. It's this little thing that plays out in this banquette. They all sit down, Alex starts in on his devoted boyfriend act. Everything that Mary and Michael talk about. He one ups them.

He plays this. Alex plays this to perfection because they're talking about, you know, how they met, and Alex is charming, he's funny, he's cultured to the hilt. Oh my god, he lets them have it. Man. Here's the thing, here's the other thing.

This is one of This might be my favorite episode, not to bury the lead, my favorite episode of Taxi I've ever seen, honestly, and it might be just because it resonates with me on a deeper level than I felt in previous episodes. There might be other episodes that I will further later down the line, But as far as the feeling demeaned by a peer like early on and the way they handled that is spectacular. And now this which is not only the act of stepping in and fucking with somebody, else for your friend too, so they don't have to feel that anymore. But the manner in which Alex does this, I've done something similar in my life hp uh done uh, played a fictional person for somebody to give it to somebody else.

And what he's doing here is so fun. I'm gonna cry. It's so wonderful because what Elaine is feeling is she has no success because she hasn't achieved these sort of career goals that have seemingly come effortless to this friend of hers who now owns her own ad agency, and it's obviously gotten everywhere she wanted to get to in life. Right, But that ain't what life's about. Life's about finding somebody who stares at you the way you know.

That's the meme everyone says, right like, find somebody who looks at you the way this person looks at you. Right. Well, Alex demonstrates that here. He he doesn't. He can tell you where they met.

He can tell you how long it took him to work up the courage to talk to her. It's taken years. He can let you know, let them know for all their fucking financial whatever. Yeah, but you're in Greece. Or you went to Nie or wherever the fuck you went to for your recent thing.

Well, the love that these two have absolutely decimates that. And I don't know, am I just rambling? Am I just over praising now? Because it's so And the thing is, and what I mentioned earlier about acting is reacting is it's not only great to see a character do that, and to see it so masterfully done by Alex Rieger, by jud Hirsh. But I'm praising the direction again.

All of those compliments you get Elaine's reaction to them. And I've never seen somebody fall in love on screen the way you watch or fall in love. Here you can see it, it happens. It's oh yeah, it's one of the best performances I've seen. She's hanging on every word because he's riffing.

Essentially, he's making this all up as he goes along. But he's brilliant at it, and she is just she's falling for him while he's telling the story. Meanwhile, it's supposed to be their romantic origin. It's it's it's a really it's a well directed, well performed scene for sure, And I will say this, you know it's they're playing it beautifully. But what I loved and what I keyed it on too, was while Mary is also falling for Alex a little bit too, She's just smiling, she has this dreamy look in her face.

But Michael, her boyfriend, he has this disappointed look on his face or reaction everything that he's everything that Alex says that that basically one ups what he has tried to come up with. It's registered on his face and it's just this wordless disappointment or like inadequacy, and he I don't think enough is being said about Constantine's performance because he's reacting the exact opposite of Mary. Mary eating it up and she's just she thinks it's the most romantic thing ever, whereas Constantine feels completely inadequate next to this guy who's the uber boyfriend and you see it play out on his face and it is just wonderful. Like I said, he wasn't this actor that set the world on fire, but man, he was.

He seems to me to be a great character actor. He performs this beautifully. Remember back in the first season when we met Dolf Sweet And this series does very well at defying our expectations, where like there We were supposed to have this uptight father who is going to tell his daughter to stay away from that guy, and he was like, I don't care. Do whatever it is you get us get out of here. We weren't expecting that, certainly not expecting what are presented to be sort of proto yuppies and this need to be the best he who he who dies with the most toys wins.

Remember that fucking T shirt, of course, So you would expect these two to volley back with well, we did this and this and this, and instead they're both reevaluating their lives. Yeah, and they're the ones who have the real relationship. That's the incredible subtext of this whole thing. They are the ones that are truly romantically involved. This is all just the ruse that Alex is perpetuating while they do this.

That's the other incredible thing about this is that Mary and Michael are supposed to be the ones who are really in love and they're completely flummoxed by this whole scene as it plays out. Now, the biggest upset, and you already said this, is the fact that this is not this wasn't directed by James Burrows, because it's such a This one little scene in particular is so well directed and just it hits all these great notes, and it's funny where it needs to be, and it's romantic where it needs to be. I don't know where this guy Chambers came from. He's like lightning in the bottle. It's incredible.

