Episode 81 - Take My Ex-Wife, Please

We are Big Way Media. 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?

I'm well. I've changed my name to Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman. We're talking Taxi Season 4, Episode 17, Take My Ex-Wife, Please, written by Ian Prazer and Howard Gewirtz, and directed not by our usual Michael Zinberg lately or James Burroughs. It's directed by Noam Pitlick. who I think we've seen in a previous episode.

I'm not positive, but it sounds familiar. He was fighting Superman at that point. You have to say his name backwards. Yeah, he went back to his dimension at the end of this episode. Reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming.

We're starting off once again in the garage as Tony is gushing to Alex about a date that he landed with a girl from a suntan oil ad. He's got the ad and he's showing him the ad too, Alex. Like, look at this hot girl. Yeah, look at this. Look at this.

I'm dating her and trouble is she wants someone to go out on a double date with her and her older sister. So Tony asks Alex to come along and unbelievably... Well, okay. I think you're going to say what I was going to say. Yeah, go for it.

Why would he ask Alex Rieger, this old man, to go on this date with... I don't care how older the older sister is. If she's dating Tony... And she's a fucking swimsuit or suntan oil model in magazines at that time. She's like 19, 20 years old.

The older sister can't be more than 30. I'm not going to Alex Ruediger. I'd go to Latke first. I think this is one episode, Father Malone, where we're keenly feeling the absence of Bobby Wheeler. Because in episodes past, in seasons past, it would be Bobby Wheeler. going out on a double date with Tony and probably trying to make time with both girls instead of just.

No question. It's ridiculous. He's old. He's like... I mean, Tony realistically is, what, 10 years younger than Alex?

Maybe a little bit more? Yeah, I would say that. I mean, even if he's not, the way the character's portrayed and the way they dress him and the way he lords over the garage, it's like he's the old man of the unit. Why are you going to the old man to double date your hot swim tan model? It doesn't make any sense because at best, Alex is probably going to embarrass you because he's going to be doing old man things.

Oh, don't fill up on bread. That's a scam they do here. She's going to have a Diet Coke light on the ice. I don't want a glass of ice with a little bit in there. That's how they get you.

That's how they get you. That's how they get you. But what's almost as unbelievable is that Alex hems and haws about going on this date with a potential model. Like, why isn't he like, yeah, I'd love to check out this beautiful girl that you've got. Because the sister is probably at least almost as cute, if not maybe just as cute.

Who knows? But he's like, oh, I don't know, Tony. you, Alex. What better options do you have? It's ridiculous. Yeah, exactly.

Just go out and have one evening. It's dinner is all it is. If he hadn't said, this is a double date situation, if he had said, I'm having dinner with this thing, it's important for my career or something, Alex would have been like, okay, I can come and be entertaining for a couple hours. Where does Alex get off? He's no prize.

He is no prize. Even if he were younger... he still wouldn't have been a prize. And can you imagine what this other girl would be thinking? Like, I mean, not the sister, but the one that's dating Tony. She's like, well, certainly he's going to bring somebody as cute as himself.

And then he shows up with Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka. So he agrees, and Tony tells Alex they're meeting at a fancy restaurant in the village called La Belle Chateau. The good house? I guess. And Jim happens to be walking by and he inserts himself into the conversation and says, oh, that sounds great.

And he kind of seems weirdly on board with the whole situation. And he even, like, starts speaking French just inexplicably. It's another moment of weirdness for Jim anyway. You're speaking French. I am.

But that gives way to... a really strange scene and one that has no bearing on anything in the episode going forward, which is Louie announces to the entire garage that Latka was test driving a cab that he had repaired and the cab caught on fire and Latka selflessly put out the flames with his own jacket. So Louie is awarding him the employee of the month award. And aside from a visual joke of his, uh, sport code, Latke's sport code, and tatters. We don't see or hear any more about this for the rest of the episode, Father Malone. Nor do we see Latke, correct?

No. It hadn't been for one day. He was not in the last episode. We've got to put him in this episode. Write something for him right now.

I don't know why they would bother with this. It's not a B-plot, because it doesn't go anywhere. No, it's a C-plot, which doesn't have its own callback. It's just one joke. It's a blackout sketch.

Very odd. We fade into the French restaurant and as is. Ooh la la. It's amazing. Isn't it an amazing set?

Right? Is that what you're making reference to? Ooh la la? Yes, of course. It's fantastic.

It's one of those sets that we've talked about. The best sets there on Taxi seem to go on. beyond the boundaries of the camera frame. And this is one of those sets where it's all, it's a beautifully brick laden French restaurant where there's people milling about, there's tables everywhere. There's a bar, there's a, like a chalkboard menu chalkboard as you walk. Yeah, you're right.

