Episode Title: For Appearance’s Sake
Season 08, Episode 06
Episode 166 of 344
Written by Bernard Leckowick
Directed by Joseph L. Scanlan
Original Airdate: Thursday, October 16th,
1986
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Gary moves back to the ranch to help out his family image.
Gary catches Abby in bed with Peter, but doesn't care. Olivia smokes pot and is
suspended from school and steals Abby's car. She's in a minor accident and
picked up for driving without a license. Gary gets her, and misses a debate.
Mack tells Karen about Paige and they invite her to dinner. Roses are delivered
from Phil with a card that says "You won't get away next time." Greg
changes his tires and gives Phil's name to police, saying he recognized him
from the police sketch. They show his picture to Karen, who ID's him. Mack is
shocked. Seeing his picture on TV, Phil shows up at Greg's office and says that
police think two people were in on the kidnapping, and he'll tell police that
Greg hired him unless he will help him get out of the country.
Welcome
back to the wonderful world of KL and
I am so very pleased to be here. For
those who are curious about my own brain and the way things operate in there, I
should say that I often experience this bizarre thing when it comes to these
essays in which I know that I love the show and I know that I love writing
about the show and sharing my thoughts with the world and I especially love it
because once I’ve written these thoughts down, it means My Beloved Grammy and I
can gather again for another viewing. However,
sometimes we will watch our eps, I’ll be ready to write about them, and then I
just keep putting it off and putting it off, and by the time I sit to write
about them, I have forgotten and need to look at them again to refresh my
brain. That’s what happened last time and the time before and the time before
that and it becomes this thing where I start to dread writing about them
because it’s become this scary thing that I’ve put off doing for so long. Happily, this time I made sure to start
writing about them right and quick when we were done viewing, because I really
want to finish this damn series with her and we are still not officially halfway through (I did the math and we will be
officially halfway through after we pass episode 172, Touch and Go). So anyway,
this time I was good and well behaved and got to writing as soon as possible,
so let’s dive right in.
I’ll blow my wad right away and
say that, overall, this disk of eps, spanning For Appearance’s Sake through Over
the Edge, was a vast improvement over our last disk, which kicked off the
season and I found myself enjoying it very much, although I recognize there are
still some problems. I feel like this is
probably what I will be saying a lot throughout this season as we deal
simultaneously with storylines and characters that I love along with ones that
I do not care for very much at all.
Anyway, we actually pick up this ep following on a storyline that I’m
not exactly in love with, that of Karen and her kidnapper. We start on Karen and Mack alone in their
bedroom, shot in a rather stylish silhouette.
I noted this because, even though I’m shitting on the picture quality
and the music of the series at this point, I still see the directors striving
to keep the show looking stylish. It’s a
hard thing to explain, but basically I like the way this is shot, I appreciate
the artistic camerawork, but I confess that the show is a little sullied for me
right now by the inherent cheapness within its look. I still see the directors working to be arty,
but there’s just something about how the show is being made right now that
irritates me. I really want to know if
they did flip from film to video at this point, because the show just continues
to look so damn ugly. However, similar
to the absolutely atrocious season eight theme song that makes me ears bleed,
I’m just starting to get used to it now, so it’s not bothering me as much. I think it was making that jump from season
seven to season eight and being like, “Oh, suddenly everything looks dark and
washed out and shitty,” that made the first disk a bit hard for me, but now
that we are on the second disk, I’m just getting used to it. Will the show ever look as vivid and
cinematic as it did during its glory run of seasons four through six and 1/3 of
seven? Probably not, but I’ll pay attention
to see if it starts to look better in future seasons on the horizons.
Anyway, like I said, we open on
Karen and Mack, so let’s focus on them for awhile. Since Karen was kidnapped for seven hundred
years (meaning five eps), she’s already missed a lot, such as the fact that
Mack actually has a daughter. We cut to
her repeating the news to herself, “You have a daughter,” without actually
hearing her receive it, which I thought was kinda cool, and then I also thought
it was cool how she doesn’t freak out or act weird about it. I would never assume Karen to behave that
way, anyway, since we all know she’s a cool liberal chick who understands that
people have pasts and lives before they come together. In this case, she does say it’s gonna take
awhile for her to process this, but she also says that should invite Paige over
to dinner so she can get to know her.