And look, writing too, is right up there as good as anything this series has done. At the end of the scene, I wanted to make out with Alex Rieger. And you know how many other episodes, uh, Lindner and Lane wrote. For Taxi zero right zero exactly? They they just that.

I mean, it's it's it's amazing. This is such a well written episode. You're gonna have to follow them to some other fucking series. Man. I bet they're out there again.

Alex is playing this thing to the Hilton. He go. They they ask where they met, and Alex has this wonderful story that he cooks up, like seemingly on the spot where he playing this professor. He was at a museum and Elaine was there and he was dumbstruck by her beauty. And but before he gets the Metropolitan Museum of Iron.

That's what it was. Before he could get the courage to talk to her. She was gone. So then he starts spending all of his free time in museums on the off chance that he will one day that he'll see her again. But and this goes on, he says, for years, he says, and she never shows up at the museum.

And he finally decides, well, I'm just going to give up. I missed my opportunity. And what does he do. Father alone, he hails a cab and who's driving that cab none other than our Elaine Nardo. And he says, that's it.

I've not been away from her since. He says, it was like the most wonderful day of my life. And this is such a romantic story. It's the storybook tale that everybody wishes they had for their significant other. And like I said, Michael and Mary are just so fluixed by this whole thing.

They can't possibly compete with this. This is everything that Elaine wanted to happen on this date, right, She's not pitied. In fact, it's the opposite. Now they're reevaluating their story with each other and how they feel about each other. It's really it's wonderful.

It avoids all of the usual sitcomy vaudeville shit that we criticized on the show. When it pops up, it's a direct back and forth. There there's no machinations, right, there's no Ah, but someone's gonna sort of be introduced in them right at the beginning of the third act, and like, you know, this might go another way, it's not. It's and Laine's aggrieved. She tells her friends, and her friend jumps in and fucking pummels that person back, and now everything's okay.

Sometimes we need that from our television. I don't need mister Furley and who we mistook And oh we can't get the briefcase opened. You know, in a lesser episode, this would have been the point at which Louis would have come into the restaurant seeing Elaine and Alex and gone over and ruined it all. It all would have. Come crashing down.

But mercifully we don't get that. They this whole thing plays out spoiler alert, This plays out, and no one is the wiser, and Elaine gets effectively gets her revenge on her her friend. In a way that she could not have predicted. Like as you were saying, as we've been saying, this ends with those two people. They're they're not a couple at the end of this.

So she had a friend who got in and was acting high and mighty because she got all this financial success and everything, and man, she's got a fella and her fellow is so accomplished and blah blah blah. And then Elaine goes out to meet with her and says, by the way, that is meaningless and now she and now that's that's taken away, and this woman's gonna have to look at her career too, and go like, well, wait, what am I even doing this for? There's even a part. So they cut to later in the meal. Mary asks, well, how are you getting along with Elaine's kids?

And Alex relates this story about and this is a true story, by the way, This isn't a story he made up. This is a story. This reveal Alex loves Elaine. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly why I bring this up, because this is a true indication of Alex's real feelings for Elaine, because this is a story that she told him a few years ago just as a just whatever, just a how's your day kind of a quick thing. Tossed it off.

It's a story about a prayer that goes unanswered. It's a little bit, you know. It's treaty th sense. Yeah, it's very treakily. But in the course of telling it, Elaine turns to him, and she turns to him effectively not as bill Board the fake boyfriend, but is Alex, because she says to him, how did you remember that?

I told you that two years ago? I didn't even remember that story. And Alex looks at her as bill Board quote unquote and says, I remember everything, darling, And. You know what HP here on television, what is this? Nineteen eighty nineteen eighty one, this episode of Taxi revealed two men everywhere the actual secret of relationships.

Every comedic premise after this episode aired, of all those don't understand what women want is falls because here it is listen. They just want you to listen. They just want you to hear what they're fucking saying. It's so easy. There's always been a bit of a chemistry between Alex and Elaine, and it's really it's palpable during this scene because at one point music starts playing, and of course the cherry on top of the Sunday is Alex perks up and says, oh, listen, darling, they're playing our song.