It's like, uh, it's not even a perspective thing, but it has to feel like you could, you've, even if the camera has just tracked laterally left or right, it's got to feel like it took a long time to get to the other location. Like, It almost feels like you should be able to put a divider in the middle of the set and go, this is one room and that's another room for the expansiveness of it. And whenever they do that, it pops like crazy, like that gymnasium set or any of the boxing sets. Yeah, there's something magical about the way they're able to create space and maintain that illusion for the whole scene. It's really, it's a talent.

As a counterpoint, look at that episode where they went to Europe together. You know what I mean? Like they're in a French restaurant at the end and it feels claustrophobic and like they're on a fucking set. This feels like they're at a restaurant. The brickwork looks real to me.

I'm sure it's all just fake brickwork that someone comes and pushes it in and. Pushes it out. But it looks really, really good and it's bustling with activity and it's lit really well. I mean, again, hats off to these set designers and decorators. So we're there, and a Mater D greets Alex's ex-wife Phyllis, of course, once again played by Louise Lasser, who just recently passed away.

I don't know if we talked about that previously. I don't think we did, and I don't know that I actually recognized that that happened. Yeah, I want to say, as of the recording of this episode, it could not have been more than two or three months ago that she passed away. And we didn't really, I guess, if we haven't really talked about it, we didn't really go into the fact that she was from Mary Hartman. Your reference at the beginning to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which was kind of what she was best known for.

I think she had done some Woody Allen movies. I think she might have been involved with Woody Allen romantically for a time. I believe so. A very complicated person. I think she had one of those notorious Saturday Night Live hosting gigs where...

Banned. She was banned, and I don't think they rebroadcast her episode for a time because it was not considered a good episode because of her performance. Well, yeah, I mean, she was out of her mind. Yeah. And insisted on doing a monologue, a rambling, not scripted out, off the top of her head fucking monologue.

Here, though, I can't say enough good things about her as Phyllis, as Alex's ex-wife. She's reliably charming and sweet. And they have chemistry for days, her and Judd Hirsch. And to me, I get excited for their episodes because the interplay between the two of them is so natural and believable as a couple that is split up. And kind of going their own way.

So I was really happy to see that this was a Louise Lasser episode. I don't know how you felt. I felt exactly the same. I think. that she's a natural and no matter what she does and the rapport she has with Judd Hirsch it does feel exactly like that like they've been friends forever now and might have had a past together obviously the characters have had a past together here but it does feel that you know they it feels like two people with a rich and varied history And then Louise Lasser is great, basically, in everything she's in. However, Louise Lasser always is a bit off-putting to me.

I don't know. She's like a ghoul come to life or something. She's all teeth when she's talking. Like, every sentence, it's all teeth, and it weirds me out. Like, she, to me, looks exactly what I would expect Alex's ex-wife to look like.

I agree. You know, sort of frumpy... You know, you can. You can you know, she was she was really hot when they got together, like in the 60s or something. Yeah, there was a great moment.

And there was the episode where he basically crashes his daughter's wedding. And they have the scene in the back room where they're kind of hashing things out. And she even gets a little frisky with them. And, you know, you can you can see, like you said, that she was in her day. She was probably really, really pretty.

You know what, though, HB? She's not doing herself any favors with those fucking Holly Hobby dresses she keeps wearing. She's got a multitude of Holly Hobby dresses. This one, when we meet her here at her night out on the town Holly Hobby dress, it's this, like, really crimson red with tiny fucking.... Like rhinestones?

Paisleys. No, paisleys. A little black paisley as a pattern. It's the most hideous thing ever. And then add the teeth.

Who is she getting to fuck tonight? Nobody. Nobody. But that's all part of what feeds into this character because she's at a very low point. So we come in to this restaurant and she's talking to the maitre d' and she makes it clear that she's there.

She's very concerned about sitting alone. So now we know it's shorthand for the fact that clearly her second marriage to the Brazilian... diplomat or whatever he was, has failed. So now she's on her own. I think her look, the frumpiness of it, the doubtiness of her look, I think that's all part and parcel to a recent divorcee who doesn't know maybe she's forgotten how to doll herself up for a night on the town. She doesn't own magazines?

She can't turn on the television? Well, she's very self-conscious about herself and about her, you know, how she looks. She needs to go to Bloomingdale's. I found her... her look and her demeanor. Very believable for, for what I know.

Hey man, I totally agree. No question about it. I'm just saying it's gross to look at. So she goes to sit at her table for one and just then Tony and Alex walk in. They're looking very spiffy.

Oh, Hey, Tony in particular is wearing a double breasted number that may, I thought it made him look a little bit like judge Smales. Did you notice that? I, he didn't have an ascot, but he kind of looked like him a little bit. I didn't notice that, but you're absolutely right. Yeah.

If he put on a captain's cap, he could have gotten right into Studio 54. Exactly. Big swinger. Phyllis, sitting at her table, notices Alex, and she freaks out to the Mater D. Wait, we haven't talked about their dates.

