Episode Title: A Fair Race
Season 09, Episode 21
Episode 211 of 344
Written by Lynn Marie Latham
Directed by Lawrence Kasha
Original Airdate: Thursday, March 3rd, 1988
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Harold Dyer, who breaks
arms for a living, takes Olivia out for a date. His uncle Manny tells him that
Olivia is Abby's daughter. Olivia invites Harold and Manny to meet Abby. Manny
tells Abby he rents yachts, and Abby introduces him to Karen, hoping to
get his business for Lotus Point. Karen suspects Paige has a crush on Greg.
Gary's tired of Lotus Point and decides to become a silent partner. Mack and
Jill prosecute a little old woman for forgery. Jill dresses up in lingerie and
cooks a romantic dinner, only to have Gary come home with Val and the twins.
Gary thinks it’s hilarious. Later Jill's upset when she comes home to find a
note from Gary that he's with the twins. Upset, she begins to drink.
Hello all my beautiful readers, and welcome back for another fun-filled
disk of KL excitement. Before I get started talking about this ep
specifically, let me just say how much I enjoyed the overall experience of
watching this disk, which spanned A Fair Race through With a Heavy
Heart. It’s been forever since MBG and I gathered
together to watch, and this time Brother was able to come, so we had a trio of
happiness and joy as we watched the melodrama onscreen. Overall it was a
lovely night and all three of us were very pleased with the contents of this
block of eps, so let’s get started and dive right in.
We last left off with the excellent Bouncing Babies, ending with Greg
giving Meg over to the MacKenzies to raise and torching the playhouse he’d been
building for her. We kinda sorta open this week’s ep on Greg, although we
technically start with Paige trying on different outfits, preparing to go out
for the day and, presumably, meet Greg. I’m sure I’ve said this before,
but Paige’s beauty stuns me into silence. I happen to think Paige’s little pink outfit that she’s
wearing in this scene is super sexy and then I love the black jacket she puts
on over it (but she makes the poor choice of switching over to a white jacket a
little later). I think, at this point in the saga, that Nicolette is
consistently getting the best outfits and I wonder if she picked them out
herself. Paige has a fabulous style that is all her own and she’s always
trying out new looks but they seem to always work. I’m also a big fan of her
myriad of hats, although she doesn’t rock a hat for her little date with Greg. Posted below is a random picture of Nicollette along with Michele and J.V.A.; this is not the outfit Paige is wearing in the episode, but it's just a cool photo we should all enjoy.
Oh yeah, Greg; I already got myself distracted. See, we start with Paige
getting herself ready, but we also cross cut over to Greg at his house telling
Carlos that he’s going out for the day or whatever, and then in the next scene
he arrives at the MacKenzies to pick up Paige. This is definitely a
significant scene because as he pops in, he doesn’t even pay Meg a glance,
instead saying he’s here to get Paige and then pretty much running off as soon
as she arrives. The scene ends with Karen and Mack exchanging a look and
I’m sure they’re thinking that it’s weird for Greg to so blatantly ignore his
own daughter, but I’m still in Greg’s corner on this issue. As I said
last ep, I think Karen was being a bit of a bitch by showing up at Greg’s place
just to shit on the very notion of him being a father to Meg. Give the man
a fucking chance as he deals with the grief of losing his wife. Now, Greg
has made the decision to give Meg up and yet I get the sense that Karen and
Mack are still passing judgment on him, now judging him for not paying Meg a
glance in this scene. I think it’s obvious that Greg is trying to make
this a clean break and let Meg be raised by the MacKenzies, and maybe it’s just
plain hard for him to look at her and know others are raising her, so let’s go
easy on the man. By the way, while we’re on the subject of Greg and
Paige, I would like to note that MBG, usually eerily accurate in
her predictions of what’s going to happen on the series, flatly declared, “I
don’t see these two together.” Well, she’s going to be proven wrong, and
pretty soon, if I’m remembering correctly. I’ll keep you all posted as we
get further along and tell you how she feels when these two do eventually start
shagging.