And they get up to dance, while all that Michael and Mary can do is just sit there and watch them at the table because they don't they even say, we don't have a song. So they watch them go and dance. And while they're dancing, Alex and Lane share this super passionate kiss on the dance floor and it's something to see. We cut away. We cut back to the outside of Elaine's apartment, Elaine and Alex.

The date is over. Alex has taken Elaine home and they're they're both gleeful about this ruse that they've pulled off. You know, Alex did it, you know, he he was the picture of the devoted romantic boyfriend. And then Elaine says to m all right, Alex, you know what you can. You can cut with the act because I look, I know this was an act for you, but I can tell that you were getting excited in reality.

And Alex scoffs and says, you know that's this was an act, Elaine, this was an act. I'm just just playing a part. And Elaine is just like, come on, you know, they come on that's the only thing that I wish they had said, because she sidesteps by saying, look, I know the look. I've seen men with that look, and I know that it means that they're getting excited. But I think we both know that she could she can feel as his boner through his pants.

I mean I thought that was obvious, right, okay, And she. Says, look, you're not that good of an actor, Alex. Really she At a certain point, she even gets semi offended by his insistence that it's just an act, because this is now, this is casting aspersions on her, her allure right as a as a as a female, and Alex, ever insisting that he's just playing a part. He says, look, I'll demonstrate, Okay, I'll give you a kiss. And he gives her a kiss, and he's like, see nothing.

What a ploy? By the way, what right? I mean he doesn't mean it, but that. It is a ploy. But here's but here's the real rub of the scene.

She goes, oh really, and she plants, oh my god, this super passionate. This kiss I counted. This kiss goes on for almost thirteen seconds, father Malone, which doesn't sound like a lot. It's a long time. When it's a wordless kiss that's happening between two people while the audience is going oooh and all this.

I don't know at what point until Vision kisses win from being fairly chased like nua to like full tongue because that's what's happening here. She's giving him the full tongue treatment. She's her hands are wrapped around his head. It's it's very steamy stuff, right, especially for nineteen eighty. One steamy stuff.

For now, man, I thought it was super fucking hot. She pulls away and she's like really, and now it gets a little cartoony where nothing. He can't talk, He's like nothing, like he's so dumbstruck by the kiss, and really, who can blame him? But he's so dumbstruck that he can't even talk. Okay, HP, here's where the episode breaks down.

Why is he resisting. Pride? I guess maybe he's still trying to prove a point. No sorry, If this were season one, then this ending is okay. These two have been for each other, they've been with each other, they've they've almost done this before she threw herself at him when she was having a breakdown and then used it against him later, remember, and then he always regretted, like there's too much relationship potential going on in the past here for this to not mean more than it is, you know, like what is the invitation here?

This would have been the perfect moment for him to say, like, well, let's you know. Clearly you feel you know what, Elaine, You're right like and remember all those times we didn't do it like you're you are correct. Everything I was saying is from my heart. I'm ready, this is it, Elaine, Let's let's go for it. And the only thing missing though, like I said, it's so cartoonishly silly that I'm surprised they didn't have like smoke coming out of his ears after he or like you know, his his tie like spins like like pee wee herman or something.

I wouldn't I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have been upset by that. She's like, well, I guess that's it. I guess you know, I guess you were it was just an act. And she turns to get into her apartment, but she not before she gives the most devilish smile kind of to the camera, like away from him.

So he can't see it, man, it is it is. She's so sexy in the moment father alone. It's really I don't know how he didn't resist and he just went home. I mean, it's it's insane. He's a fool.

I don't get it at all. It's really doesn't make sense. So she she goes into the apartment and I wrote this down and leaving Alex to wander home, presumably to masturbate as the episode ends, because let's be honest, that's probably what he did when he got home, right, I mean. I don't think he got I don't think he got home. He think he I think I think he got to his cab and you know, looked around and there was And again, who could blame him?

Honestly? You know what? Actually I could blame him because I just would have gone in with her. Are you out of your minds? She knew that there was chemistry his act.

