Season 1, Episode 7, "Dad's Girlfriend"

So we’re in the second episode of our supporting character quadrilogy. Last time the spotlight was supposed to be on Six and she made no active decisions, so let’s see how Nick fairs in an episode titled “Dad’s Girlfriend,” which I guess is only named after him indirectly.

 

We open on Nick in the Russo family kitchen, as he makes time with some lady while she makes dinner. This is Elaine. With her frizzy hair, eye shadow and big lumpy sweater, she’s essentially every woman from the late 80s. Anthony even dated almost the exact same kind of girl in “Who’s In Charge Here?”

Nick and Elaine show enough intimacy to demonstrate they’ve been together for a while. Nick asks her if there’s anything he can do to help with dinner, and Elaine says he can do the dishes later. That’s supposed to be playful, and to the actress’ credit she’s adding a lot of dimensions to every line they give her. Which is a wise choice on her part, because this is the only scene she has where she’s not a dream avatar or a punching bag.

Nick is all “Do the dishes? That’s what I had kids for!”

 

Anthony comes in with his sorry excuse for a story for the week. He wants a motorcycle! He tells Nick this while he’s is hanging out with his new girlfriend, which could have been a clever tactic. Anthony could be working an angle, because maybe Nick would be more amenable with Elaine around, or maybe Anthony was trying to evaluate Elaine’s response to completely stupid idea so he’d have a better-educated opinion of her. But nope, none of that will happen, because this is Blossom.

Nick tells Anthony he’s on his own as far as getting a motorcycle. Anthony makes a dumb joke about how the motorcycle will pay for itself, once he starts doing show racing. I really hope Anthony’s spotlight episode “Tough Love” is not this terrible.

 

Anyway Blossom enters so the episode can officially begin. It’s sort of weird that this show doesn’t have cold opens, because in a case like this we the audience are already privy to two stories before Blossom knows anything about them, and the show’s ostensibly told from her perspective.

Brace yourselves. Blossom fucking finally has a trumpet case with her. Only five episodes after Blossom said the trumpet might be her “life,” this is the first visual evidence we see of her being a musician, in any way. Including the episode she said it in.

So Blossom says sorry she’s late, but she had to stay late in trumpet class and she’s ready to make dinner. Then she sees Elaine already cooking, and Nick apologizes for not getting the message to her.

 

Blossom tries to take the whole thing with a grain of salt but it’s clear she’s about to have an aneurysm. Elaine smartly tries to divert attention from herself and says she didn’t know Blossom played the trumpet, asking if she plays classical or jazz. Blossom tells her both, and Elaine says that’s interesting. Blossom’s face contorts to a look indicating clearly that this will be important later.

 

 

Seeing that the adults are going to continue their erotic cooking session, Blossom carries all her stuff out of the room. 

Pop Culture References: Caesar’s Palace

 

So they actually skip over the dinner. The episode is supposed to be about Blossom’s life being uprooted by a woman her dad is dating, yet they’re avoiding a scene to display the Russo family interacting with her. They even included what should have been a setup, since Blossom would have a chip on her shoulder, being displaced by Elaine cooking the meal. 

Considering how low-budget sitcoms are, you’d think they’d turn the dinner into the entire episode. A dinner scene isn’t exactly master playwright material, but I have a feeling the problem was having a scene with five major characters all at once. They haven’t even done a scene with the four Russos and Six yet. Let’s see if they do a scene with five characters by the end of the first season.

 

Anyway. The kids are doing the dishes after dinner, so I guess Nick wasn’t joking before. Joey asks Anthony how to undo a bra, and we learn Joey is about to start dating Helen, a senior at school. Helen’s a major sex maniac, given she’s been to France and she’s off her “anti-nympho medication,” in the first of several lines in the episode I wish I was making up. A lot of the material on this show seems to be tailored toward prepubescent children watching with their families, but then they say throw in stuff like this. It’s so weird.

Anthony asks if Blossom likes Elaine, and Blossom very obviously lies about being indifferent about her. Anthony sees right through it. 