There’s a good, sweet scene early in the ep where Val shows up at the
MacKenzies to offer her apologies to Karen and their friendship is strong
again. I liked this a lot because it ends some lingering tension we’ve
been having the last few eps, ever since Val asked Karen to lie while giving
her deposition. I’ve said before how I like the fact that KL doesn’t
draw stuff out forever when it doesn’t need to be, and this
is a perfect example. If it was another show, they’d probably want to
draw this out, keep Karen and Val not speaking for a long time, maybe give them
some big fights to have, but instead they make up and tell each other that they
love each other and they move on. I like all of that and I also like that
they both say, “I love you” to each other, but it’s not like this big corny
scene; it’s just a real expression of love between friends. It’s a small
sequence at the start of the ep that’s easy to gloss over, but I think it’s a
good scene and worth noting.
Also Karen-related this ep: She and Mack get into a little fight when he finds
out about how she went over to Greg’s place just to squeeze out a hot wet fart
in his face. Thank God that Mack gets kinda mad about this, because if he
found out what she did and was just totally cool with it, it would make them
both kinda hard to like at this juncture. I also appreciate how Karen tries to
explain what happened and that she didn’t specifically go over there just to
squeeze out the hot wet fart, but rather she went to say hi and the hot wet
fart just sorta happened organically. I still think it was a shitty thing
for her to do, but I’m also perhaps being too harsh on her. MBG was a little confused by Mack’s anger, saying how Mack loved having Meg
around the house for that last bundle of eps, but I get where he’s coming
from. I honest to God can’t remember how all this stuff plays out, if Meg
just stays with Karen and Mack for the rest of the series or if Greg takes her
back at some point or what; I really don’t remember. However, I’m sure
Mack is worried about what complications this might cause, wondering what will
happen if Greg randomly changes his mind at some point in the future.
Also, maybe Mack just liked having Meg around when it wasn’t a full time
lifetime commitment; suddenly holding the responsibility of raising her for
eighteen years might seem a bit more daunting.
Similar to the way that I like Karen and Val making up rather than spending
several eps pissy with each other, I also like how Karen and Mack don’t have
some big explosive fight and stay mad forever, but instead enjoy a midafternoon
shag together. This scene was cute and all,
although Mack spends most of it with his hairy left leg propped upwards in a
way that had me convinced his balls would come tumbling out any second.
Also, I think the scene might be trying a bit too hard to be cute because
they’re lying in bed and then they hear Barbara (that’s the nanny) returning
from a trip to the park with Meg. When they hear her voice, they’re like,
“Oh no!” and it’s this whole comedic thing, but I thought it was kinda
annoying. Just put on your clothes and go downstairs and greet Barbara,
and if she knows you’ve been shagging, who cares? You’re a married couple
and you’re allowed to have an afternoon delight. I’ve just never been a
person who understands the idea of being embarrassed by having sex; everybody
needs to have sex or else they go crazy and it’s an important part of our
being. Isn’t it more embarrassing to be not having any sex? But
then of course I remember that we are Americans and we are supposed to be
deeply ashamed of our sexual needs and desires.
Let’s shift our attention on over to Olivia and Harold. You’ll all
remember that we met Harold for the first time somewhere in our last batch of
eps. Well, this ep he meets up with Olivia and the music swells, but I
should probably mention a scene that happens before that. We first see
Harold this ep as he pays a visit, alongside his uncle Manny, to some guy named
Frank (weird to have another Frank on the show at same time we have Frank Williams, but whatever) who owns an Italian restaurant. We find out that Harold broke this
Frank’s arm because he owes them a lot of money, and then we get a nice little
bit of mafia smoothness when Harold is like, “I’m very sorry I over-exceeded my
authority and broke your arm. I should have given you a 24 hour notice;
this is your 24 hour notice.” With that, he walks away, cool as a
cucumber, and MBG reiterated her claim that she’s made many times
in my life that she loves mafia and thinks they’re the coolest. I’ve always
found this to be a very endearing trait about her, the fact that she’s the
sweetest and kindest old lady anybody could ever know in their life, but she
loves super violent things and is really into mafia movies. Anyway, this
first scene helps us to see that Harold and his uncle Manny are into some shady
dealings, which should make our sphincters tense up when he meets Olivia and
takes her out for pizza. Personally, I’m not too concerned about Olivia;
she’s a big girl and she’s gotten over her cocaine habit and I’m not terribly
worried that Harold is going to hurt her; why would he? I guess we should
be nervous cuz he’s in the mafia, but I’m just not terribly concerned. Oh
yeah, one last thing I appreciate in this storyline so far is when Olivia
is talking to Abs about how she should be able to date whoever she wants and
she says, “I’m seventeen.” I appreciate the fact that Olivia has always
played her actual age. Tonya is seventeen in real life at this point, so
Olivia is seventeen on the show. I think her age has always been
consistent and she’s never suffered from SORAS and I really like that.
