Episode 80 - Jim And The Kid

Good evening and welcome to Night Mr. Walters, a taxi podcast. I'm HP, your co-host, and with me As always, this is my co-host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? HP, I found a kid, and now I've decided he's mine.

End of story. Well, we'll get into this exceedingly weird episode. We're talking Taxi Season 4, Episode 16, Jim and the Kid. This was written by David Lloyd, and it's directed by our new favorite director. It's Michael Zinberg.

Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order, non-order of filming, of course. We start in the garage, where... Tony radios into Louie that he has a kid in his cab. He's got a runaway who can't pay the fare, but he won't tell Tony where he lives. Now, this raises the question to me anyway, Father Malone.

Why didn't Tony leverage his obvious talent for leg breaking to scare the kid into telling him? I mean, he's the most fearsome cabbie there. Look, I don't think he should have smacked the kid around or anything, H.P., but, you know, maybe just raise his voice a little. He probably got Sweet Tony. That's the thing.

And nobody is going to fall for Sweet Tony's entreatments. You know, they're just going to say, shut up, Tony. Keep driving. Sweet Tony. That sounds like a pizza place that I've been to many times.

Hey, come to Sweet Tony's, home of the five-footer. Isn't there some consortium of lawyers called, like, Sweet something or other? It's a West Coast thing. It's, like, past the Mississippi. No, I'd never heard of that.

Sweet Tony Lawyers? It's called like sweetjames.com or something like the only lawyer you'll need, but it's just some conservative. I don't want to do a commercial for them or anything, but it's like you go to there and they hook you up with someone in your area that is part of the Sweet James or whatever the fucking thing is, but it's sweet something or other. And I always see it in rural areas whenever I'm traveling the country. I'm like, really?

Are they ambulance chasers? Yes, obviously. There's a better question, HP. Why did he just, like, why does he have to involve Louis at all? Louis?

Why doesn't he just go to the cops? Take him to the police or something. This kid's not running out on a fare. This is ridiculous. This is a runaway kid.

You know what I mean? Like, they can eat the 12 magical dollars that don't actually exist just because a machine went click, click, click for a few miles. Not only did the kid get sweet Tony, he got dopey Tony. Because somehow Tony. it's, it's like everyone gets dopey Tony. Everyone gets dopey Tony, but, but yeah, why that's so logical.

Why wouldn't he say, look, kid, I'm sorry. I can't, I can't have you driving in this cab without knowing where you live. So unfortunately we got to go downtown. Cause I can't, I can't take the responsibility, but somehow Louie is the, the, in the position of authority in, in Tony's mind. So they have to go to the garage.

It's ridiculous. And also, by the way, I also, when I heard that there was a, uh, runaway kid in the cab i got briefly very psyched father alone that this was going to be the return of tanner from bad news bears remember that episode with with louis where he bets louis and he's a he's a terror. It's the only time i've enjoyed a kid performance on this show and a kid character to be fair. He's so good. Whatever happened to that kid?

Not a kid anymore, but. I think he does, like, real estate or something. I'm talking out of my ass. I don't know. I don't know.

It makes sense. Like, I see the kids from, like, Willy Wonka. They're perpetually on the convention circuit. Like, if you want to meet Charlie Bucket, you have ample opportunity in this area to meet Charlie Bucket. You never hear about the Bad News Bears, though.

No, you never hear about Tanner or. Who's... Well, we know what happened to Kelly Leake. At least. We don't have the Kelly League.

They became Rorschach and Watchmen. Who'd have thunk it? What was the kid's name? Was it Ogleburger or Oglethorpe? No, no.

Oglevy was the kid who was like the team manager. That's right. You know, he was the brainy kid. He wore glasses. The kid with the.

Fro, right? He was keeping stats. He had like the white kid fro. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, he didn't.

Ogilvy had straight hair. And then there was another kid with a fro, yeah. He was like the pitcher. I can't remember the fro kid's name. That kid was the pitcher for a time, but he was no good.

