Episode Title: Small Surprises
Season 01, Episode 10
Episode 010 of 344
Written by Rob Gilmer
Directed by Nicholas Sgarro
Original Airdate: Thursday,
March 6th, 1980
The Plot
(Courtesy of TV.Com): When Karen learns that she's pregnant, she isn't sure she wants
the baby, while Sid can't understand her mixed feelings regarding the
pregnancy. When medical complications develop, Karen decides she wants to have
the baby, but she miscarries. Eric takes a liking to Ginger's 14-year-old
sister who is visiting Knots Landing. However, when he takes her out on a
date, he finds her too sophisticated for him. Ginger tells Kenny she is ready
for them to start a family.
Ah yes, gentle readers, after having to sit through a
Kenny/Ginger-centric episode with The Constant Companion, we can now bask in the glory of a splendid
Karen-centric show. Yes, Small Surprises is all about Karen and
it, along with Let Me Count the Ways and
Civil Wives, provides some terrific
early content for Karen and displays fantastic acting from Michele Lee. Being that this episode will be, more or
less, all about Karen, it’s fitting that we begin on her, sitting in the
doctor’s waiting room, wearing a fabulous red dress (Karen always looks
fabulous in red). She gets called in to
see the doctor and then we cut to….
Eric, Ginger, and…..Jill?
Well, I was surprised by this, and it honestly provides very nice
linkage to our episode just two back, Civil Wives. You may recall that in that
episode, Eric developed a little crush on Ginger, but after a bit of time, she killed his boner by
saying, “Oh, you should meet my sister, Jill!”
Well, here we are now, two episodes later, and her sister Jill is
visiting town. I like this, as it shows
foresight and pre-planning on the part of the writers. In fact, now’s probably a good time to ask:
Did they just write, produce, and shoot all thirteen episodes for the first season
prior to even airing the first episode?
This is the shortest ever season of KL,
coming in at just thirteen episodes (as we get deeper in, around seasons six, seven, and eight time, we will skyrocket up to THIRTY episodes per season!), so I am a bit
inclined to believe that the entire season was shot prior to airing. If that’s the case, I suppose I shouldn’t be
so surprised to see things mentioned in episode eight and then returning in
episode ten. Anyway, as I’m really
paying strict attention to each episode during this viewing, I appreciated
that continuity, so good on you, writers!
So as soon as I saw Jill, I was like, “I totally know that
chick!” Well, it turns out I don’t. The actress’s name is Jennifer McAllister and she’s been
in absolutely nothing that I’ve ever seen; she just looks super familiar. Anyway, in her little role here, she’s
okay. I also note on her IMDb that she
does not return for the season two
episode Man of the Hour. Hmmm, that’s odd, as I thought Ginger’s
sister played a vital role in that episode.
Perhaps I’m misremembering?
Perhaps it’s a cousin or something?
Oh well, we’ll talk about it when we get to season two. In any case, Jill shows herself to be a bit
of a tomboy, asking Eric if he would like to play some basketball and then
actually playing pretty rough with him.
Turn on? Turn off? Well, Eric is a horny teenage boy, so I
imagine anything with a vagina is okay with him, tomboy or not.
Back at the doctor’s office, we find out that Karen is
PREGNANT! See, her doctor (Georgann Johnson, who is a Transmorpher, by the way, as she also appeared in the 1979
episode of Dallas entitled The Silent Killer) tells her how she is
pregnant and oh boy, isn’t that good news?!
But when Karen doesn’t jump up and down with excitement over this news,
the doctor can see that something is bothering her. Well, of course! Karen is nearing forty, already has three kids,
the youngest of whom is eleven or twelve (I’m actually not sure of what Michael’s age
is supposed to be, but I’ll pay attention in future episodes; I do know that in real life Pat Petersen was born in 1966 so he would be around fourteen years old here) and she isn’t
sure she wants to do the mom thing yet again.
So, naturally, the doctor says, “We can go forward with the pregnancy or
we can terminate the pregnancy.” Oh boy,
more abortion! I feel like the last
episode we watched was also about abortion.
Oh wait, it was! So we’ve got two
abortion episodes in a row; how scandalous!
Karen returns home and is not in good spirits. I’m
trying to think if we’ve seen Karen moody and grumpy on the series yet, and I
don’t think we have; this is the first time (well, aside from the very first episode when she was rightfully frustrated about Annie causing all those shenanigans).
First, she drives up onto the driveway even though Eric and Jill are
playing basketball, and then when Laura and Val are like, “The kids are playing
basketball,” Karen is all like, “Huh, what?” like she’s stoned or
something. Then she lethargically moves
her car and parks it on the street instead.