 

When everything’s done Anthony asks Blossom if she wants to go to a movie with them, but she says she’s got to practice her trumpet, since the props department rented it for the week.

 

 

Blossom says she absolutely, positively, one hundred percent cannot go to the movies, so they can work in the vaudeville joke where Elaine comes in a second later asking if Blossom wants to hang out with her and Nick, to which Blossom says she can’t, she’s going to the movies. Oh, the hilarity. 

 

So after all these episodes we finally see an actual trumpet. And Blossom is playing it. And not very well, because she’s so upset! That’s a pretty easy cheat, so I’m guessing they wrote the trumpet thing into “School Daze” without asking Mayim Bialik if she actually played it.

 

Six enters saying maybe Blossom’s playing it on the wrong end. Blossom blames it on Elaine instead of the producers of her show, and Six asks what’s wrong with Elaine. Blossom comes up with a bunch of bullshit, turning into a full-on rant: Elaine is too nice, she thought the trumpet thing was interesting, and she was doing stuff in the kitchen wrong like putting the big wooden spoon in the silverware drawer, et al. Six makes fun of Blossom’s obvious invention of problems, and Blossom is too self-absorbed to notice.

 

Blossom says flat out that she wishes she had more control over her own life. Six says she wishes Richard Gere was fifteen, and believe it or not this is the appropriate thing to say. Blossom may as well wish for things to be different, because there’s a lot going on she can’t do a damned thing about. This also establishes this episode’s stupid dream sequence.

Pop Culture References: Kurt Waldheim, Adolf Hitler, Richard Gere 

 

The next morning, Joey and Anthony have a conversation about Joey’s upcoming date. Blossom enters the room so it has to stop. There is a God.

Anthony shows Blossom his new motorcycle brochure so his goofy, ‘Joey’ story has the illusion of progress. Once that’s over, Blossom asks if Nick is awake yet, but the boys tell her he spent the night at Elaine’s. Blossom freaks the fuck out.

Joey and Anthony don’t have any real problem with it, citing it’s been four years since Maddy split. We haven’t actually been told this until now, and I guess for teenagers four years is like a million, but this seems like too long for these wounds to still be so open. Blossom’s not really want for anything in life, considering Nick’s success, Six’ loyalty, and Anthony’s return. If Maddy’s been gone for four years already, maybe it’s time to get over some of this stuff?

 

Anthony warns Blossom that she should probably get used to Elaine, since for the purposes of this episode she might be “it,” as in Nick might marry her. Blossom’s freaking the fuck out escalates, but she gets no support from Anthony. Anthony just wants to see Nick happy, proving that compared to Blossom, the recovering drug addict is the emotionally stable one. Joey’s also happy about it, because he’ll be able to perv on his new stepmom. I wonder if I can work out a shorthand for “I wish I was making this up” since it’s happening so often lately. IWIWMTU?

 

Blossom says she can’t believe they’re reacting so calmly to all this, saying they have no idea what Elaine really might be like, and maybe they would feel different if they also were about to have a dream sequence about it involving a dated celebrity cameo from the early 90s.

 

Blossom storms out of the room, so Joey and Anthony can resume their sex talk.

 

The next scene has Blossom cleaning while Elaine sits on the couch, ordering her around. I should start timing how quickly I can guess when something is a dream sequence.

 

Nick comes downstairs with two poodles in hand, which is actually fucking hilarious, so he at least gets that, because remember this is sort of his spotlight episode? Elaine demonstrates that she has Nick wrapped around her little finger.

Since it will have no weight in the episode’s actual story, Blossom uses the opportunity to tell Nick that Elaine is a big ol’ jerk, but Nick says Blossom is just jealous because they gave her room to the dogs. Nick and Elaine snicker at Blossom as she wishes none of this ever happened.

 

So Nick and Elaine disappear, and are replaced with Rhea Perlman in a frilly white dress on the piano. Um, okay.

She’s Blossom’s fairy godmother, and I guess this story does have some similarities to all those fairy tales. Elaine has certainly been given about as many attributes as a Disney villain.