That's why they had to recruit Kelly Leak to be the pitcher on the team because they were hapless. And that big lanky kid with the big fro was part of the problem, I think. Okay, look, you're mixed up. The first bad news bears is Tatum O'Neil is the pitcher. That's who they bring in.

In future movies, it's not Kelly Leak. It's Kelly Leak's cousin from New York. Carmine. You're fucking with me. I'm not fucking with you when they go on the road.

They bring in Carmine from New York City because Tatum O'Neil's not there. She doesn't show up for the sequels. But Kelly Leake is a batter. He's like... Okay, yeah.

He plays like second base or something, too. Yeah, but those other ones, that's like the one with William Devane. Let them play. Absolutely. Okay.

That's the Astrodome one. Break in training and then go to Japan. Go to Japan. But he wasn't... Oh, Tony Curtis wasn't going to Japan, right?

He's such a liability. That's right. William Devane. Tony Curtis added a level of Hollywood sleaze that the Bad News Bears were... We're not meeting.

Louis tells Tony, just bring the little crook in. But then weirdly, we get a reverse shot of Tony. Because up to this point, it's all been voiceover over the radio unit, the CB, whatever you call it. But then we get this reverse shot of Tony in the cab with the kid as Tony cautions Louis to stop scaring the kid. But this is we get our first good look at.

The kid whose name is Terry. And he doesn't look like... He looks like just a suburban kid with a backpack. It's unclear why he's running away from home at this point. He looks like he's trying to save his alien friend.

So later, we see Tony march the kid into the garage. And weirdly... But this is an unwelcome Father Malone. But it is weird. We see Jim, Elaine, and Alex...

Instead of their customary position around the poker table playing cards, they are sitting around what I call the coffee station, and they're playing card toss. This might be the only time I've ever seen them do this, where they have the deck of cards and they're throwing it into an open hat. I thought it was a nice change from poker, but did you note this too? I did, and I thought, oh, because there's a kid, they don't want to have actual gambling. They want to do a fun thing that they can do with them.

I guess you're right. I guess that means they don't expose the kid to real gambling. And it's an in for Jim and the kid to start interacting, because how else were they going to? Hello, little boy! Like, ah!

Help me, Tony! Help me! Louie continues to bluster around the kid, which prompts Elaine and her motherly instinct. She takes the kid aside. and applies this approach and tries to get the kid to say where he lives and what's going on. And then Louis already tells everybody, look, I've already called the cops, which, frankly, as we just discussed, is appropriate.

It's the most responsible thing to do. Elaine is mother to two children. Alex, as bad of a father as he might be, he is a father. Why is this not something that's on top most of everybody's mind? Like, there's this kid.

He's lost. Let's get him home any way we can. It's mystifying to me that Louis is the one who's the voice of reason out of all these people. Well, I mean, you know, they should have had at least in a moment at the garage to talk to the child before the police were called. Like maybe Tony being a dummy couldn't get it out of the kids, but perhaps a civil conversation with virtually anyone else in the garage might have gotten the results they were looking for.

I mean, I guess. I just feel like there's too much risk involved if you don't get this kid right to the authorities. Who knows? Maybe the kid will run off in the middle of the city and you can't catch him. And now what do you do?

It's 1982 in New York City. Nobody cares. It's a much more dangerous place in 82 than it would be in 2026, which is all the more reason to protect this kid. I don't know. It just seemed odd to me.

Again, in an episode that is exceedingly weird, This is kind of where it all begins. So Jim gives the deck of cards to the kid. To your point, Father Maloney, this is his way of kind of interacting with Terry a little bit. And he gets him to join in the game and throw the cards into the hat. And after Jim gives the kid a little bit of a pep talk, the kid gets one of the cards in the hat and that immediately bonds them.

The kid already warms up to Jim because of this. And Tony tries to get Terry... Again, to give him his address, but Terry refuses. It's a bit of Caddyshack, isn't it? What in what way?

Be the card. Be the hat. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, a little bit of that. That.

I guess so. To be really honest, I think I've only ever played Card Toss a couple of times in my life. It's not an especially interesting game to me. I mean, you get a point, a card, and a hat. Simple.

