Episode Title: More Than Friends
Season 02, Episode 16
Episode 029 of 344
Written by Carol Roper
Directed by Alexander Singer
Original Airdate: Thursday,
March 19th, 1981
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Abby comes on to Gary, but then says she's kidding when
she sees how uncomfortable he is. Everyone thinks Laura's having an affair with
Scooter, because of all their flirting. Laura tells Scooter that they can't really have an affair, because they're both married. Richard
asks Laura if she'd like to discuss his affair with Abby, so that they can
start over. Val's night school teacher is Earl Trent. He invites Val over to
work on a story, and then asks her to sleep with him to get even with Gary and
Judy. Val refuses and he starts to force her, but then breaks down weeping.
Gary comes over and apologizes to Earl for having an affair with his wife.
There are 344 episodes of KL.
That’s a lot. That’s really a lot
considering the way TV shows are going nowadays (in my opinion, by the way,
generally for the better). The last ten
to twenty years with the fall of “big” networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX and
the rise of highly artistic and cinematic quality shows over on AMC, HBO, and
Showtime have been very interesting to watch, and what’s interesting now is how
few episodes these shows produce. Breaking Bad went off the air with 62 episodes and Mad Men ended with 92 episodes.
One of my all-time favorite shows, Six Feet Under (which, FYI, was allegedly pitched to HBO as “Knots Landing in a funeral home”), ended
with 63 episodes. So nowadays, the
actual length of time that a show is on is not indicative of a huge long run of
episodes, unless you’re unfortunate enough to still be stuck on one of the
regular original “big four” channels (a very, very sad place to be nowadays). So one of the delights of revisiting KL and all of its fourteen season, 344
episode glory is the fact that I know I will hit plenty of episodes that I have
just plain forgotten existed, and the episode up for discussion today, More Than Friends, is definitely one of
those.
Let me just say it’s so
refreshing to be back to quality KL after
the unfortunate accidents that were our last two episodes, Moments of Truth and Man of the Hour. Placed together, those two
formed a really nasty turd sandwich, but now we’re back on track right away,
and as we get closer and closer to the end of the season, we have an episode
rich for discussion. This is also one of those episodes that perfectly exemplifies the best
qualities of “early” KL (which you’ll
recall I designated as seasons one through three), that real Scenes From A Marriage On A Cul-De-Sac quality
that David Jacobs originally envisioned.
Even within the very title of the episode, we are given the theme that
will run start to finish for all the characters on display, all those
characters who I love so very much (aside from Kenny and Ginger, obviously).
Watching these with my Beloved
Grammy really enhances the experience as we find plenty of stuff to talk about
and discuss with each show. It’s also
fun to watch her mind work as we watch the show, because I’ll always say the
title of the episode and the original airdate before we start (and we always, no matter what, watch the entire
opening credit sequence in total). So
this one cues up and we see that title onscreen, More Than Friends, and the titles are playing over a scene of Val
walking through her college campus with some guy, presumably a guy from one of
her classes. My Beloved Grammy goes,
“Interesting, I wonder if this guy and Valene are going to become more than
friends.” Well, that’s not what happens,
but it’s fun to see her try and figure out what’s gonna unfold in the next
magical 48 minutes. What really comes
next is actually the only scene I remembered from this episode, and that’s the
glorious return of The Other Paul Rudd, last seen drunkenly
stumbling down the street and calling his ugly wife an adulteress back in Breach of Faith. See, we’re in Val’s writing and literature
class and apparently her usual teacher is out sick, but in walks Earl Trent,
that hilariously sassy, nasty, unpleasant, drunken asshole. This scene is unforgettable, it truly is, so
it’s no wonder it’s the one part that stuck in my brain. See, Earl’s like, “Well, I graded all of your
stories that you were assigned to write, and now I’m gonna read Val’s story and
talk about how much it sucks.”