Well, I'm getting to that. Tony's date enters, followed by her twin sister, Candy. Candy and Andy, or Randy. Candy and Randy. So now I was all prepared, Father Malone, to knock this show down.

For using such a cliched set of names, but I come to find out that that's their actual name. Yeah. It is Candy and Randy Bro. They're described in the Love East book as, quote, professional twins. And I think you and I kind of understand what that means in the context of this time and this place.

It's like the Landers sisters. Twins were like a very big thing. Pretty, beautiful twins were very big at this point. What was the other ones from Grease 2? And they had their own show called Double Trouble.

The Seagal twins. Katie Seagal's younger sisters. No kidding. They had a sitcom for a time. Yeah.

Double Trouble. Double Trouble. Yeah. Yeah. They were kind of situated to be the next big.

They were... What were the... They were even double mint twins. Yeah. Remember they brought that ad campaign back?

They were kind of like... Subsequent to that, there was a set of twins. I think they were on the Disney Channel. The Maori twins? The Maori twins, yeah.

Tatiana. Tiantamari. They should have been those twins before their time. They had this squeaky clean sitcom. It was semi-popular, I remember, in its day.

But then once it got canceled, what happened to these twins? The Seagal Twins. I think they... Oh, the Seagal Twins? I have no idea.

That's what I'm saying. I don't know, but I still wonder which one had the soul. They're in Grease 2, and they're actually really good in Grease 2. Oh, man, I think about them often. I love Twins.

Twins are great, HB. Can I just put that out there? Twins became, like, a big... Remember, like, what was that? It was a beer commercial where they're like, And Twins!

Yeah, I don't remember the commercial. I remember there's a parody of it in one of the scary movie movies. Oh, really? With that dude from fucking Son of the Beach, the lead guy from that. Oh, I don't remember.

I know who you're talking about. I know who you're talking about. He looked like Belding from Saved by the Bell. That's the kind of actor he was. Yeah, exactly.

I don't know his name, though. They did a parody of it. He's a news boss, and he's sending Anna Faris out on an assignment, and they do a parody of that commercial. The exotic twins were definitely... This is probably the dawn of that, because...

I remember seeing these ladies in other things around that time. I don't think they actually had, like, a definitive starring role that you could point to, but they certainly made the rounds of probably, like, Riptide, the 18th, maybe. Buckrott, just probably. Buckrott. Yeah, you know, they're very pretty.

I can't get a beat on how good of actresses they are in this little scene that they're in, but they are... pretty blonde twins that's. Do you prefer audrey or judy landers well you know it's interesting that you say that um i don't think they're actually twins i think they're. Just sisters yeah. I always thought they were incredibly alike. Yeah audrey landers that's that's.

That's audrey's the answer i don't know. Is she the one in uh chorus line yes she was she was uh val clark in a chorus line so. Judy just seemed to be in show business because of her sister audrey. Tony introduces the twins to Alex and he makes some silly, uncomfortable small talk. But think about it.

He's done this before. I hate when Alex makes a joke and he goes, I just like being silly. Don't you like being silly? He's a grown man. Yeah, but maybe that's why Alex is not as successful with the ladies as everyone else in the cab company because he does that self-effacing thing that everyone hates.

Yeah. It rankles me. When he said that, I was like, oh, that's not good. It just felt awkward. That's the thing you have to get past Alex Rieger if you want to love him.

Eventually that behavior will fall away and then you'll get the real Alex and then you can deal. But it's weird because at least for a time they projected him as a real kind of ladies band. Remember he was going on ski trips? Yes. Yeah, but that's because he was being adventuresome.

And once you get into the adventuresome lifestyle, the chicks, man, they just flock to you. Because chicks dig scars, and doctors can heal anything. That's right. Chicks dig me because I rarely wear underwear. And when they do, it's usually something pretty wild.

Usually something pretty wild. Lee Harvey. Anyway, so Jim then walks in. He's dressed up in his brown suit, and Tony is... upset with him immediately because it's clear that jim mistook the conversation at the garage as an invitation for him to go on this date but my favorite part of this jim himself is trying to make small talk with these twins you remember what. He says oh yeah so you see the eggs split in the womb which to be fair is one of the first things i think too.

He just kind of throws it out there in the midst of conversation. So it's almost like a Robert Altman kind of, it just overlaps. And you have to be listening for it. And it's so, I don't know, it really tickled me to hear him say that. Don't you wish they had racked focus from them at that point to another conversation?

And the fact that it sets off, like that line sets off Tony and he gets all, he's. Oh, what are you doing, Jim? Stop. Tony was right to be there. Such a throwaway line, but I really dug it.