Not a very complex game. Yeah, I've done it once. Once. It's boring. I mean, there's nothing to it.

I'd rather just sit and daydream than toss cards into a thing. What a mindless activity. Jim tells the cabbies that he ran away from home once, and it was actually, in his mind, it was an important formative experience for Jim, which is a weird... I mean, I guess I can kind of see his point that maybe it made him a little more independent and made him not feel so, you know, afraid of the outside world. I've never heard somebody say that running away from home was a good thing unless they were coming from really bad home life.

Yeah, I've heard good and bad, but I've never heard like the typical I'm running away from home because I can't stand in here because you're like nine years old and you know everything. Like I've never really heard bad versions of those stories. It's always like I went and I was in a field for three hours, and then somebody came, or I got hungry, and then I went home. It's usually like that. But I imagine Reverend Jim Ignatowski had an adventure.

You mentioned explorers, something like that. Yeah, well, no, but remember also, maybe we haven't learned this about him yet, but he came from a very moneyed family in Boston. So he was very uptight. I don't know that the dawn of Jim as a stoner icon— If it doesn't happen, we'll learn later until he was in college. So I might push back on that assertion.

I don't think he had a very good adventure. Well, I'm going to push back on your pushback. How about that? Where the spirit that eventually keeps Reverend Jimmy Gnatowski in a state of perpetual bliss comes from somewhere. Even if he was a state money kid, he had that one adventure that foretold the rest of his life.

Well, I guess it implies that even under an uptight upbringing, there was a part of him that yearned for expanding his horizons. I guess we can agree on that. So maybe he did. Griffin Dunn just wanted to have a pleasant evening with a girl. And look what happened to him.

And look what— this is exactly what I'm saying. These things happen to people, so there's no telling what happened to Jim, and it could have been a grand adventure. Sure. I'll take him at his word. I guess— If we're looking at it in a purely fanciful, nothing bad really happened, that's fine.

He lived to tell the tale. Let's leave it at that. So Elaine and Alex try to use reverse psychology and a few other methods to convince Terry that his parents are worried, sick, but to no avail. And then Jim butts in that Terry reminds him of himself, and Again, Terry seems to warm to Jim and Jim only. I mean, it's obvious why he wouldn't warm to Louie because Louie is very much an asshole to him from jump.

But, I mean, it should be clear to Terry that these people have his best interest at heart regardless. But he likes Jim because Jim isn't demanding too much of him, I guess. So then the cop arrives and He escorts Terry out of the garage. But there's a little bit of interplay with Louis and the cop. And the cop kind of reminded me a little bit of, what's his name from Die Hard?

Reginald Bell Johnson? Yeah, a little bit. Because he just had that same body type. He just seemed like a beat cop. And he was saying, let it snow.

Right. And he was carrying around a few Twinkies. These are for my wife. She's pregnant. Yeah.

But yeah, there's a little bit of interplay, but ultimately the cop takes Terry and brings him to the precinct. Bum-de-dum delightful. Thank you. Is that you as he's in the convenience store there? Bag it.

I don't know why he's... Bag it. By the way, why is the convenience store clerk so fucking dismissive? He is such a jerk. Okay.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Like what?

Don't judge me. You're working a convenience store on Christmas Eve, buddy, or whatever it is. Give me a break. It's Christmas Eve in LA. Come on, man.

But then again, I mean, the cop, you know, he was self-conscious enough to kind of throw his wife under the bus about the Twinkies when we both know that he wanted them. He wanted the Twinkies. He did, but those were for her. They were. They were.

So on and so forth. It's dumb to dumb delightful, like I said. That's why you were chuckling there as I started talking about this fade into Jim's apartment. We're back to Jim's dilapidated apartment. We know it.

We've seen it. Where are the TVs? Where'd the TVs go? What's happening here? Did he throw them all away?

Were they stolen in the night? Did aliens come by and take them in HP? Because that's a possibility. Well, I think the most likely story is probably that they got repossessed. Like, he obviously couldn't afford them, and they got repossessed.