Next, she goes inside and has to deal with Diana. Oh boy, Diana, you are just not a good
actress, are you? First off, Diana
shouts out “Mother!” to her. What’s that
about? I hate the way Diana says “Mother”; it reminds me of the way Becky 1
would always say it during the early seasons of Roseanne (the difference being that Becky 1 played her character
very very well and Diana….not so much).
But anyway, Diana is like, “Mother, I hate my room, I’m a grown woman
now and my room is for a child, blah blah blah!” In a very unintentionally funny little
sequence, Karen gazes around the room, acting like she’s stoned, and when Diana
says, “I wish I had a grown up room,” Karen says, “Don’t wish your life away,
Diana,” and then walks away, leaving her daughter rather perplexed.
Meanwhile, over in Storyline B, Eric has successfully
gotten Jill to go out on a date with him, and we get a very charming little
man-to-man sequence between him and Sid.
It’s very cute to see how excited Sid is for his son’s date, and he’s so
sweet and accommodating when Eric asks for some money for a cab ride (cuz it’s
not cool to have to ride with your daddy, you understand) and the movie. What movie they are going to see remains a
mystery (although Eric displays good taste in a later scene when they return
home and he says he liked Close Encounters better than Star Wars),
but it’s March of 1980, so what the heck could they be seeing? Hmm, let’s take a quick look at movies that
came out in the February/March 1980 region, shall we? Hmmm, looks like both Caligula and Cruising would
have been out in theaters around this time.
Oh, how I’d like to imagine Eric taking his date to either Caligula or Cruising (or maybe a double feature of both!), but I am willing to
bet that’s not what happened. Oh yeah, also, if Eric did take Jill to Cruising, he would probably get very confused at how Annie Fairgate became a movie star so fast. Looks like the timeline would match up for
them to go see The Coal Miner’s Daughter;
maybe that was it? Oh hell, I dunno,
maybe they were even just seeing something that has been in theaters for over a
year or whatever; movies were different back in 1980. In any case, it’s not important and I am just
being a nerd, so let’s move on.
Sid finds Karen upset in the kitchen. She asks him if they can have a talk soon and he says sure. A little later,
the two get together and she starts to give a big speech about her life and how
she’s happy with her life just the way it is.
This is a well acted scene by both Michele and Don Murray, and I
like the little detail when he’s all like, “What’s going on?” and she gently
says, “Just let me tell it my way, okay?”
But when she finally says, “I’m pregnant,” Sid is like, “Oh, that’s
great! We’re gonna have a baby!” The fact that Karen is maybe not peeing her
pants in excitement about this development sorta goes over this head.
One person who is very not
excited to hear about Karen’s pregnancy is everybody’s favorite character,
Diana. She hears Sid and Karen having a
fight in the bedroom and Sid tells her what’s up. Next, she goes downstairs, where Michael and
Eric are having breakfast, and there’s a pretty great exchange where she’s
like, “The world is ending!” and Michael says, “What happened; did your face
break out again?” Gotta love Michael’s
wit, especially when it’s used to degrade and hurt Diana. Anyway, Diana acts like a little whiny bitch for
awhile and then, close to the end of the episode, she gets over it.
Meanwhile, over in Storyline B, Eric splashes on some of
his dad’s aftershave and heads out for his big date. The big date takes place on the beach and
also includes, get ready for this, Gary Sinise as a drunken teenager applying
peer pressure to Eric. This is a real
blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance, by the way. I knew Gary Sinise showed up on KL somewhere, and before watching this
episode, I read that he’s in it, but at first, his appearance passed right by without me even noticing. Then I
rewound a little bit and was like, “Oh yeah, that is Gary Sinise!” Fans of this great actor don’t need to seek
this episode out to complete their viewing of his filmography, as he just has
one or two lines. Basically he is like,
“Come on, Eric, have another beer; one more won’t hurt!” It’s a classic scene of one teen feeling
pressured into drinking by another, very standard and not particularly
interesting, honestly. One thing that I
note with interest is that he was actually 25 when appearing in this episode,
another in a long line of actors over the age of 20 playing teenagers (just
wait until we get to Diana’s really old boyfriend in the very next episode). This is also interesting because it means
that Gary Sinise didn’t really find fame until he was almost 40, when he
starred in both The Stand and Forrest Gump in 1994. Anyway, he’s a wonderful actor and it’s kinda
fun to see him here, even if it’s just a two-second appearance. I believe he also marks the first
famous-actor-who-wasn’t-famous-yet appearance on the show. Later seasons will give us Helen Hunt, Billy Bob Thornton, and Halle Berry, to name just a few.
Watching this episode, I kinda assumed something really
bad was gonna happen at this beach party, like one of the kids might get too
drunk and go off swimming and get eaten by a shark, Jaws-style. Nah, nothing
that exciting. Mostly, Eric doesn’t feel
like having more beer and he’s uncomfortable with the whole situation, so he
sorta stomps off and leaves Jill alone.
The suspense here, I suppose, is how she’ll react to this behavior. Honestly, I could live without this
B-story. My interests lie with Karen and
Sid; I wanna see what’s gonna happen with Karen’s baby, and whenever we return
to Jill and Eric, I’m like, “Can we just move on, please?”
We see Karen the angriest she’s ever been pretty soon
after this. She’s working on her
volunteer work and Sid comes in to make conversation. This doesn’t go too well, as she feels he
isn’t taking her work seriously just because she doesn’t bring home a paycheck,
and I think this is the first time we hear “Saint Sid” uttered. She says how he is judging her in his
sanctimonious, black-and-white way, and she’s going upstairs and she doesn’t
want him to come up because, “I don’t feel like being judged right now.” Wow, what a scene! Honestly, here in this sequence, I feel
pretty bad for Sid. Who could be mad at
Sid? The man is pure ethics and decency,
and he has a great heart and soul. I
understand Karen is angry, but damn, she is pretty hurtful to him here. However, one of the very next scenes is her
visiting him in his garage (where he is working on the most fabulous car I think I have ever seen in
my life) and apologizing for snapping at him.
Again, this entire situation is classic KL.
We the audience love both Karen and Sid, and we understand both of their
points of view. So many other shows,
particularly in this era, would want to present one character as being right
and one as being wrong, but here, they are both valid. Sid loves his children and his life and he
sees no reason to be unexcited about another baby. However, Karen is 37 and feels like the last
sixteen years of her life have been nothing but making babies and raising them;
she’s ready to be done with it, she doesn’t want to be sending a kid off to
college when she is 55, you know? I feel
I can’t say it enough, but both of these actors are just so great in all these
scenes that you can’t fault either of them for their points of view, however
contentious they might be.
Next up, we get one of my favorite conventions of the
nighttime soap (or perhaps just television in this era, really), some really,
really bad A.D.R. See, Karen stays at
home, but Sid takes the three kids out roller skating, and as they roller
skate, basically their entire conversation is done through extremely obvious
A.D.R. This is maybe the worst scene in
the episode, even though I love Don Murray in it. Sorry, Rob Gilmer, but this isn’t some of the
best writing in the world, is it?
Basically, the scene is Sid explaining to the kids how their mother is
more than just a baby-making machine, and that they need to make sure and
recognize that. The sentiment is good,
but the scene overall is a little corny.
Karen has a bit of an epiphany while cleaning Michael’s
room. Knowing what shenanigans Michael
gets up to around the time of seasons eight and nine, I almost expected her to
find a dirty magazine lying under his bed or something, but instead she finds a
nice picture he drew of the entire family, and that sorta turns her
around. She realizes that she loves all
three of her children (yes, even Diana, I guess) and it’s at this moment that
she realizes she wants to have this baby.
The kids return home and Michele delivers a fabulous speech about how
she wants to have this baby because of the three kids she already has. Then she announces that they’re all going out
for a fancy dinner so they’d better go get dressed up nice.
It’s at this point that it starts to become clear, at
least for me, that this pregnancy is not going to last long. Obviously I had seen this episode before, and
of course I remember that Karen does not have a child since, you know, there
are thirteen more seasons and she doesn’t have any more children in them, but even
within the confines of this 48 minutes of television, I think it’s pretty clear
that she’s going to have a miscarriage.
This is the “Everything is okay” period right before something bad
happens. They go out to dinner,
everything seems nice, but then Karen disappears to the ladies room and the
hostess comes out to Sid and says how his wife is lying down and she has called
the hospital. From here, we go to a
commercial. When we return, Sid is
waiting at the hospital and we find out that Karen lost the baby.
Now I love KL
and I always will; that much should be obvious, but I can recognize objectively
that this turn of events is a bit of a contrivance. Having Karen get pregnant and then
immediately have a miscarriage is basically a way for the writers to explore
the subject of abortion and have Sid and Karen have conflict but then just
flush (no pun intended) the whole dilemma out at the end of the episode. Yes, I recognize that and I acknowledge it,
but it also doesn’t particularly bug me.
I love seeing my beloved KL characters
deal with big issues like these. I love
that we have an entire episode of just real mature, adult problems, seeing two
people try to work something out.
Because of that, I forgive this writing contrivance, although I do note
with interest how differently this would be handled if the storyline was done
in, say, seasons four, five, or six time.