In all honesty the tone of my
writing might sound sarcastic or dismissive, but it’s not meant to sound that
way (at least not here; it is meant
to sound that way when I discuss Land of the Free or Kristin or Man of the Hour). Make no mistake, this scene is crippling and
the pain you can see in Val’s face and the pain we feel for her as an audience
is absolutely real and very palpable. As
someone who fancies himself a writer and as someone who took four whole years of
college for writing and had many writing classes, I understand the feeling of
sharing your work with colleagues, contemporaries, and authority figures and
putting yourself out there. It’s a very
naked feeling, and it’s always a bit uncomfortable to know you are sharing your
own work to be an object of critique by others.
However, nothing I ever experienced or witnessed comes close to what The Other Paul Rudd does to Valene here; it’s absolutely brutal and, quite frankly,
unforgivable. If I saw this happening in
a real classroom, I would report this drunken asshole to the dean right away (I
would certainly do more than Val’s little friend does, which is raise his sissy
pussy hand and say, “Uh, Mr. Trent, I really didn’t think it was all that
bad!”). Val toughs it out and sits through almost all
of Earl’s blazing criticism and nasty comments, but she finally does get up and
leave the classroom, prompting a perfect and hilarious final line on the scene
when The Other Paul Rudd looks sorta whimsical and then asks the class, “Was it
something I said?” Just give this man
his guest star Emmy right now; do it!
After that brutal and horrifying
scene, we shift our focus for awhile to another story, this one involving Laura
at the real estate office and her relationship with Scooter. But wait a minute, that’s not Scooter! I
thought Scooter was a nebbish, Jewey-looking man played by veteran character
actor Allan Miller! You know who I’m
talking about; Allan Miller! He was a
Transmorpher who played Jenna Wade’s lawyer over on Dallas for a few episodes (or maybe he was the lawyer against her;
who the hell remembers; that storyline was so boring and stupid) and he was
also in one of my favorite movies, Cruising. Mr. Allan Miller does not look at all like the man playing Scooter this week, who for the
sake of brevity I am simply going to call The Second Scooter.
This bugs me. KL really
doesn’t do this too often, and it’s one of the things I like about this
series. Over on Dallas, characters were constantly being played by multiple actors
(Jenna Wade was played by three actresses, and we all know the fiasco of the
two different Miss Ellies, now don’t we?), but on KL, they don’t usually pull that crap. Even with the kids (with the exception of
Brian, who morphs somewhere around 1986 from the kid from Tremors and turns into future 90210
star Brian Austin Green), they are played by the same actors for as long
as ten years (Tonya Crowe as Olivia) or even twelve years (Pat Petersen as
Michael). But here, we have Scooter
played in two episodes by Allan Miller (those episodes were Chance of a Lifetime and A State of Mind) and he will be back to continue playing Scooter for
five more episodes in the third season (starting with One of a Kind), but for this one episode and this one episode only he is being played by The Second
Scooter! Ugh, it just bothers me, and it
totally kills the realism of the show and your investment in the
character. If Allan Miller wasn’t available for
this week, why not just postpone the storyline or something?
In any case, The Second Scooter
is actually played by some guy named John Considine who also happens to look nothing like Allan Miller. Gone is the Jewey-looking dude and in his
place is some rather masculine fuck with a huge
caterpillar moustache all over his face.
Seriously, could they have picked a guy who looks less similar? I did some research and it looks like this
guy actually has quite a resume, although none of it really stood out for me
(aside from Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, of course).
But how’s the guy as an
actor? He’s probably fine, and if he had
been the Scooter we saw originally and would be seeing throughout the third
season, I’m sure he’d be fine. It’s just
that bizarre morphing that really irks me.
I don’t mean to begrudge poor John Considine. I also have no clue why he’s here; was Allan
simply unavailable? Or perhaps the
writers didn’t know he would be so important in the third season and this was
actually scheduled to be his last appearance?
Ah, who the hell knows; let’s move on.