I mean, although I guess they imply that he's worked and saved so much in that episode. He bought them outright, I thought was the idea. So either they got repossessed, they might have gotten just stolen, because it's a condemned building. They make that point. Weren't there a bunch of doors at one point?

So maybe this is just something Jim knows. They are. They're still there. The doors. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. At one point, someone went into a room and Jim's like, I don't know where they went because there's like five doors. It's like something out of the Ed Sullivan set for the doors, their performance. You remember that, where there's those doors hanging from wires? Or like Monsters, Inc.

It's kind of like that. Either they got stolen outright by some raiders in this condemned apartment or they got repossessed. That's what I'm kind of going with. Makes sense. I think Jim donated them, actually.

Could be. Or they could have been. He's already been visited in the fantasy episode by aliens speaking in Louie's voice. So maybe at that point he had an epiphany and said, I don't need these TVs anymore. I have cosmic consciousness now.

Or those aliens got into his head so bad he realized they were using the television to communicate with him that he immediately threw... He smashed them all in a fit of... Like the end of the... The conversation, right? I was going to say, like Gene Hackman in The Conversation.

Reverend Jim just standing around like an entire apartment filled with smashed televisions. Yeah, you got to figure, all we ever really see is the childlike innocence of Jim, but there must be that other side, the side of him that gets frustrated with the world and maybe is angry that the other cabbies aren't privy to. Maybe that's when In a fit of pique and anger, he just destroyed the whole room. You'd never know it, right? Because it's a mess.

When Jim isn't at work, he's on meth. There's some obscure serial killer that operates in the area. It's called the Bowery Killer, and Jim actually is the Bowery Killer. You've gone too far. Oh, no.

Well, if we're going to invent legends for Tony and everybody else, why not, Jim? It's so dark. So I did note that his entertainment center is gone, which is a little dismaying. But, you know, what are you going to do? Or maybe he sold it for drugs.

We don't know. Any number of possibilities. It gets darker and darker. Sold it for drugs. Oh, my God.

Could be. So he gets a knock at the door, and it's Terry, the boy from earlier. And apparently all Terry had to do was literally walk out of the police station. He was sitting there. The cops were trying to find the mom and dad, and they lost track of him, and he just walked right out.

And he found Jim. He located Jim because Jim was the only Jim Ignatowski in the phone book. But I kind of call bullshit on that, Father Malone, because it is a condemned building. Why would his address and phone number be published in the phone book? Because he had a line put in.

Well, why would the phone company put a line in on a condemned building? It's New York in the late seventies, early eighties. Like what are you talking about? Their entire apartment buildings being run off of a wire run out to a power line, you. Know, like, uh, that's a good point.

I guess. Stranger things have happened. Absolutely. Stranger things have happened. Terry announces Jim that he wants to stay there with him.

And Jim is to his credit. He's unsure about that. And he asks, uh, what's so bad about home Terry and Terry relates that, uh, And this is like something out of the Brady Bunch. He's like, well, my parents, they make me keep my room clean. I can't ride my bike on streets with traffic.

And I can't even watch TV until my homework is done. And Jim is, of course, like, that's terrible. He's horrified at the parents doing what parents should be doing. And this convinces Jim to start taking care of Terry, which is a really awful development. This is kind of where I checked out of the show, to be honest, while I'm alone.

HP, you realize what we're seeing, right? What's that? Back to the future origins. Marty meets Doc. Very good.

So this is. how they met. Once that kid walked in the door, I went, oh, this is just like Marty and Doc. And then for the rest of the episode, I kind of tried to view it through that lens. Because you've got to figure, like, Marty McFly is, what, 17? Yeah.

And he's been friends with Doc forever. Forever. Seemingly. Right? So, like, we're talking 12, 13-year-old Marty McFly starts hanging around with Doc Brown, who's the weirdo who lives on the edge of town, who burned down his house.

Yeah. Look, it happens. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't the craziest thing. You know, it doesn't have to be a nefarious relationship between an older adult and a kid.