 

Rhea Perlman’s appearance is somehow not the most baffling thing about this scene. So when Rhea announces herself, she immediately begins pushing Blossom around, telling her she needs to make her remaining two wishes quick. Other than oh, ho, ho, Rhea Perlman, and she's in a frilly white dress, I don’t know what the joke is supposed to be, but in haste, Blossom just wishes none of this had ever happened.

 

 

So Rhea Perlman disappears and Nick and Elaine re-appear, in the middle of the same sentence.

Wait, what?

Why did they even bother inserting Rhea Perlman into this dream sequence if she wasn’t going to have any impact whatsoever? I guess thematically it matches up with what Six said, that wishing won’t do anything, but did they really need to drag Rhea Perlman into this? They didn’t even do any of the nineteen possible “be careful what you wish for” routines.

 

 

Only Blossom could make something seem like it was both killing time and skipping over story development.

Pop Culture References: Cheers, Marla Maples, Mel Gibson

 

Anyway. Blossom wakes up, so, great.

 

The next day Blossom goes to help out Mrs. Swanson. I actually had no idea she appeared in more than one episode, and I peeked at IMDB, which says she appears in one more after this. 

My initial reaction to seeing Mrs. Swanson—or Agnes, as Blossom calls her now—was that she seemed like a character created by a network executive. In “Blossom Blossoms” the conflict that there were no adult women in Blossom’s life was sort of cosmically unfair, not just situationally. That’s too depressing for a show that’s supposed to be a comedy, especially when the comedy part is almost never funny.

So when Blossom was going through her first period, it made sense that she’d find an adult woman to talk to. But outside of that one scenario, Mrs. Swanson just seems like a cheat. The conflict remains that Blossom is growing up alone in a house full of boys, but Mrs. Swanson provides too good of a safety net.

 

Even though she’s a kook, Agnes is technically a female who loves Blossom unconditionally, and there’s nothing stopping Blossom from confiding in her any time she has a problem. And if this is the role she’s going to play on the show, they’d need to commit to having her around a lot more often, which would trickle down through the rest of the show’s dynamics.  

Blossom brings Agnes her dry cleaning and thought she could use a quart of milk, to which Agnes quips, “I could use a quart of gin,” and the audience rolls in delight. So if she wants gin, fucking have it. Is there something stopping her, an adult, from having gin? I fucking hate this joke, no matter who uses it, though nine times out of ten it’s Shirley McClaine in the trailer for a movie I’ll never see.

 

I think they also got rid of Agnes because in building layer upon layer of this character’s costume—from the ratty hair to the old lady glasses to the house coat—they created a problem whereby it ‘s difficult for the actress to appear “correct” on camera. Her face is barely visible under the hair and the glasses, and staging her at a table in the foreground forces her to be constantly turning toward Blossom, so she’s acting at weird angles all the time.

Oh, and also, she’s kitschy and unfunny. Not that that makes her out of place on Blossom, but they’ve already got like three or four characters like that, and they already can’t even come up with a good Anthony story in about half these episodes. Good luck, lady.

Agnes asks if Blossom made first chair in the brass ensemble, which by the way was something Blossom mentioned earlier. Man, this episode is weirdly complicated. Blossom says she came in second, and blames it on Elaine. Blossom’s been preoccupied with the possibility of Nick asking Elaine to marry her, and Agnes has a legitimate response to this, asking with stars in her eyes if that magical moment has happened.

 

No, Blossom made it up. But it’s only a matter of time, Blossom says: Elaine has her claws in Nick and she won’t let go. I know a lot of this is in Blossom’s head, and we’re supposed to realize this, but it really would have helped to demonstrate Elaine acting questionably at least once, in, oh let’s say, a fucking dinner scene. It’s one thing that they have to economize things like sets, but why couldn’t they actually use the guest star they hired for the week? You might as well make Elaine an unseen character if you’re not going to give her any material.