I imagine that at that point, they would have Karen’s pregnancy and
thoughts of abortion and then miscarriage span, say, half a season or
something. Early in the series, we have
this storyline come up and be resolved all within the course of the one
episode, but if this was done just a few years later, it would span probably
fifteen or twenty episodes and be a huge part of the season as a whole, don’t
you think?
Even if this portion of the episode is a bit of a
contrivance, you can’t say one bad word about either of these actors; they give
it their all. While waiting outside of
Karen’s room, you can actually see the tears forming in Don Murray’s eyes, and
when he goes to visit her and she says, “I’m sorry I lost the baby,” you really
feel the emotion coming from both of them.
And the piece de resistance of this has to be when Karen’s getting ready
to leave the hospital. Despite what has
happened, she appears in good spirits, and she’s getting wheeled out of her
room and to the elevator, and then the elevator doors open and there’s a happy
new mother in the elevator, holding her brand new little baby and just looking
oh-so-cute. Karen just stares at this
woman and her baby for a few seconds, and then the elevator doors close and she
collapses into Sid and starts crying her eyes out. Jesus, this
is acting, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s some powerful work on
display. Now, honestly, being a bit of a
cynical viewer and preferring my entertainment to end with misery and sorrow, I
think I would have been happier if the episode had just ended here, like the
end of Blow Out or something, but it
doesn’t; we have one more scene.
Since everyone was waiting on the edge of their couch to
see what would happen with Eric and Jill, we get one last scene of them
together. She comes up to him outside
the Fairgate house and says she admired his convictions, that he didn’t let
anybody pressure him into doing anything he didn’t want to, and blah blah
blah. The two decide to play a game of
basketball. We get a nice little pan
across the neighborhood and see all our characters out and about, doing their
thing, including Richard in his only
scene, washing his car. Fuck, man,
Richard only has one line in this episode, and that bothers me, I confess. I love Karen and I love Sid, but I need me
some Richard. I know he’s only in these
first four seasons, so time is limited and I need as much of him as I can get and
it hurts me to see an entire episode go by with only one line from my beloved Richard.
Anyway, Sid and Karen get home and everyone is very
welcoming to them and then the episode freeze frames on Eric and Jill playing
basketball and everybody lives happily after.
I'm of two minds on this final scene.
Like I said, I would prefer the episode to end with misery and
heartbreak, with Karen weeping into Sid’s arms, but I also understand the
function of this final scene. It helps
to emphasize the neighborhood atmosphere, that all of Karen’s friends are
around and waiting for her when she gets home, ready to lend support. I get it and it’s fine, but did we really have to close out on that freeze frame
of Eric, like, making a slam dunk? This
is basically one little notch above freeze-framing on two characters doing a
high five or something. This is a
reminder that primetime TV in 1980 still was probably not comfortable ending a
show on a really sad note; there has to be one last happy scene to make
everyone feel cozy before the show ends.
Looking over this, it might sound like I did a lot of
whining, but I don’t mean to sound negative at all. I still thought this was a terrific little
episode and a huge improvement over The Constant Companion. I could have lived without the Eric/Jill storyline,
but even that wasn’t toxic or
anything, just kinda boring. I think
Michele and Don both carry this episode tremendously and, at this point in the
series, I really don’t think there’s any debate that they are our two main
characters. It’ll be interesting to get
deeper and deeper into the series and see the cast start to change and grow,
with people going away and new people coming in to join the show, but at this
early juncture, if I was a viewer in 1980, I would say Karen and Sid are the
main focus point of the show and that all the best episodes are the ones that
focus heavily on them.
But, as I said a moment ago, I love me some Richard and I
really missed him in this episode.
Because of that, I am very excited to move on to our next episode, which
is pure Richard from start to finish, 100% Richard. Join me next week for season one, episode eleven,
with the episode entitled Courageous Convictions.
Ginger has two sisters so it's the other one that shows up in a later episode. Of course, you may have gotten to this already but I only just stared reading, so...
ReplyDeleteWell down the road, in "Noises Everywhere, Part 2," Mack is trying to re-assure Karen how happy he is with his life. He says, "I love you. I love Paige. I love Michael. I love Eric." He leaves someone out. Hmmm, I can't quite remember who that might be.
ReplyDeleteHome with the flu and watching KL and I looked up who was the actress who played Jill and I came across your blog and it's FABulous!! Cannot wait to read more ! You baited me with the age of Greg, Diana's sticky fingers boyfriend, I've always said to myself that guy is NO high school student! Lol. KL is my all time favorite show. I lived it as it originally aired, graduated from HS in 1980 :).
ReplyDelete