The storyline with Laura and The
Second Scooter is good for a variety of reasons. For one thing, and probably most obviously,
it continues the running theme of the episode, the married people flirting with
possible adultery. Secondly, it builds
elegantly (aside from the morphing) from what we’ve seen established between
Laura and Scooter earlier (remember that big ole kiss he planted on her back in
Chance of a Lifetime?). Finally, and in my opinion most importantly,
it’s realistic and relatable. See, the
basic gist of the storyline between Laura and The Second Scooter this week is
that he’s clearly got a boner for her, and perhaps he doesn’t even know it or
perhaps he does. His wife certainly knows it because they
have a very awkward dinner party where Richard is having a great time, being a
fabulous host and talking about the wine he picked and yada yada yada. But then, Mrs. Second Scooter goes into the
kitchen with Richard and is like, “The Second Scooter is just a natural flirt;
he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, and I’m sorry if it makes you
uncomfortable.” Well, at this point My
Beloved Grammy started to tell me about how she had this exact same situation
in one of her first jobs, where her married boss clearly had a big crush on
her. Nothing ever came out of it, no
affair or anything, and he never even came onto her. Rather, it was just obvious to her and to
everyone around them that he liked her a
lot and she said that occasionally made for awkward moments or uncomfortable
dinner parties like the one on display here.
I think My Beloved Grammy’s
story speaks volumes about what makes KL so
special and so superior to Dallas. Dallas may
have been fun to watch (for eight of its fourteen seasons), but I don’t think
anyone would ever watch it and say, “That sure reminds me of the time I screwed
a lot of people out of that offshore Asian oil deal!” or “That reminds me of
the time my ex-husband died and then I woke up and he was in the shower and it
had all been a dream!” But people can
watch a KL episode like this one and
remember real situations that have happened to them. Additionally, the interactions between the
characters and the actors always rings true and authentic; in some ways the
show achieves an almost documentary feeling, like we are peeking into their
real, private lives.
What other storylines are going
on this week? Ah, there’s actually an extremely significant scene between Abby
and Gary. What’s funny is that I believe
this is Abby’s only scene in the episode, and when the episode ended I turned
to My Beloved Grammy and said, “Was Abby even in that episode?” and we both had to think on it for a minute
before she reminded me of this fabulous scene.
Make no mistake, it is fabulous,
and the only reason we both sorta forgot about it for a moment is because it
takes place early on in a rather dense and rich episode. But this scene is actually tremendously
significant for the episodes and the seasons to come, because while they are
driving at night together, Abby finally just comes right out and starts talking
about having an affair with Gary. Oh my,
it’s delicious, and the beautiful thing is that the two aren’t going to
consummate their torrid affair until near the end of season three. The writers are playing the long game again
and I love them for it; they are slowly turning the heat up and letting the
water start to get a little hotter, but it’ll be awhile until it finally starts
to boil. Perhaps in today’s attention
deficit world where we all want instant gratification, this slow storytelling
might annoy some (stupid) people, but I love it. I love waiting and this scene just sets up
wonderful things to come.
I’d say Storyline A this week is
Val and The Other Paul Rudd, so let’s return to that. After his horrifying treatment of her in
class, he gets rather stalker-ish with her in the library (there’s a truly creepy
shot of Val walking through the shelves and him peering through a bookshelf at
her early in the episode) and then goes up to her and tries to justify how he
treated her. He explains how he thinks
her writing is great, or that she has the potential
to be great, if she’d just hone her craft and let him work with her. Does he mean any of this stuff? I’m still not sure. Later in the episode we realize he’s sorta
just trying to get petty revenge on Gary for sleeping with his ugly
looking wife earlier in the season, but I do wonder if his comments and
compliments towards Valene are genuine.
Part of the joy of KL is these
interesting character mysteries that the writers trust us to make our own minds
up about.
I think it’s easy to see that
Valene is the most trusting and inherently good-hearted person on the
show. Even after the way Earl talked to
her, she is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and work with him on
her own writing. She even seems to start
trusting him and the things he tells her.
This is naïve, yes, but I am not mad at Val for being naïve; it’s part
of her charm and a core value of her character.