I thought it was so funny. The twins seem to enjoy it as well, should be noted. So Alex takes Jim aside to try and set him straight about what's going on, and then he notices, Alex notices Phyllis is just sitting there, and Alex goes over to her to have a chat, and they get caught up, Alex and Phyllis. She confirms to Alex that her second marriage has ended, and Alex is conflicted throughout this whole conversation because he wants to get back to this date, but he's trying to balance Phyllis's obvious neediness in this moment. She's vulnerable.

She's basically begging Alex to visit her at the Mayflower Hotel, which, by the way, Father Malone, is a real hotel. Did you know that? Oh, yeah, of course. The Mayflower Madam. That's where that came from, huh?

No, no, no. I thought she traced her ancestry to the Mayflower. That's why they called her that. I thought it had to do with the Mayflower Hotel. Either way, HP, I knew that there was an actual Mayflower Hotel.

Okay. I did not know that. I was actually delighted to learn that. She even asks him if there's possibly still something between the two of them. And Alex admits, well, yeah, there is something there, but it's basically, I care about you, but we're simply not involved in each other's lives anymore.

Finally, Alex, who's obviously had He got that short end of the stick when she left him and took the kid and remarried. It's kind of like the shoes on the other foot where he's come out of that experience. And now he just admits, look, we're just two different people now. I no longer am beholden to you in any real way because we each have our own lives. You don't do it for me no more, sister.

Hit the bricks. Look what you're wearing. Look at your teeth. Those chompers, I didn't realize what was going on back then. I can see now.

Baby, you had it good. You know how good you had it. Now I'm off to fuck a twin. By the way, at one point they cut from them over to Tony and Jim sitting with the twins. And Tony is gesticulating wildly like, get over here.

Like, you're killing me. I'm stuck here with Jim. Do you know that I really wish that one twin was fully on Jim's lap and the other one was inching closer to him? When they cut over, that would have been great. Like, Jim was just absolutely charming.

So you're saying that Jim was actually sitting at the table with all of them? Yes, he sat down with them. I didn't notice that. I thought Tony was like, hey, you know, the twins are here. You got to get back.

I didn't realize that he's... He's fighting a war on multiple fronts. He's got twins, and he's also got Jim to deal with. So that makes more sense. It's too late at that point.

Jim is seated. What's next is ordering. It's all over. Alex is no longer part of this equation. Man, what an adventure.

We were talking about Jim's adventures in the last episode. This one is... Jim's like the feather in Forrest Gump. He just kind of drifts from... Adventure to adventure.

I would totally watch one full episode of What Happens Next with Jim and the one twin. Either Randy or Candy or Dandy. After Alex tells Phyllis that, you know, we're just two different people now, blah, blah, blah. This is really dismaying to Phyllis as we fade back into the garage. Alex is following Elaine in and discussing what happened the night before.

And he wants basically validation from Elaine himself. about the way he rejected Phyllis. And ultimately she does kind of, she basically says to him, look, if that's what you think it took to get to this point, then you don't need me to approve it. It sounds like you did the right thing. But she tempers it with, you know, by being so mean to her. Yeah.

Like, make no mistake, Alex, you were mean. But if you feel justified in that, well, then okay. Yeah. Well, do you think, let me ask you, Father Mullen, do you think what he said to her was overly mean? No, not necessarily.

I don't remember the exact words. I mean, he basically said, look, we're not in each other's lives anymore. There's nothing more cruel than that. No, then he said that she was a hideous old hag, remember? What's with your teeth, Phyllis?

Yeah. So you look like you should be haunting a swamp and eating unwary travelers. I'd like to stop here and point out that this is one of my favorite outfits they've ever put Elaine in. And it gets even better the later the episode goes on because here we're getting this cream sweater and what are basically like capri pants, but they're this chocolate corduroy capri pants. And she has a jacket slung over her shoulder.

Later on, she'll wear the jacket and the outfit will be complete and the Stargate will open. Louis bounds out of his cage excitedly to announce to Alex that he loves divorced women. This is actually kind of the return of Louis the pig. He hasn't really had a lot to do in the past few episodes, but he's back in full force. Yeah, they've been trying to give us romantic Louis for two seasons, and this is first season Louis, which is gross.

Well, this is kind of getting back. Was it this season where he was caught peeping in the bathroom to Elaine? Yeah. and he should have been arrested. This is kind of the return of that. It's skeezy, his plan, but he's somehow cuter in the execution that we'll talk about.

Well, that's the whole thing, right? It's Danny DeVito, so it's adorable. But if it wasn't Danny DeVito, if he had been some trolly guy, which is funny when you think because it's Danny DeVito, but that's how nice and sweet Danny DeVito is. We look at him and go, oh, he's just wonderful. But if it had been some horrible person doing all this shit, you would have been arresting him years ago.

But the difference here is that, as we're going to see, he's not peeping on Phyllis or assaulting her directly or indirectly, for that matter. All he's guilty of doing, we'll see, is presuming that they're going to get frisky when she has no thoughts of that whatsoever. All he's guilty of is turning on the charm. Again, he's talking to Alex about this, and he basically... says, like, he loves rebound women. He says, I am the rebound Rieger.