That’s all fine, well, and good, but there’s still the danger of Phil
Harbert lurking, as evidenced by the closing moments of our previous ep. In this one, Karen meets Paige for the first
time (and Paige is wearing a very unflattering shade of lipstick that’s hard to
describe except to say it’s really ugly), she gives her a hug, everyone’s
happy, Sexy Michael is standing in the background looking sexy as ever (even
more so, as a matter of fact), when the doorbell rings and Karen receives a
rather lovely bouquet of red roses. What
a thoughtful gift! However, when Mack
takes a peek at the card, it says, “You won’t get away next time,” and he
quickly hides the card from Karen’s sight.
What is the motivation for this
card, by the way? You know, let’s just
take a moment to dissect Phil Harbert and explore why I’m maybe having such a
problem with him. I don’t understand his
psychosis and I just don’t really get what the deal is. Is he just an angry man who still feels like
Mack screwed him way back in the long ago Sepia Toned Flashbacks? If that’s the case, then why this nasty,
creepy, serial-killer type behavior with the roses and the card? Why is he playing with fire (no pun intended)
in this way by continuing to send evil little messages to Karen? Why not just cope with the fact that he
really sucks at kidnapping and killing a person and try to move on? Why not listen to Greg’s advice and get out
of town and start a new life somewhere else?
I just don’t get Phil and I don’t understand what kind of psycho he is
and I’d say that’s my problem with
the character along with him just being generally uninteresting.
In this ep, Greg learns from
Laura that the police found two sets of tire-tracks leading up to the barn
where Karen was hiding out.
Additionally, Karen gives a description to the police sketch artist and
the photo shows up in the paper the next day, stressing out both Greg and
Phil. Greg decides to do the somewhat
noble thing and call the police and name some names, claiming he just
recognized the face in the newspaper and remembered his old law school
buddy. This leads us to our climactic
scene of the ep, in which Phil pays Greg a visit at his skyscraper office and
asks him to help him get out of the country, threatening to expose him as the
owner of the other car if Greg refuses.
Greg asks, “Who’s gonna believe an ex-con over an ex-senator?” and Phil
says how Greg probably can’t afford this bad publicity during Peter’s campaign,
and then adds, “For appearance’s sake,” before trailing off. I only note that because it’s the title of
the ep and Phil is hardly the only person to drop the title within the ep this
week; Olivia also does at some point and I’m pretty sure at least one other
person does. Actually, I found this
kinda annoying even though usually I appreciate stuff like this. I like when the title of the ep serves as a
theme for what’s going on throughout, but here I feel like people just keep
dropping the title and you can sense the writers (Leckowick this week) grinning
and being like, “You see what we’re doing there?” Okay, anyway, that doesn’t matter; what does
matter is that just as Phil is threatening Greg, who should come walking out of
the elevators leading directly to Greg’s office? Why, it’s Karen and Mack and what will happen
if they see Greg conspiring with Karen’s kidnapper?! This is how the ep ends and this is another
ending that I remember being mesmerized by upon first viewing, but has somehow
lost its luster for me. Like, you know,
it’s fine, it works, it gets the job
done by leaving us on a cliffhanger, but for some reason, watching it now, I’m
just kinda wanting all this Phil stuff to be done and over with so we can move
on to new material.
We haven’t seen Olivia smoke pot
in a stretch of eps by this point, but she’s clearly fallen off the weed wagon
this week, when we see her sneak into the bathroom and blaze up a joint from
her stash that she keeps hidden in a band aid box (clever girl). This is following a whole series of Olivia
scenes in which we see that she’s sorta spiraling out of control. First Gary gets called to her school because
she was caught cheating on an exam. The
principal suspends her for three days and tells her that, should she ever cheat
again, she will be expelled. From there,
we go to a rather excellent confrontation scene between Olivia, Gary, and J.B.,
who also came along to pick her up. See,
Gary forgets his speech notes or something and so he runs back into the school
to get them, at which point J.B. tells Olivia to remember that what she does
effects Gary’s election chances. To
this, Oliva retorts with, “What you do
effects our family.” Gary comes back and
Olivia declares that she isn’t riding in the same car as J.B., that she knows
what she’s reading about Gary and J.B. in the newspapers is true. Gary says, “I thought you understood that the
reason I moved back to the ranch was for the sake of appearances” (there it is
again!), but the scene ends without a productive resolution to this issue. Later, Abs has a little chat of her own with
Olivia, also equally unproductive, but she makes the mistake of walking off and
leaving her keys still in the engine of the car. Uh oh!
Olivia eyes the car, the music swells up, she contemplates her choices,
and then she decides to go for it and takes off in Abby’s car.
There’s this big senate debate
scheduled for the night, a kind of backdrop to the entire ep, but when the time
comes for Gary to go out there and speak, he isn’t able to do it because, you
guessed it, Olivia got into a little card accident and of course didn’t have a
license. In a way, this is a relief,
because when we first see her speeding off, our minds are tempted to go to her getting
horrible maimed or even killed, so this is fairly light. Gary goes to pick her up in a scene that I
appreciated, because the first thing he does when he sees her is not yell at
her, but give her a big hug. I kinda
loved this, because it shows us a number of things all at once. First, it shows us that Gary is inherently
relieved that Olivia is alive. He knows
it’s not the time to yell and scream and say, “You were so stupid!” Instead, he’s just grateful she’s alive and
he gives her a hug to show that. It also
shows that Gary has some special understanding of Olivia. After all, it was not so long ago (only three
years ago, really, although it feels like way longer) that Gary was a drunken
mess screaming, “WE’RE RUINING LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES” and waking up on the beach
next to dead bodies himself. I think he
looks at Olivia and sees himself in his wayward youth and he sympathizes and
wants to help. This is different from
Abby’s reaction to Olivia at this point, which is mostly one of anger and frustration. Since Abs doesn’t have a crazy alcoholic past
like Gary, she can’t quite understand what her daughter is going through in the
same way.
While we’re on the subject of
Olivia, I wanna say that I continue to feel sympathy for her and feel no need
to condemn her for her actions. Am I
being too soft on her? My Beloved Grammy
often refers to her as “a brat,” but I don’t see her that way at all. I see a mixed up girl who’s had a lot of
abrupt change throughout her life and has an extremely contentious relationship
with her mother, who she justifiably has a lot of trouble trusting or
respecting. Now she feels she’s losing
Gary as her father figure to J.B., all at the same time that Gary is moving
back onto the ranch “for appearance’s sake.”
This would all be very confusing for me, so I can understand Oliva and
not feel too judgmental towards her.
Also, I feel we are witnessing a real uptick in Olivia-related stories
right now, something that started in season seven. I honestly feel like it would be justifiable
for her to be in the opening credits at this point, although of course they
don’t choose to put her there until her very final season, when she is given
way less to do. I think Olivia is going
to be a consistent shining light in this season, someone I always find
compelling and watchable, and any fan should know that it’s only gonna get more
intense and dramatic and amazing as we make our way through the season.
Let’s see, what else is going on
this ep? Oh yeah, Abs and Peter,
duh! How could I forget this one? In this ep, we have a very memorable scene
that begins with a sensual foot massage from Peter to Abs. I’ll take this moment to retract some
comments I made way back in season six somewhere. In some ep or other, we saw Greg rubbing
Laura’s feet and I wrote about how I find that gross and not sexy. Well, things have changed for Brett since I
wrote those words and now I totally love foot massages. They feel awesome, tingly and tickly sensual,
and they are also awesome to give to other people, so long as they have nice
feet. It’s totally awesome to rub
someone’s foot and give them that special pleasure, and also lately I find
myself on this whole body kick where I love to explore another person’s entire
body, not just one or two certain parts.
So yes, as of right now, I officially like foot massages and am no
longer repulsed by seeing them in movies or TV shows.
Okay,
anyway, Peter’s giving that foot massage and saying something about how he
needs an endorsement from Mack in order to win the election, but then things
kick into sexy mode and the style of the scene gets rather, well, intense. Remember way back in the season five premiere
(The People vs. Gary Ewing) when we
got INTENSE EYEBALL CLOSEUPS from Karen towards Laura? Well, this scene kicks it up 1000% because we
don’t just get INTENSE EYEBALL CLOSEUPS, we get INTENSE CLOSEUPS OF EVERYTHING. We start with Abby’s eyes (those luscious
baby blues) and then we cut to an INTENSE CLOSEUP of Peter’s eyes and then an
INTENSE CLOSEUP of Abby’s lips, which are draped in a fabulous soft pink
lipstick, and then as her lips start talking, we cut to an INTENSE CLOSEUP of
Peter’s chest as he unbuttons his shirt and then an INTENSE CLOSEUP of Abby’s
white outfit being untied and opened up and then return to another INTENSE
CLOSEUP of Abby’s pink lips as she says, “Olivia and Brian are away with
friends,” then an INTENSE CLOSEUP of Peter’s shoes being kicked off. There might be two or three more INTENSE
CLOSEUPS in this scene, but I’m getting tired of writing about them. Anyway, in case you couldn’t tell from all
these INTENSE CLOSEUPS, Peter and Abs are getting ready to shag, but then we
cut to Gary’s car speeding up to Westfork.