Anyway Agnes asks Blossom if she’s got rocks in her head, which is which is fair because Blossom is being a one hundred percent jealous psycho bitch about the whole thing. Thankfully they don’t even shy away from this, and Agnes actually leads Blossom into exposing all her raw, crazy emotions about the situation: Blossom hates Elaine because of the attention she’s getting from all the Russo men; she has delusions of Elaine being manipulative; and at the end of the day, Blossom only wants to be told exactly what she wants to hear.

Agnes asks Blossom if she wants some actual advice, and when Blossom reluctantly accepts, Mrs. Swanson tells her to mind her own damn business.

And so this scene pretty much puts the nail in Mrs. Swanson’s coffin. At first she was just unnecessary, but now she’s demonstrated that she has the perspective to make educated decisions on life issues. There is no place on a three-camera sitcom for a character like that.

 

Blossom comes home to find Elaine cooking again. I’m starting to understand what Nick sees in her! They chit chat, and Blossom gives Elaine lip service. But when she realizes Elaine is wearing Maddy’s old apron, she goes ballistic.

 

Blossom gets out all her crazy psycho bitch issues, even though she just did that with Mrs. Swanson, and did the same thing with Anthony and Joey earlier, and with Six before that, and had a dream sequence demonstrating them. Does doing the same thing five times in succession actually count as a story?

Blossom says she knows Elaine is fooling Nick while he’s in a vulnerable state, she knows Elaine’s been putting the spoons wherever she damn well pleases, she knows about Elaine’s plan to marry Nick before anyone realizes it, and just because Elaine can make spaghetti sauce doesn’t mean she’s a good person.

 

Elaine tries to placate the situation the whole time, like any rational person would, but Blossom just keeps on going. She finishes her little speech by correcting Elaine on where the pots go in the cupboard. If they were gonna end on that, why did they have Blossom bring up the spoons just a few seconds earlier?

 

Blossom storms out, leaving Elaine to wonder what the fuck just happened.

 

 

Blossom talks to Joey while he’s getting ready for his date with Helen. They did a wardrobe change to indicate that this a day or more after Blossom’s bitching out on Elaine, but for the first time ever they’re not gonna pad the episode with a scene about Anthony buying a lottery ticket or a dream sequence involving Rue McClanahan.

 

 

Anyway after establishing that Blossom has been eating dinner at Six’ house lately, Joey tells her Nick and Elaine broke up. As this is news to her, Blossom now feels super guilty. She tells Joey about the showdown. 

Joey asks why Blossom did that. But then he admits he thought about doing the same thing, telling Elaine to buzz off. They bond over how Elaine was doing the kitchen stuff wrong, the point being that the technical details don’t matter if something doesn’t feel right. And I guess that isn’t bad, since Joey’s really the only person who’s in Blossom’s exact position. Had Nick and Elaine got married, neither Six, Agnes nor Anthony would have had to grow up in Elaine’s household. So Blossom was confiding in the wrong people, and should have gone to Joey individually sooner. Oh, and that’s not stated, I’m inferring it and assuming I got the right answer.

 

 

The scene goes on to descend into Blossom and Joey talking about Maddy’s whereabouts and her reasons for leaving, so who the fuck knows what the lesson is. 

 

Pop Culture References: Rod Stewart

 

 

That night, Blossom heads downstairs just as someone in a black leather costume and helmet barges through the front door. Blossom screams for her bloody life and naturally the studio audience laughs at this.

It’s actually Anthony! He bought his motorcycle gear, which for the moment is only good for doing bad Darth Vader impressions. It kind of bothers me when people try to fake James Earl Jones’ voice by adding British inflections. Anyway.

 

So he just got the outfit because it was on sale, and now he has a goal in life. I’m sure this is the last we ever hear about this motorcycle nonsense in the entire series. It originally seemed brave to me to have a character who’s a recovering drug addict and alcoholic on a sitcom like this, but having him abandon a new life’s goal every week is starting to do more harm than good.

 

Anyway he leaves the scene so Joey can come in, since this episode has devolved from not wanting to show five characters on screen together in the first act to not having more than two characters appear at the same time in the third. Joey struck out on his date, but Helen wants to go out with him again. Blossom says that’s a good thing, that he’s headed toward a relationship. Joey, using his randomly appearing and disappearing Travolta accent, complains that this is going to ruin his reputation! 