But I'm just saying, like, seems like that's what we're seeing right here. Nevertheless, it is weird, whether I'm viewing it under through the lens of today or just in general, like the fact that it's Jim who's such a scatterbrain burnout, that he's the one who steps up and decides to take care of this kid for no real good reason. So it's perplexing. Well, he sees himself in the young boy. The thing is, none of this would work at all if it wasn't for Christopher Lloyd, because he sells it.

He sells it. The innocence in Jim just making the choice to take care of this kid without having any real parental experience. Jim does feel that there's something missing in his life, and he's, in a weird way, he's filling this fatherly need. He wants a kid to pass on his knowledge. And if it wasn't for Christopher Lloyd, I can tell you right now, this would have been like a one or two... yellow light episode but he elevates it immeasurably well no not immeasurable quantifiable measurable we we will talk about that it is very quantifiable for us thank goodness that it's christopher lloyd and it's this character because this wouldn't if this were tony like do you think this would work nearly as well if tony were the one who decided to take um take on this this parental responsibility.

I can answer that one definitely yes You think it would work? Because we've seen it. It happened. Well, that's part of my point is we already saw it once. Tony took in that kid, Brian, and I liked that episode, actually.

You did not like that episode. I did. I loved that episode. Go back and listen. Four yellow lights for me.

You did not give that episode four yellow lights. Four and a half. I tried, and you were like, no, we don't do half lights, Father Malone. Get out of here. I don't remember that.

And I said, this is the greatest episode of all time. And if you remember, I said at the time, This is the emergence of sweet Tony. That will make sense later. I say that in the episode if you go back and listen. Sort of like Back to the Future where you're leaving little nuggets that we're going to dig up in two years' time.

All roads lead to time travel with this one. Anyway, my assertion, whether you're fucking with me or not, my assertion is that this can only work with Jim. So now we fade in the next morning, Father Malone. It's a morning in Jim's apartment and the kid's still there. Jim offers him... chili and spaghettios for breakfast because obviously jim is big.

Tons of spaghettio cans in that they. Are and what's interesting is that they this was still a time where you could name a product out but by its name like it wasn't like pasta o's pasta o's or you know like ringos or something it was spaghettios you couldn't do that now because you'd have to you have to license the name somehow I actually. Think you can just go ahead and name them. It's just that nobody wants to because everything has a price tag on it these days. And the prevailing attitude is like, well, we don't want to advertise for them unless we're getting some money for it.

But nevertheless, SpaghettiOs are apparently Jim's favorite. But the kid refuses this breakfast order. Now they're kind of casting about for something to do. Jim asks, or Jim says, let's play catch. And I already knew where this was going to go, but it was fun watching it play out.

Terry says, my parents would never let me play ball in the house. So they line up, and the kid, Jim throws the ball, and of course it sails right through one of the windows in this big back wall of his warehouse apartment, and that's it. Never to be fixed. Never to be fixed, and that's it. They're done with playing ball, or playing catch.

Jim, at this point, doesn't know what else to do because he's never been a father before. Terry is understandably psyched that he didn't have to go to school anymore and asks Jim if he can teach him instead. This is where it's now dangerous. What is happening? Jim is now teaching this kid, Terry, giving him a philosophy lesson.

It's like The Professional, right? With Leon the Professional with Tiny Natalie Portman. Oh, with Natalie Portman. Very uncomfortable. Jean Reno.

So he sits Terry down, and they're going to go over this philosophy lesson. And it's the tree falls in the forest. Does it make a sound? And without even really debating it, Jim just says to the kid, of course it makes a sound. The bigger the tree, the bigger the sound.

This ends their philosophy lesson. I like Jim's philosophy class, honestly. Like, here's the question we have to ponder. Here's the fucking answer. Go about your day.

That's right. That's right. No more debate. This is the answer. And then he sets up a morality.

They're going to talk ethics. And he sets up a morality issue for the kid where his hypothetically, the kid's mother gives him $ 20 for, for dry cleaning her dress on her anniversary. But on the way there, somebody offers to sell the kid concert tickets for 20 bucks. And it was kind of funny because the kid's like, well, I would, you know, I would, it's not my money. So I would, I get to think for my mom.

And Jim's like, no, but you don't understand. It's the Kinks, which I think is interesting. I never would have pegged Jim as a Kinks fan. But there you go. Yeah, because we think of him as a psychedelic burnout.

But he was a kid once, too. And I honestly, you know, when I think about the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the Kinks, like all sort of coexisting at once. I think if I had been of an age at that point, I think I would have been drawn to the Kinks as well. It does seem always more rebellious and a little bit more fuck you than everything else that was going on. It is, but when's the last time you tried to do a deep dive into the Kinks catalog?

I've never done a deep dive into the Kinks catalog. It's extensive. Rough isn't the word because they're talented. It's just... There are so many concept albums and the concept isn't always obvious.

It's kind of like a catalog littered with Ziggy Stardusts where the concept is rather tenuous. And I just feel, this is a big sidetrack here, but I feel very sad for the Kinks because they should have been as popular, at least as popular as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but they had a drug bust that happened basically on the eve of them making their debut in America, going on tour in America. But they had a drug bust back in England that scuppered the plan for them to go and tour overseas. And that was kind of the critical moment that they needed to consolidate their success up to that point. So after that, they were never going to be as big or as popular as these other exports from the UK.

It's a little sad. Wow, I just like Lola. I love a lot of their songs. I love Ape Man. Remember Ape Man?

Oh, yeah. I love Lola. There's an album they have that you don't hear people talk about a lot, but I think it's actually called Misfits. And the song Misfits will just tear your heart out, Father Malone. It's so sympathetic to the outsider, the people who don't fit in, kids like us in school, for example.

It's so keenly observed and so beautifully performed. It kills me that they didn't have more success. I'm sure they're fine. Their place in rock history is solid, but they could have been so much more. Crazy.

Come dancing, HB. So then this ethical lesson is over, and Jim now says, well, I've got to go to work. And he throws on this large wool coat, which, side note, Father Malone, This may be the only time I can remember where Jim had an article of clothing that superseded his Canadian tuxedo. Yeah, I'd never seen this overcoat either. I don't know what was happening, honestly.

It seems like Jim's rain or shine was tuxedoed. It didn't even seem like there was inclement weather or anything. It seemed from the B-roll that we saw, it seemed like everything was pleasant and sunny. Jim says, I got to go to work. And he leaves.

Now we fade into the garage and Alex is hanging up. from a phone call from our favorite little pillar payphone. And you can kind of surmise that he's talking to the cops because he says something to the effect of, oh, if I see them, I'll call you back. I'll let you know. And then from all this, Jim comes in. He's positively glowing about his quote-unquote kid.

And Alex's antenna immediately goes up as he listens to Jim say, recounting his parental experience from that day. Jim, what the fuck are you talking about, Jim? It should have been as simple as that, but he presses Jim, and Jim admits that he's adopted a son. Elaine and Alex ask Jim who the kid is, and Jim tells them it's Terry. And again, at this point, Alex should have been like, Jim, I can't believe you've done this.

It's so irresponsible. You could go to jail for this. They may... They may consider this a kidnapping, Jim. What are you doing?

But Alex, I think, he's used to treating Jim like a child so he doesn't go crazy on him in that way. And he basically tells Jim the parents are worried sick. They're at the police station. I just got off the phone, he says, with the cops and they're looking for him. But Jim, he won't be convinced.

He's in love with fatherhood at this point. And he says Terry's his kid now. Even Louie. He's my boy now. Everyone back up.

Back up. Even Louis tries to intercede, although it's more for the reward possibility. But again, Louis is closer to the voice of reason than Jim is at this point. And Alex asks Jim kind of a creepy question like, what do you want with Terry? And Jim says that Terry is the son that he never had.

Alex says, says that Terry's mother has been crying nonstop. I must survive, Louis. I must be immortal. This is my chance. This child, you won't take it from me.

I love that you've given him an English lilt to his speech to make him sound very imperious. Well, it's his Brahmin coming through from his youth. The butler he admired most. That's the voice he resorts to when he's when he's forced with supervillain decisions. Now, some people, like, their accent slips out when they get upset or they get angry.