Now, we can all predict that Gary’s gonna walk in on Peter and Abs in
the middle of their shag, but I don’t think we can predict his reaction, which
is utter indifference. He walks in, he
looks over at the two of them, they pause in the middle of their shag, Peter’s
peter most likely still lodged firmly into Abby’s special lady parts; they’re
looking all guilty, but then Gary just walks over to his closet and grabs two
ties and says, “Tell me, which one do you think will look better on
camera?”
Oh,
what a glorious scene in so many regards.
Obviously the INTENSE CLOSEUPS are amazing and hilarious (they remind me
of the brilliant scene in Weird Science where
Ilan Michell Smith and Anthony Michael Hall are hiding in the shower in the
bathroom), but Gary’s reaction is really the best part. Once again, I could write volumes on this one
sequence alone, but I think the most striking thing about it is that we see, by
this point, nothing about Abby shocks Gary.
He can walk in on her fucking anyone and hardly bat an eye. He’s known her for six years now, been
married to her for three years, and he’s well aware of her nympho ways. If this had happened in season four, Gary
would walk in and go, “My God, Abby!
What are you doing?!” Here,
however, he’s not shocked at all, just resigned to expecting her to behave this
way.
One
last thing I wanna ask: Does Abs even like Peter? Yeah, we get the INTENSE CLOSEUPS to
emphasize how hot and sexy this is, and I’m sure Abs likes getting fucked
because she’s a nympho, but does she really like Peter in any way at all? I honestly don’t think so; I think she just
needs a penis and Peter happens to have one, so she’s happy enough with that to
deal with a guy that she really doesn’t care all that much about. As for this business about helping him out
with his campaign? Again, I think she
just really doesn’t care. I don’t think
she’s felt any particular passion for Peter as a human being ever, but he’s
there, he’s around, he’s willing to do her, so she’ll put up with talking to
him or helping him out with his race to the senate.
You
know, that oughta about do it for this ep.
How was it? Well, it was pretty
good. I do wanna note that I find myself
just feeling a little less passionate about everything going on right now. I happen to be putting my season six essays
at the same time that My Beloved Grammy and I are working through season eight
(yesterday I put up Message in a Bottle,
for those who wanna get some timeline of how things are going down), and
reading over my essays from that brilliant year, you can just tell how enthused
I was about the whole thing, what passion I felt for every single fucking
second of that year. I’m not feeling
that same passion at this point, even though I still enjoy watching the show
and I still enjoy writing about it. I
maintain that season six was such a triumphant work of art and the greatest
season of television I’ve ever seen, so perhaps anything to follow after it
will pale by comparison, or perhaps my own life changes are distracting me from
enjoying the show in the same way as I was before, I dunno. I suppose this is just my way of saying that
if my writing feels a little lacking now, it’s because it probably is, because
watching the show doesn’t fill me with quite the same awe inspiring joy that it
did back in those glory years.
One
thing that was refreshing about this ep was the total lack of Hackney.
Sadly, that trend does not continue as we move on to our next ep, All Over but the Shouting.
I totally agree with your assessment of Olivia. I loved her on first watching and that never diminished in future viewings. It was interesting how Knots had a pattern of putting someone in the opening credits after years on the show, only to underutilize them or not use them for the whole year and then cut them from the cast. Besides Tonya, there was Claudia Lonow, and to some extent, Teri Austin. And even though Pat Peterson enjoyed two years in the credit spotlight, they didn't use him much his last season. I wonder if the long-time actors noticed the pattern?
ReplyDeleteHappy easter everyone.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how old Ted S. is at this point in the series, but his butt is still 23.
ReplyDeleteHahaha @TV Food And Drink... this ep was great, love seeing more of Olivia. And there were some fun scenes to watch... obviously the moment with Gary, Abs and Peter. It is true. The show does look/feel cheaper with the video titles, bad synth music and some of the fashion 1986 fashions (Paige's Debbie Gibson look), but I'm still enjoying. We've entered a more campy phase of KL by now and we just have to enjoy the ride, however silly or gaudy it may be from time to time.
ReplyDelete