 

Joey leaves so Nick can enter.  Okay, this is definitely the Intentionally Absurd Element of the episode, which I’m going to start noting, as well as References to France.

Nick asks why she’s still up and Blossom says she wants to talk to Nick. Nick wants to talk to her, too: he heard she had a little trouble with Elaine. Blossom says she was sorry, she was wrong.

 

“No,” Nick says, “you were inconsiderate, rude, and completely out of line. And you were wrong.” I think that still counts as wrong, Nick.

 

Blossom tries to pawn the whole thing off on Elaine doing the kitchen stuff wrong, and Nick reiterates that it was none of Blossom’s business. Blossom says wah, wah, it was her business, he was going to marry her. Nick says if he was going to marry Elaine, he would have told Blossom.

Blossom actually shuts up for a second, and Nick pretty awesomely puts her in her place. He’s gonna date, young lady, and she’s not gonna love everyone he does. He won’t, either. And if Blossom has concerns about it, he doesn’t want to hear it from a third person. Except that in this instance the third person was someone actually in the mix, but whatever.

 

Blossom says she feels terrible, and she’ll call Elaine to apologize, and they’ll patch things up. Nick stops her, saying to mind her own business. Then Nick says the worst thing possible.

“You did not cause the break-up. … Really. Though your name was mentioned. … You see, Elaine’s not ready to take on three kids.” Obviously the issue is about the concept of three children, but, technically, Blossom is an actual child in this equation. Whether or not Blossom blew up at Elaine, she was part of Elaine’s decision not to continue dating Nick. It seems like a more mature point to make would be that Nick loves Blossom so much that he won’t get mad when she fucks up his relationships. Nick even said the hard thing can be the better thing one episode ago. But of course we’re only allowed the illusion of depth, hardship or sacrifice.

 

Someday, Nick tells Blossom, he’ll meet a woman ready to enter this idiot family. Probably toward the end of the fourth season when the network forces them to retool. Blossom and Nick shake hands on this. Uh, okay.

They close out the episode by watching the free, unlicensed version of The Dick Van Dyke Show theme song. Nick says the kitchen stuff bothered the hell out him, too. See, Blossom, you might not like Nick’s girlfriends, but at least you’ll be able to make fun of them after they break up, and isn’t that better? Making fun of people when they’re not around to defend themselves is the bestest. 

 

Well, that wasn’t a terrible fleshing out of Nick’s character, though come to think of it he actually only appears in the first and the last scenes of the episode, not counting the dream sequence.

Pop Culture References: Star Wars, The Dick Van Dyke Show

Intentionally Absurd Element: Increasing avoidance of showing multiple characters together

References to France: 1

Pop Culture Reference Tally: 10 

Season 1, Episode 6, "I Ain't Got No Buddy"

We’re a few episodes in now, and for better or worse, Blossom has established its universe now.  The next four episodes seem to be about fleshing out each of the supporting characters individually. “I Ain’t Got No Buddy” is about Six’ relationship with Blossom, followed by Nick in “Dad’s Girlfriend,” Joey in “My Sister’s Keeper,” and Anthony in “Tough Love.” And if this episode is any indication, they’re all going to be pretty bad at it.
 

So this episode is supposed to be about Six, but she has limited screen time, and doesn’t make any active decisions in the entire episode. But it’s Episode Six GET IT?, so there’s that.

We open on one of the stock establishing shots they use for every daytime scene.

When we cut to Blossom’s bedroom, however, it looks like early morning. So there’s a continuity error in literally the first five seconds of the episode. That’s a good sign.

Blossom and Six are fully dressed and studying French. This show has a real boner for France for some reason.

Blossom’s alter ego the observational humor comic returns so she can say they’re American students going to an American school, and shouldn’t be learning French, but what Americans speak, instead: Spanish! Oh, the hilarity of something every single stand-up in Los Angeles was saying in 1985.

Six says she has to go-school-now-bye-bye and Blossom exposits that it’s only 7:30, