Episode Title: The Trouble With Peter
Season 09, Episode 02
Episode 192 of 344
Written by Parke Perine
Directed by Nick Havinga
Original Airdate: Thursday, October 1st, 1987
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Laura tells Greg that Richard has remarried and she's going to bring the boys to visit him. Jill tells Gary about memories of Peter growing up. Police find Olivia's locket on Peter's body, but don't know who "OC" is. Police question everyone at Lotus Point, and several people tell them about Abby's fight with Peter. Abby explains it was just a spat, that she felt Peter was taking up too much of Olivia's time on the drug committee. A lot of people personally suspect Abby. Olivia doesn't want to go to the funeral, but Abby tells her it would look suspicious. Gary hears Olivia begging Abby not to make her go inside. Gary tells Abby that he thinks Olivia killed Peter and Abby is covering for her. Abby slaps him.
QUICK NOTE: USUALLY I TRY TO AVOID SPOILERS FOR FUTURE EPS, BUT FOR THE PURPOSES OF DISCUSSING SEASON NINE, I WILL BE SPOILING SOME FUTURE EVENTS THAT HAPPEN AROUND THE 10TH AND 11TH EPS OF THE SEASON. IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THAT FAR, I HIGHLY SUGGEST GETTING THERE BEFORE YOU READ THESE ESSAYS ON THE SEASON’S OPENING EPS
Welcome to The Trouble with
Peter and before we discuss the ep in question, let’s discuss the
title. I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I’m a great
admirer of Alfred Hitchcock (my friend and I like to refer to him simply as “Cock”
because we’re super witty and funny) and I’ve seen the vast majority of his
movies, though not all 53. Anyway, the title of this ep is obviously a
play on the title of The Trouble with Harry, Cock’s 1955 dark comedy
about a dead body. I’m gonna confess that I’ve never really enjoyed The Trouble with Harry all that much, although I appreciate its uniqueness
amongst Cock’s body of work. For me, and I know this is such a clichéd
opinion but it is my true opinion, it never gets better than Psycho,
which for me will always be the greatest movie Cock ever made. After
that, though, I’d go for pretty much anything from that ten year period that
spans 1953 to 1963 (basically everything from I Confess through The Birds). However, of that glorious ten years window of unmitigated
genius, I would probably place The Trouble with Harry at the bottom,
mostly because it doesn’t really amuse me all that much. Anyway, that’s
all I have to say about Cock for the time being and that’s why I enjoy the
title of this ep so very much.
Let’s get started by talking about
Abs and Olivia. Last ep, Abs thought she was maybe home free with the
whole burying-Peter-in-cement business, but then in the last second of the ep,
his body was discovered. Now we’ve got a detective on the case trying to
solve the mystery of who killed Peter Hollister, a detective played by James Luisi. I bring him up because I spent most of this ep and the next three
eps to follow staring at this guy and wondering why I recognize him so
much. Well, here comes a little bit of real-time research, because I have
not yet looked at this gentleman’s IMDb page but I am about to do so right this
moment. Here it comes. Well, as soon as I looked at his IMDb, I
immediately became very excited to see this actor was in The Hidden, one
of my favorite movies, which also came out in 1987. Okay, so I’d
definitely recognize him for that, but anything else? Let’s see
here. Actually, what’s very strange is that out of his vast resume of
film and television, The Hidden is the only thing I recognize. He
was in Norma Rae and I know that’s a big famous movie, but as of this
writing, I have not seen it. Okay, so I guess I recognized him from The Hidden and that’s about it. In any case, how do I feel about this
character? He’s good, if perhaps a smidge corny. I often have a
hard time taking police seriously (both in movies as well as in real life)
because they tend to deliver dialogue that’s a little bit too tough guy or
over-the-top in its attempted masculinity. However, I think I’m okay with
this detective, although he doesn’t have quite the memorability of Detective
Morrison from season five (that would be Richard Donner’s cousin).
Anyway, he’s on the case and it’s up to him to solve this mystery. The
first important clue he obtains is a locket found on Peter’s person that bears
the inscription “To O.C. From P.H.” Detective The Hidden stares at
this inscription and then muses out loud, “Now who the hell is O.C.?” before we
cut to a commercial. Us sharp viewers of course know that “O.C.” stands
for “Olivia Cunningham” but it takes Detective The Hidden a little
longer to figure that out because he assumes Olivia’s last name is Ewing.
Abs has to kick into action and
start spinning a story about what happened with Peter, but it’s harder to do
that with Olivia constantly hanging around and acting weird. See, the
whole development of Olivia kinda regressing to behaving as a small child
continues this ep, when she insists on going to Lotus Point with her mother
during the workday. Abs lets her stay home from school assuming she’ll
just hang out and watch some 1987 daytime soaps (hey, The Bold and the Beautiful was just starting this year!), but Olivia is all like, “No, I
wanna go to Lotus Point with you.” After Abs tells her that Detective The Hidden will be there asking questions, Olivia finally decides she’d best
stay home.
Over at Lotus Point, Detective The Hidden is hard at work interrogating everybody in the cast, starting with
Gary. I liked this little scene because we get a nice reminder of one of
my favorite stories from season eight, the senate race between Gary and
Peter. That was something that I thoroughly enjoyed in season eight and
there wasn’t a lot I thoroughly enjoyed in season eight, so it stands
out. While the story kinda wound up fizzling into nothingness as we got
deeper into the year, I still appreciated its existence and I appreciate it
being brought up here. I also like when Detective The Hidden says
how he heard the campaign got vitriolic and Gary says that vitriolic isn’t the
word he would use but he would use the words, “mean, personal, petty, cheap,
you know, the usual political garbage.” Oh Gary, how very right you are.
Like I said, Detective The Hidden goes through Lotus Point interviewing everybody, and I appreciated
how this is all done quickly and efficiently. We’ll see him talking to
Gary for a minute, then we cut to him talking to Karen, and then Paige, and so
on and so forth. It’s a nice way of speeding things along and showing us
that he’s getting a lot of work done without having to take up a ton of time on
the show. Through all his investigating, he’s able to discover that, much
like J.R. Ewing in 1980 right before he took several bullets to the gut, Peter
had made a lot of enemies and pretty much anyone could have motive for wanting
him dead. I think since I’ve decided to go ahead and spoil events for the
near future involving Laura, I might as well just go all out and also spoil
this mystery and, if you don’t know the answer, don’t say I didn’t warn
you. Anyway, over the course of the next few eps, we will eventually
learn that Paige is the one that killed him, and I actually think that checks
out pretty well for what’s going on right here. Watching through the
series the first time, I don’t think I really bothered to try and solve this
mystery or think about who could have done it; I just cheerfully watched the
proceedings unfold until I was given an answer. Now, focusing hard on the
way Paige behaves, I think it’s pretty easy to tell she’s the true
culprit. When Karen first tells her about what happened to Peter, Paige
starts crying and acting hysterical in a way I found rather over the top,
rather thou-doth-protest-too-much. It seems more like she’s trying to give
a certain kind of performance in order to create the illusion that she is
shocked about Peter’s death. The same is true when Detective The Hidden is speaking with her and she says how they were in love and came
close to marriage. Oh yeah, and we also get a quick scene early on of
Paige in bed, tossing and turning and looking very upset. Now, a person
watching this for the first time could assume that she is just upset because
Peter is dead, but watching it now, I interpret it as her being unable to sleep
because she is the one who killed Peter.
Things reach an exciting crescendo
of drama in the last scene of the ep, in which Abs and Olivia prepare to attend
Peter’s funeral. First, on the night before the drama, Olivia positively
declares that there’s no way she can go to Peter’s funeral, especially not if
there are a bunch of police there. Abs reminds her that it’s very
important that they keep acting normal, and that she had a relationship with
Peter through the whole anti-drug committee thing and it would be weird if she
didn’t show up for his funeral. The next day, they are all dressed up
(Abs wearing a fabulous huge blueish/blackish hat) and at the cemetery, ready for the
funeral, when Olivia freaks and says how she just can’t go, that she can’t look
at the detective, Bob Loblaw. Abs quickly shuffles her into the car where
they can talk with some degree of privacy, but Gary sees them having their
little chat and he’s able to put two and two together. He yanks the door
open and tells Abs to get out of the car, at which point he says, “I know Olivia
killed Peter” and Abs gives him a pretty decent soap slap, hops into her car,
and drives away, right in time for our “Executive Producers” credit.
Last ep, I neglected to mention
J.B. and that is a humongous damn shame because season nine is going to prove
to be the year that J.B. fully forms into the J.B. I know and love and cherish
the most. Gone will be the days of J.B. falling down cliffs and then
lapsing into stupid comas for an ep or two, this is the season where things
really kick into gear with her. What I’m seeing as we work our way
through these first five eps is lots of seeds being planted in a slow and
subtle way to propel us towards our season nine finale (which might be my very
favorite cliffhanger of the whole series; I’ll report back after I see it
again). Okay, so J.B. finds out that Peter was killed in this ep and she
is, of course, upset. By the time of his death, J.B. and Peter weren’t
exactly getting along and I’m sure he wasn’t her favorite person, but he was
still her brother so she has a right to be upset. What also upsets her is
the fact that Gary rushes to the defense of Abs as soon as J.B. implies that
maybe Abs killed him. J.B. is probably remembering the one good line from
Nightmare in which Abs told her, “The first Mrs. Ewing doesn’t go away,
ever.” I imagine that she’s already been stressing about the effect Val
has on Gary’s life, but now she also sees that he’s so quick to defend his
second wife. Will she ever be able to truly have Gary to herself if he’s
constantly tied up in shenanigans involving his two ex-wives?