And he even goes so far as to say that he's found the best place to find desperate women is he targets women who have just failed the bar exam. Because they're broken people. It's not like going to a wedding where everyone's really happy and feeling, you know, amorous. Yeah, and we've seen him. Remember, there was a Xena's friend who had just gotten through a breakup.

Remember, he got involved with her. Oh, so this is a pattern of behavior. It is a pattern. Good for the writers. I don't think they meant the continuity, but good for them.

It definitely is a pattern. So Alex just walks away from Louie, and Louie goes back to the cage, at which point Phyllis enters the garage and asks Louie where Alex is. Where her precious is. You're just not going to let this go. So Louie... clearly sensing blood in the water, he turns on the charm.

And despite her reservations, he actually starts getting through to Phyllis. And when you know it, they actually make a date. And she tells him to pick her up at the Mayflower Hotel, and Louis says he'll pick her up at 8. As she's walking out, she vacillates between these giving these concern looks back to Louie. Like, like, did I really just make a date with you to like her just spontaneously breaking out into laughter?

Like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about this. She's so fascinated by Louie and how weird he is. But at the same time, she thinks he's kind of cute and probably is a little bit of a boost to her confidence that she, Hey, she has a man asking her out on a date. So she plays it beautifully. Louie's Lasser does a great job in the scene.

Certainly you've had that feeling, right, HP, where you're going to date a questionable human being? You're like, well, this could be interesting, but I don't think so. Well, I wouldn't use the word questionable human being or the phrase questionable human being. Sometimes you just throw caution to the wind. Sometimes you roll snake eyes and sometimes you don't.

So who knows? But I guess my point is she, well, I guess your point is she's just doing what a lot of us have done and she's only Making it plain. It's a what-the-hell moment. Good for her. We fade back into the garage, and this is where Jeff comes into things.

Louie runs into the cage where Jeff is waiting there. Louie insists that Jeff read something, but Jeff is like, I don't want to read. I don't want to do this. I think that Jeff is most effective when he gets pulled into some lame-brained scheme against his better judgment by Louie Like, for example, the fallout shelter that Louis has made. We're getting a big dose of that here.

They break off of each other when Alex walks in to deliver his booking envelope, and then Jeff is reading from this piece of paper. He does this very stilted scripted conversation. It's great. It really is funny. Cause he's like, yeah.

So what are you up to Louie? And through this conversation, it's, it's, it's all about the date that Louie's going on with Phyllis, but they're trying to get Alex curious enough that he will start to ask them about it. Like this is all buildup to what Louie loves most, which is humiliating people that that's, that's his game here. Alex is not having any of this, and they have to leave the cage and start the conversation back over at the poker table, back from the very beginning. And finally, Alex bites, and Louis gleefully tells Alex in his typical roundabout fashion that the person that he's going to be dating is Alex's ex-wife, Phyllis.

And Alex there's a hint of violence in the air. Like I think we remember in, I think it was season one where Louie just got under Alex's skin once too often, or maybe he, he was humiliating somebody and Alex got upset and Alex chased him around the garage. And Louie, So he ripped the fucking thing off. It was the grate off of the cage. He did.

So when Alex gets up from the table and starts to advance towards Louie, there's a hint of violence is in the air. It doesn't go anywhere. But for a minute there, I thought, man, is he going to take a swing at Louie? Is this it? He's going to drag him into one of those cabs where Louie wasn't going.

To come out. Work him over with his fists. Elaine comes in and asks what's going on, and then Louie makes the point that, look, Alex, your ex-wife and I, we're both consenting adults, and in fact, we're doing nothing wrong. And even Elaine is forced to admit he's right. And then the weirdest fade out in television history.

What happens with the fade out? She says, you got to admit he's right. And then it fades out immediately as if there was more to the scene. It didn't feel like a natural end of the scene. You think they faded it out prematurely there?

I think so. And I don't know if it's from the original broadcast that they've now done when they remastered the show. Because I watched it on Paramount. So I don't know. I mean, I have the DVDs.

I guess I should have checked. I'm a terrible broadcaster. No, I think you're right. Is what I'm announcing, everybody. I think I remember that too, because I'm watching them from the DVDs as well.

And I think that's, you're right. It is a little odd. There's no, you would figure. It didn't feel like the end of a scene. It felt like there was another word about to be spoken.

There should have at least been a moment where Alex stops and considers to himself the words, and then you fade out, but not like a sudden fade to black. Yeah. That is sort of weird. When we come back from, from commercial, We fade into Phyllis's hotel room where she's getting ready for her date with Louie. By the way, everything I said that was great about the restaurant set, it's terrible here.

This is not a good, especially given the fact that this is a real world hotel. So it's not as if they're, you know, I mean, they have something they can work from to reproduce the hotel room. They already said it was the whatever it was. Well, this is the B team working here. It's just that the ceilings look way too...