I don’t think the idea of adultery even crosses her mind, and she
certainly never thinks that Earl has ulterior motives because that’s simply not
how she is programmed.
But we the audience get to see
things that Val cannot see. For instance, one lovely night while her and Gary
are getting ready to shag, the phone rings and it’s Earl on the line. We see that Earl is simply sitting home alone
in his apartment, playing a Public Domain Record really loud. But what he tells Val is that he’s in a bar, contemplating having a drink, and
that she should come and rescue him. Val
rushes up to do so, much to the annoyance of a blue-balled Gary, who winds up
coming with her. They find Earl in the
bar he claimed to be at, contemplating some sort of brown liquor (is it
bourbon?). Gary gives a nice speech
about how, “If you wanna have a drink, have a drink, see what I care.” Personally, I’m on Team Gary right here. Even though Gary is the worst A.A. sponsor
ever for immediately sleeping with the guy’s wife and then abandoning him, Earl
is a manipulative jerk. He’s played brilliantly by The Other Paul Rudd and he has hilarious dialogue and delivers his lines beautifully, but as a
character, yeah, he’s a real scumbag, so I support Gary in telling him to act
like a man and take responsibility for his own actions.
But it doesn’t stop there. As we come closer to the end of the episode,
Earl manages to lure Val to his apartment under the pretense that they will
talk writing together. He uses the
excuse that they couldn’t possibly do this at her house because Gary would have
a fit, and naïve trusting Val does indeed go to Earl’s apartment, where things
start to get a little bit rapey. Now
this scene took me completely by surprise, much like the whole episode. Was I drunk the last time I watched this or
what? I honestly just have no recollection
of any of this shit occurring at all, so perhaps my first time through the
series I started this episode, never finished it, and then forgot and simply
proceeded to the next one?
In any case, Earl locks the door
to his apartment, trapping Val inside, and then starts to talk about how they
should screw. “Why not?” he argues. After all, Gary and the ugly broad did it
(and at some point in the episode we officially learn that the ugly broad left
Earl and moved back to wherever she came from), so why can’t they do it? Val says she’s gonna scream, so Earl turns on
the record player and once again blasts that Public Domain Record. “Go ahead, scream,” he says. This is a tremendously interesting scene,
because The Other Paul Rudd doesn’t play it totally rapey, necessarily. He plays it more pathetic, if that makes
sense. When Laura got raped by that guy
from that one episode of The X Files back
in The Lie, that actor certainly played it rapey. Earl seems more like a guy who’s trying to
threaten rape but simply can’t go through with it. In fact, he starts to cry like a little whiny
bitch a few seconds later, and that brings to mind my only real problem with
this scene (and this episode, for that matter).
The problem is that this seems like a real repeat of the “I’m gonna get
rapey on you and then just start crying” scene we got from Jeff Cunningham back
in A State of Mind. I feel like maybe the writers should have
reminded themselves that they just hit this beat a few weeks back and it might
be better not to repeat it.
Gary does come bursting in to
save the day after about a thousand calls to Val go out unanswered, but by the
time he arrives, he just finds Earl crying like a little whiny bitch. Gary gets very stern and says, “I want you to
stay away from my wife,” and Earl does do that because this is his last episode
(sad). The scene also gives a real
feeling of closure to a storyline that’s been going on since right near the
start of the season, because Gary explains how he can’t take back what he did
with Earl’s wife but that he has to move on with his life. Then him and Val exit and leave Earl to, I
dunno, kill himself or whatever.
I’m really gonna miss Earl and
his brilliant portrayal by The Other Paul Rudd.
This guy only shows up in three episodes of the series but he feels huge.
In my memories, he was in a ton of episodes and whenever I see The Other Paul Rudd in other shows (he’s in a Murder, She Wrote, for instance), I always remember him as Earl Trent. It’s amazing to think he’s only in three
episodes out of 344 and can make such an impression in my mind, but it goes to
show what a tremendous actor this guy was, may he rest in peace.