Jim talks about all the awful stuff that they make Terry do, like going camping. I agree with that one. No, well, I guess it depends. Force me to go camping? I will run away and go live with rats in the sewer.

What's so bad about camping? Well, first of all, nature. Second of all, things in nature. Third of all, where's my TV? Alex tries to guilt Jim into, you know, giving up the kid.

He says the kid has a puppy and the puppy's been sad since the kid left. This finally starts getting through to Jim, who accuses Alex, and I'm quoting here, of, he calls it emotional blackmail. Finally, Jim agrees to send Terry back and Alex will arrange for Terry's parents to come pick him up. Now we fade back into Jim's apartment where Terry greets Jim with SpaghettiOs for lunch, and Jim tells Terry that his parents are coming to take him back, and this sends Terry into another room in a fit of anger. Alex arrives at that point with Terry's parents, who are called the Booths, and they ask where Terry is, and while Jim is talking to Alex about how conflicted he is about sending Terry away behind Jim's back.

Like the rest of the scene is playing out where, where Terry has come out. He has what amounts to a tearful reunion with his parents and they basically start, start to leave. But at, but all the while Jim is talking to Alex about how his experience as a father and how he's not sure if he's doing the right thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they all leave while Jim is still talking with Alex and, I think the father comes back in and thanks Jim and leaves. And Jim murders him on the spot.

He's my kid now. You think you can take him from me? Even if you took his body, his mind is mine. Jim tells Alex that he's not going to run outside to say goodbye. It's too painful.

Alex tells Jim that he did the right thing. The sensitive piano music. kicks in as Alex starts to leave and Jim asks Alex if he can say goodbye to Alex in place of Terry and Alex comes in and Jim tells Alex slash Terry just just remember me just remember me and he gives him a big hug and Alex is so moved and frankly I was rather moved by his simple request to just remember me as I was. I'll be right here. That's such a topical reference for all the. We're talking about a show from the same year as that movie.

Shut your mouth. That's true. So Alex is so moved by Jim's goodbye that Alex admits, I can't leave now either. And Jim offers to have lunch with Alex, and Alex says, what do you have? And Jim, of course, says, I got chili and I got SpaghettiOs.

And then Alex... thinks better of it and says, I'm just going to go, Jim. And that's the end of the episode. Take Jim to a restaurant, Alex. Take him somewhere nice. Be nice to him.

He just lost his child. He just lost this child. Of course, he should be, you know, take him out. Get his mind off of things, Alex. You're the sensitive one.

Come on. So that's the episode. Now we're going to talk yellow lights. What does a yellow light mean? We judge these episodes on a scale from one to five yellow lights.

One is the worst taxi episode and five is the best. And as is also our custom father-in-law, we're going to kick it to you. What do you give Jim and the kid? Three yellow lights. Because Christopher Lloyd's good.

The kid doesn't annoy me. But it's a very slight episode and it doesn't make a lot of sense. And everyone should have immediately said, Jim, what are you doing? Give us that kid. Agreed.

I actually gave it three yellow lights as well. I was really conflicted about this, Father Malone. It's such a weird episode. It's an exceedingly sitcom-y premise. It's something that would never happen in real life, or at least I hope it wouldn't happen in real life.

And yet, as I said, Christopher Lloyd is so affecting as Jim, as he always is, that he really carries the day for me in this episode. And he's the reason why I don't give this two yellow lights it's worth a full yellow light so three yellow lights for me three yellow lights from father malone that's going to do it for this episode father malone where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage. Uh check me out at midnight viewing that's my show it's on twice a week and i got a patreon show that's father malone that's patreon.com father malone where we do exclusive stuff and you can find it all there so check me out. Indeed did you did you mention fondue. Fest i didn't but that's happening That's happening.

I will say for my part, I'm in the midst of Von Doomfest with Father Malone over on his channel. We're covering the MCU and all of its permutations, which has been fun. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I have a Bandcamp site, hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com. So thanks, everybody, for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, or rate us.

We'd love to hear from you. Email address here is hpmusicplace at gmail.com. So for Father Malone and myself, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you again next time. Bye, Mr. Walters.

Bye.