You don't even see the ceilings because clearly they've got the lights hung up in the rafters. But it makes it look like there's no ceiling. Everything is sort of... It looks dim. It looks a little like the Haunted Mansion from Disney World.

It feels a lot like Quiet on the Set. Yeah. Not a great look for the set decorators here. Phyllis is getting ready for her date and there's a knock at the door and Alex rushes in. And Alex tells... demands, in fact, Phyllis not go out with Louis.

And he tries to explain to Phyllis, look, Louis is not, he's an awful person. You don't understand, but she just won't listen. Which leads me to wonder, was he driving a cab when they were still married? Because if he was, I would guarantee that he must have complained about Louis at some point to her. Yeah, right?

Which would lead me to believe that she must know who this is. Most people who come into that garage go, oh, you must be Louis De Palma. Like, no matter who their relation to is, whether it's Elaine or Bobby or Banta, like, they come in and they know who Louis is because of the idle talk about him. So you're right. Yeah, she should know who Louis is.

She won't listen to Alex. And then she lays this thing on him where, look, Alex, I'm a new woman. And there's a new Phyllis that I want to explore, which to me, like it rankled me because it's, it's just, it's just the typical psycho speak of the day. Like when John Candy and stripes is talking about, you know, I was into Est. I was into, you know, I'm okay.

You're okay. Right. Swallowed a lot of aggression. Like that's to me, it just feels like psychobabble. She's not listening to Alex at all.

And she, she, uh, there's a knock at the door and she tells Alex, look, I need you to go in the bathroom and hide and just wait till we leave and then you can come up because this is all too embarrassing. So somehow Alex agrees that he's going to go hide in the bathroom. Well, they're about to go out on the date and then he can leave. You know, that's that's that's the idea. And, you know, why doesn't she ask if her new.

Royal blue holly hobby dress is sexy for the big date that she's about to go on. You're very big on this holly hobby thing. My God, man, it's the worst. If you're not fucking 12 years old, you should not be wearing a holly hobby dress. It's very formless.

It's not really. It's not formless. No, it's like it's structured. It's like you're being choked and your arms are being choked. It's like your clothing should not attack you.

Unless that's the fucking specific, I mean, maybe she's got a corset under there and we don't know about Phyllis, but I don't think that's what's going on. No, I don't think so either. So she answers the door and it's the movie. By the way, do you ever hear people refer to that word as a corset? No, just corset.

I hear lots of younger people say corset as if it's some sort of exotic French thing. It's a corset, everybody. Stop saying that. Not that anyone under the age of 50 is listening to this program. Really?

Corset is a thing? I hear it all the time. I'm around these 20 and 30-year-olds, and I hear corset a lot. Corset. I don't know.

That's new for me. I've never heard that. Louis comes in, and he's wearing a suspiciously buttoned-up trench coat. This is sort of like, remember that episode where Bobby is wearing the trench coat to hide a harness that he gets hooked up to when Louis hangs him from the. The inexplicable trench coat.

Yeah. Louis himself has shown up in an inexplicable trench coat at one point, too. I mean, nobody, I don't think anybody in life buttons up a trench coat to that degree unless they're hiding something or looking to reveal something. If he walked in and he was covered in snow right now, I'd be like, oh, okay, I get it. But just other than that, it's you're about to rob the place.

He looked like a flasher to me. You know what I mean? Like ready to reveal himself. So he comes in, and Phyllis is happy to see him, and she dashes off to finish primping. And Louis removes the coat, revealing that he's already in it.

She's got to fluff the ruffles. She's got to polish those jumpers. So Louis is wearing his pajamas under his trench coat. Yeah, and he jumps right into bed. I love it.

Yeah, he leaps right into bed, and tells Phyllis that he's already got room service ordered. They're going to bring up champagne. He makes a few other choice, crass comments about it. And she turns around and she can't believe the tableau that she's looking at here. And Louis even has now taken off his pajama shirt.

Like she hasn't pulled her dress off yet. So he's like, well, let me sweeten the deal. Yeah. So he takes off this, this shirt and he's, Like, he's doing things like patting the side of the bed, like, hey, come on in. You know, the water's fine.

Finally, Phyllis yells for Alex to come out, which prompts Louis to accuse Alex of being some kind of weirdo. He's a voyeur, apparently. That's what I would think. Like, suddenly Alex is in the bathroom? What's happening here?

Yeah, if you look at this purely from Louis' perspective, I guess you could say, like, what's going on here? This is weird. Louie thought he was coming up to have sex with this woman, and suddenly Alex is involved. I would be like, wait a minute. I don't know if I signed up for the threesome.