There’s a real feeling of
catharsis and storylines finishing in all ways this week, because we also have
Laura and The Second Scooter going out to dinner and finally addressing the big
old adulterous elephant in the room. The
Second Scooter pretty much says, “I’d have to be crazy to have not thought
about it,” but they conclude that to have an affair would risk both of their
marriages and probably destroy their friendship, as well. Laura gives one of her wonderfully mature
speeches (delivered beautifully by Constance McCashin, by the way, who for some
reason strikes me as extra adorable in this scene). The two will
have an affair during the third season, but I honestly can’t remember when
or how, but that’s what this blog is all about it, is it not?
Perhaps an even better scene
comes later when Richard and Laura are in bed.
Richard finally starts to try and explain why he had his affair with
Abby, but Laura is just uninterested in hearing about it (or perhaps she just
doesn’t want to dwell on the past). I
always love me some Richard and Laura in their private moments and this scene
is played so well by both McCashin and The Plesh. I love how The Plesh can be so vile for so
many episodes in a row and then we feel for him and like him again just a few
episodes later; that, my friends, is true acting!
I really liked this episode,
obviously, and the good news is that I like the next two even better. We’re on an upward swing and I’m excited to
be on it. In addition to the great
writing, the great acting, and a solid culmination of storylines by the end of
the episode, I also saw little flashes of directorial panache from director
Alexander Singer here. For instance, an
early scene where Richard comes to visit Laura at the real estate office and
finds her and The Second Scooter chatting together was shot from the P.O.V. of
Richard in a handheld tracking shot, and that really added a little element of
style to the scene. I also believe this
episode was completely free of the toxic bores Kenny and Ginger, and that’s
always a plus (the smartest writers on the show are the ones who just abandon
those two characters and realize there is nothing interesting they can possibly
do with them). If I have a criticism of
this episode, it’s that I would have liked more Sid and Karen. They’re around,
and we do get a lovely scene of Karen going to lunch with Val at the college,
but I wanted a little more of them.
Thankfully the next two episodes will rectify this.
Next up is our last crossover of
a Dallas character into KL for quite awhile. We won’t have a single one of these in the
third season (although we will have two Brief Dallas Interludes during the third season, so get ready for those),
and then we’ll just have two more in the fourth season, and then the crossovers
stop altogether. Get ready for another
visit from the inimitable J.R. Ewing in our next episode up for discussion, the
penultimate show of season two, Designs.
Some really interesting stuff here, Brett...due to our two eps a day screenings here we are already on episode 16 of Season 11 now! But so much of what you say in this post resonates. I watch every single day if I can (I can work while I watch, not a couch potato!) and am of the opinion that KL is like no other soap in so many way. The characters and events are so much more realistic, even when far-fetched. They even go to the bathroom! And storylines are followed through properly, with everyone behaving in character too. THE BEST - and now I am dreading it ending all over again! I'll just have to re-live it through your great blog!
ReplyDeleteSid's baffling explanation about coming to terms with your significant other having friends outside of the marriage is another reason not to like Sid. At the end when he asks Richard if he understands, and Richard just blandly says, "no" I'm completely with him. I'm very excited for what's about to happen with Sid.
ReplyDeleteSome really interesting stuff here, Brett...due to our two eps a day screenings here we are already on episode 16 of Season 11 now! But so much of what you say in this post resonates. I watch every single day if I can (I can work while I watch, not a couch potato!) and am of the opinion that KL is like no other soap in so many way. The characters and events are so much more realistic, even when far-fetched. They even go to the bathroom! And storylines are followed through properly, with everyone behaving in character too. THE BEST - and now I am dreading it ending all over again! I'll just have to re-live it through your great blog!EarnHoney
ReplyDeleteSid's baffling explanation about coming to terms with your significant other having friends outside of the marriage is another reason not to like Sid. At the end when he asks Richard if he understands, and Richard just blandly says, "no" I'm completely with him. I'm very excited for what's about to happen with Sid.EarnHoney
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