Are you kidding? Like he's making that up? But you know it was all true. It was it shaded into truth the sentiment if it is, you know what I mean, Like he's telling them a story like yeah, I saw at a fucking an art gallery and I you know, I came back for years and years looking for and whatever. That's all true, Like they're in the fucking they've been working together for years and years and he's been pining for like could have done something with it.

I don't know. I'm gonna quote Johnny Depp in Nightmare, Nightmare on Elmstrong. Yeah, morality sucks. So that is that's the end of the episode. Now we're going to talk about yellow lights as we do.

What doesn't yellow light mean? We reminder we score on a scale from one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode and five is the best, And as is our custom, we throw it to you, father Malone. What do you give Elaine's old. Friend five yellow life?

Yeah? Uh yeah, it's I don't remember. I don't remember giving anything five yellow lights prior to this. I might have, but this is definitely up there. I know it's not the perfect tax the episode in that this show is an ensemble and is always that its actual best when all of the characters are getting their due, but as a super focused character study with our really technically our two leads on the show and this relationship that's been going on for three seasons now, and how smartly it's written, and how fucking fantastic.

Look man, the way Mary Lou Henner is looking at Judd hersh for the entirety of the scene where he's concocting this lie to make her look good in them, look good in the eyes of this other couple. I that is worth three yellow lights right there. But like I said, the direction here is smart. The fucking writing is really smart. All the performances is up to the level.

I don't think it makes sense at the end. Why why Alex Rieger is being suddenly super moral for no fucking reason, Like we're not even given a reason for him to do it, honestly, other than this bullshit idea of like, no, I was just I was just playing a role. I need to prove to you that I was only playing. Like I go like, yeah, okay, I was only playing a role. But can we fuck now?

Because you're this is good God, five yellow lights. I got to tell you this is one of those rare instances. I was prepared to give it four yellow lights, but you've you've convinced me thoroughly follow this is a five yellow light episode, not only because the scenario and the plot is actually so relatable and really could could apply to anybody in real life. We've all had situations like this, as you've as you've spoken about earlier in the in the in this episode, but not only that, but it's it's acted so fucking well and it's written so well, not even just a Layne Alex. But as I already said, I I have I have a lot of fondness in this episode for the actors that played Michael and Mary.

I think they're they're they're up to the. Task, so great they could be on the show. It's one of those things where Elaine and Alex's routine, the romantic routine, doesn't work as well for me unless there's the other couple to counterbalance it, and and they're they don't, they don't overplay it, it doesn't become silly. It's all very believable, and it's all really funny and relatable. It is a standard sitcom trope of the fake boyfriend or girlfriend, but nevertheless, when it's presented with this wonderfully and this this executed this well.

I got to give five all alites, five yellowlites from myself, five from Father Malone, So that will do it for this episode of Night Mister Walters, Father Malone, where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage. And join me At midnight viewing we get twice a week's show. Monday's is Father Balloon's weekly roundup where we look at new streaming and or movies and theaters. And every Friday we have a rotating show where we look at anthology horror television with Tawns from the dark Side. We also look at anthology movies, and we look at listener choices, and we also have very specific laser focused episodes like a Fusco Fest about screenwriter John Fusco's work, or predator Fest upcoming or other fest.

Those are all done with my pal HP here love it. Looking forward to Predator Fest as we're calling it right now. That'll be a lot of fun, as they all are. Please come up, hey, Night mister Walters. Listeners, you can come up with something that better than Predator Fest right to HPN.

Let him know, would you. I'm just too tired to come up with something new, but it's great. Come come join us. We have a lot of fun with it and hopefully you will too. So for myself, I also can be found on the Weird Way Network.

I host the Noise Junkies music podcast, which Father Malone will soon make his triumphant return after being one of the founding members of Noise Junkies. Actually, I'm an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Christashu and I also have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com. I know that's a mouthful, but please come on bye. So thanks again for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, rate us.

We'd love to hear from you. In fact, my email address is Hpmusicplace at gmail dot com. Please drop a note let me know what you think. So for myself and Father Malone, thanks again for listening and we'll see you all next time.