Throughout the rest of his scene, I don't know if you noticed this, but there's like a subtle smirk on Danny DeVito's face as if he's having the best time acting this scene out. It was another level of amusement that I had throughout this whole course of events. So Alex comes out. Phyllis is... She looks quite embarrassed about what's happening here, and clearly now she realizes that Alex was right about Louie's intentions.

So Alex dresses the two of them down, and Alex goes to leave, but then Phyllis is forced to admit that Alex is right, and you can't leave. By the way, HP, everything you accused Vic Ferrari of in a previous episode is actually on display here. That's not true. It is true. Danny DeVito wanted nothing more than to fuck this woman.

Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Let me go back. You're right. You're right.

But everything you said was Vic Ferrari's, oh, he's actually being very sweet and he cares. He was being sincere. Yeah. You can restate what I said in a silly voice. It doesn't make you right.

All of Louie's bad intentions, they're no different from Vic's intentions in that previous episode. No, I'm saying we're seeing what you accused Vic of actually manifest here. Again, we're going to have to agree to disagree. Actually, Phyllis accuses the two of them, Alex and Louis, for actually cooking this up as a scheme. And I wish they had.

I wish they had. Like, I wish, like, when Louis like bragging like i'm gonna be with your ex-wife what are you gonna do about it that whole scene i wish it they had like gone to a blackout then like and then now we cut back to their plan like here's what's gonna happen you go in immediately get under your pajamas get in the bed and i'm gonna come in and save. The day It would have made sense, but Alex already made it pretty clear to Phyllis that he didn't want, I mean, if he was still pining for her, then yeah, I would say he would concoct that scheme. But he was cruel to her in Elaine's estimation that like, hey, we're two different people now. Maybe Alex is just cruel enough that he says to Louis, I want to hit her again.

I want I want to make me look so good that she's absolutely, like, completely fixated on me so I can break her heart a second time. That's the level of pain she caused me when she stole my daughter. Finally, Louis says that, look, Alex, this is your fault. Alex, you said you didn't want to get involved, but the next thing I know, you're popping out of the bathroom. And he's right.

Again, Louis is right. Like, it really is. He is ultimately the one who made it possible for them to get together in any form. And he's the one who keeps saying that he doesn't want to be involved, and yet there he is popping out of her bathroom at a weird moment. A self-righteous Alex is really annoying to me.

I'm sure it's annoying to you. He gives a speech here that just makes no sense at all. He just starts saying, like, you've never had a child. You've never known what it's like to wake up with somebody six years in a row. And I'm like, okay, maybe he doesn't, but what does that have to do with the scenario we're currently embroiled in here, Alex?

Yeah, he's talking just to hear himself talk. There's not really any moral that he's imparting or anything that's really directly related to the matter at hand. He just is kind of like, I guess charitably his point is, look, I'm looking out for Phyllis because we have a shared history. Like you wouldn't know, Louis, because you've never had that shared history with somebody. But the way he goes about it and the way he's yelling and harrumphing about everything, it's just very...

It just turned me off completely at that point. Impulsively, then Alex asks Phyllis if she wants to go get a bite to eat with him. He's kind of swinging from extreme to extreme here. It didn't really make a lot of sense to me. Did you notice that?

Yeah, I think he's maybe bipolar. Perhaps. It just seemed odd that his whole... thing was that we're not connected anymore. And then all of a sudden he's like, hey, you want to go get a bite to eat? We can reminisce about how terrible that lewd poem is.

That's right. How I saved you from God knows what tonight. Let's go get you a gigolo. What do you say, honey? I know a spot down on 42nd Street.

Phyllis says something to the effect of, look, I know you're going to want me to promise that I won't make you crazy again. but I can't do that. Like she's kind of admitting, look, I, I can't be held responsible for my feelings for you because I think there's still, for me, there's still something there and I can't guarantee I won't make you nuts like I've been known to do in the past. And yeah, that's, that's fair. I mean, they, they do have a history together and they, we, we established in that, that wedding episode that she can still press his buttons when she wants to. So that I think for me kind of brought it back to, To something resembling reality and something really sweet.

Although, I'm being harsh. There is a lot of humor in this scene. The Louis stuff I love because he just seems to be having such fun with the scene. The true part of it, I agree, is that sort of revelation. I'm not changing.

I might be more adventurous now, but I'm still the same person and that's not going to switch just because we're going to have dinner together. But the final line of the episode where they're walking out and she mentions about Louis, she says something about that guy. She's got a kick out of him. Yeah. That's also wildly true.

Right. Because sometimes you do. Because you know what? HP, as wacky and as presumptuous as that move was, the show up in a trench coat, you've got fucking pajamas underneath and you immediately jump into the hotel bed. I think it would work on me.

If you're really in the spirit of adventurousness and this fucking guy shows up and jumps, I'll be like, okay, well, here we go. Ultimately, we establish that Louis is doing nothing wrong here. I mean, the only thing that you can say that he's doing wrong is he's preying on a very vulnerable woman. But at the end of the day, he's not forcing himself on her. I think had Alex not been in that bathroom, she would have had one moment of horror and then she would have been like, meh.