Mack asks J.B. if she’d like to be
part of the team investigating Peter’s death and she tells him yes, leading us
to lots of scenes of the two together talking about the circumstances of his
death, how long he’s been under that concrete, and where his car ended up,
amongst other things. I note this bit of business because I think we
should take a moment to get a handle on who knows what about the truth of J.B.
and Peter’s relationship. Okay, so we the viewers know that J.B. and
Peter were siblings, and Gary also knows that, but I think everyone else has
been given the false story that J.B. and Peter used to date. When Mack
comes into Gary’s office to ask J.B. if she wants to help, Gary says, rather
emphatically, “Mack, she used to date the guy.” At first I was confused,
wondering why Gary would think that, and then I remembered that Gary knows the
truth but not many other people do, so he’s saying she used to date him because
he assumes that’s the story Mack has been told. Now, so far as I can
remember, the only folks to know this are Gary and J.B. himself or am I
forgetting someone? I’m not sure how much it even matters now that Peter
is dead and about to be buried (again), but I’m still trying to keep a handle
on this convoluted storytelling.
Let’s talk about Laura, shall
we? Again, I remind you that I’m gonna spoil some shit and I’m not gonna
hesitate to say that Laura will be dying very shortly. Not only that, but
I happen to know that Laura’s death will lead to a brief but beautiful return
appearance from The Plesh as Richard Avery. Knowing this, I find myself
paying close attention when Laura and Greg are onscreen together and they are
talking about Richard. See, Greg is enjoying a cigar (and don’t worry, I will
keep The Sumner Cigar Counter going, but I just happen to be writing this
particular essay without the aid of my trusty notes) one night when he asks
Laura, “What’s this about the kids going to visit Richard?” Laura
explains that she received a letter from Richard, who is now remarried and,
according to her, “has really cleaned up his act.” Greg responds to this
with an amusingly sarcastic, “Yeah, and I’m Pope John,” and then Laura tells
him, “He wants to see the boys and I’ve agreed to it.” To this, Greg
says, “Thanks for discussing it,” and walks off. Now, my personal opinion
is that Greg is being unfair to Laura right now. Richard is the
biological father of Jason 4 and Daniel and I think Laura has the right to let
him see them whenever she so desires. She believes that Richard has
changed his behavior and that it would be okay for the kids to see him, and she
is their mother, so I think that’s all that needs to be said. However, I
also understand Greg, especially remembering that he’s never actually met
Richard, that Richard took a hike in the concluding hours of season four and
then Greg was introduced in the opening hours of season five. All that
Greg knows about Richard would be things that Laura told him, and I can imagine
it would be hard to wrap your head around it. He’s probably thinking of
that story Laura told him about how Richard went crazy and held her up at
gunpoint for several hours in their house way back in season three, wondering
why Laura would allow her kids to go spend time with a man who would do
that. Greg didn’t watch the first four seasons, but we did, so we can
better understand Richard’s complexities and how Laura would feel about
him. Also, knowing that Laura is not long for this world, I take this scene
to be very significant. I think Laura knows she’s got that damn brain
tumor, she knows her time is running out, and she’s working on tidying up
affairs before she has to die. If I’m remembering correctly, after she
dies, Jason 4 and Daniel go to live with Richard, so I imagine that’s what
Laura’s getting worked out right here and right now. She may love Greg,
but I think she has some reservations about his abilities as a father and would
rather have her two sons with their biological father.
I feel like I kinda zoomed through
this ep, but I think I’ve covered everything I wanted to say. I enjoyed
this ep very much and thought it was an improvement over the premiere, which I
also enjoyed. We are two eps deep and season nine is delivering for me so
far, so let’s proceed right along to Under Pressure and see if we can
keep up the quality.
S9 much stronger than 8, though there are a couple slip-ups.
ReplyDeleteDefinite improvement. Although I hate to see Laura go, her storyline brought out so many emotional scenes. These first few episodes of season 9 are among the best.
ReplyDeleteThis episode is very good, well told. It feels like classic Knots. It's funny re-watching Nicollette's performance as Paige all these years later. She worked very well as Paige, mostly from attitude and look, but her actual acting is limited. A problem that became much more apparent later on Desperate Housewives when her looks couldn't just carry her through. I also never really warmed to Teri Austin as J.B. I know you love her. I do like her somewhat and yes what she turns into is fun, but she is often under-playing too much for my taste. This episode is a prime example. I didn't think she brought any real emotions to her scenes finding out about Peter's death. She serviceable, but she never truly shows any sadness about the death of her brother. Despite their complicated relationship, she loved him, as the writers tried to show with the homework/pencil story she tells Gary. I also never liked her with Gary. It's like they were just "there." I actually thought Gary had much more chemistry with Cathy in season 5, but they just sort of dropped all that as it wasn't they way they wanted to plot to go. Obviously, he had the most chemistry with Val and Abby second.
ReplyDelete