What makes all this Harold/Olivia business so sordid is that it also intersects
with Abs and involves her recently-ended relationship with Basil
Exposition. Don’t worry, Basil is gone from the show and will never be
back and we never need to speak of him or think about that storyline ever
again, but I do remember Harold and Manny being introduced through Basil, like
they were working with him, something about expanding the marina at Lotus Point
or whatever. This ep ends with Abs meeting Manny and then boldly
announcing to Karen, “I’d like you to meet Manny Vasquez; I think we can do
business together.” I don’t remember where any of this stuff leads, but
I’m sure I will like it because I like it so far.
Let’s move on over to Gary. In this ep, he decides he’s tired of Lotus
Point and he doesn’t wanna work there anymore. He’s super excited about
it and has some brilliant line of dialogue towards Karen and Abs where he says,
“If you’ve got a problem, work it out, and if you’re stuck and still can’t come
to an agreement, I still don’t wanna hear about it, so figure it out
yourselves.” He delivers the line perfectly and is of course hilarious
and wonderful and I love it all. His excitement at leaving Lotus Point
leads to a fantastic sequence in which my much loved and much cherished J.B.
decides to put on a sexy outfit and wait for Gary to come home for a romantic
dinner and a shag. The only problem? While she’s adorned in her
sexy nighty and waiting on the couch, Gary shows up with, you guessed it, twins
Bobby and Betsy. The scene works as comedy because of J.B.’s nighty and
Gary’s jolly reaction, but it’s also doing some tremendous seed planting for
future stories, especially since we see J.B. starting to drink a bit too much,
obviously jealous and upset that Gary’s attention is so focused on the twins
and barely at all on her. I keep saying how this is all leading us to the
season finale, but I’m kinda hesitant to say anything else in the chance that
someone reading this hasn’t gotten to the finale yet. I would be so
ashamed of myself if I spoiled what’s in store in the closing hours of this
season, so I think it’s best I tread lightly and not say too much right now.
I think that oughta do it for this ep. The only other things I have written in my notes are, “Sexy Michael jogging with Johnny = Yes,” and “I missed the Williams family.” Both of my notes are obviously true, because Sexy Michael goes jogging in a fabulous pink shirt and white short shorts that are so short the balls threaten to come out (and oh how we all want that to happen) as well as a super sexy headband. Ugh, fitness is sexy and when you combine fitness with Sexy Michael in this amazing outfit, you just have pure gold. I again wish I could enter this show and live in this world and go jogging every day with Sexy Michael on a California beach. As for my other note, I did really miss the Williams family in this ep, but I don’t hold it against this one because they’re gonna get a lot of focus in the next few eps. I would have liked to see them this week, but it’s not the worst thing in the world that they sit this one out. Aside from that, a very solid ep that kicked off this disk nicely. I’ve got no complaints except for the nitpicky stuff like the overly cute scene between Karen and Mack. I’m liking everything going on right now and I wanna keep watching to see what else is gonna happen. With that said, our next ep is Full Disclosure and I think we should move right on over to start discussing that one.
At this point, I think your BG is right. They don't seem like a pairing you should root for. But the writers know that and have him dodge/shoot her down more than once, and she continues to be the one doing the pursuing. He knows better, and he's trying to do the right thing up front, but ultimately, she's the one who breaks down the wall. If had been doing the pursuit, it would have been totally off-putting.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the Williams, I am rewatching All in the Family and had forgotten that Lynne Moody was the original Jenny Willis. She only played her once, and of course did not play her when the Jeffersons spun off of All in the Family, but an interesting little factoid nonetheless.
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