Yeah, why not? You know, I'm having fun. And that would have been fine. I mean... it's somewhat false pretenses because he knows how fragile she is maybe at this moment. But at the end of the day, she makes it clear that I'm going to do what I want to do.

I'm not going to be forced into it either way. So, you know, why not? Why not? Why, why deprive herself of some fun with this guy who she admits she finds kind of cute. I don't know.

Sort of sweet. But anyway, we never get to see that because that's the end of the episode. What? Yep. Now we're going to talk about yellow lights.

What does a yellow light mean? Just to recap, we grade these episodes on one to five yellow lights. One, the worst taxi episode. Five is the best. And as is our custom, we're going to throw it to you, Father Malone.

What do you give Take My Ex-Wife, Please? It deserves three. It's getting four. And I think it's because of Louise Lasser. I know I've been very rude this entire episode about her appearance i don't mean i think she's phenomenally talented i think the character phyllis is a really good addition to taxi anytime she comes on i think with barring the self-righteous bullshit that they tacked on for no good reason here at the end like the interactions between alex and phyllis are always superlative and that continues here And I really liked Louis in this episode.

I like skeezy old Louis kind of mixed with the sweet Louis that we've gotten in between here. So, you know, this could have been the sort of pervious kind of move of his. But as you said, that smirk that he has for the entire scene is there because of the ridiculousness of the situation. Like at one point she says, like when she's accusing them of concocting this, she says, Because no human being acts this way when she points to Louis, right? It has to be an act.

So, yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's four yellow lights for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the episode, honestly. Once again, Father Willen, I'm 100% in agreement on you on this. I also gave it four yellow lights.

For me, the Alex Phyllis through line through the whole series at this point is one of the better recurring plots in Taxi. I don't know that you could ever really have Louise Lasser as a permanent regular member because she's good kind of sprinkled in here and there, maybe one or two appearances a season. Yeah, we get her like once a season, right? That's fine. Yeah, pretty much.

And it's always an interesting perspective. It always gives Alex something interesting to kind of bounce off of and a unique flavor to the episode. So they have wonderful chemistry together. This isn't the most consequential episode, but there's plenty of laughs. The Louis stuff is gold.

And there's some very sweet moments, too. So I gave it four yellow lights. You gave it four as well. I'm also going to give it a blinker for Elaine's outfit. I think this was a real return to form.

For Elaine, gone are the shoulder pads that we've seen. Fucking sweater dresses. What the fuck? Yeah. She looked good.

Her hair was styled well, and it was a return to form for Elaine. And it was corduroy, so it made me want to walk in an autumn field with her. Corduroy. So four from both of us. That's going to do it for this episode.

Father Malone, where can folks find you when you're not clocked into the garage? Check me out at Midnight Viewing. That's a show you can get anywhere. It's on twice a week on Mondays. There's either a fest, Von Doom Fest, counting down the MCU characters until we get to Victor Von Doom and his doomsday later this year.

HP is on every one of those. Those alternate with a show about Tales of the Unexpected, the British Roald Dahl anthology series. We've got a new show coming on called Button Switches and Consoles I'm doing with Laura Grillo. That's about old tech. We're going to be doing movies like Hackers. and the net.

And over on Patreon, we have a fucking slurry. A slurry? No, that's a terrible thing. We have a flurry. That's better.

A flurry of exclusive shows like Vault 702, the Fallout podcast I do with New Kokoda Quantum, or Step Off, the white rapper show I do with HP here, where we look at one of the greatest achievements of human civilization, the white rapper show from 2006. You can find that at patreon.com slash father Malone. Everything else is under midnight viewing, including the Instagram. Go there. You can watch all the stupid cartoons I make featuring me and HP as superheroes, really just inadvertently killing everyone we come in contact with.

Father Malone. And once again, proves that he is the hardest working man in podcasting. Nobody produces more content on a regular basis than father Malone. And so, so check that out. I mean, there's, It's crazy.

I'm proving that it's quality, not quantity. It's great stuff. Did you even, did you even talk about the weekly roundup that you produce every week? Oh no, it's every Friday. I do whatever streaming and currently in theaters and HB is now the latest feature on that show. helping me so, so much where we go over the news of the week.

So that's a new facet to the show. I actually am really enjoying the Roundup more than I have in a long time. So check that out every Friday. A lot of fun. For myself, in addition to doing things with Father Malone, like the Roundup and Von Doomfest, so forth, I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and I also have a Bandcamp site, which is hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com.

Thanks again for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast, write a review, or rate us. We'd love to hear from you. And our email address is hpmusicplace at gmail.com. Once again, for Father Malone and myself, thanks again for listening, and we'll see you all next time.

Night, Mr. Walters. Night.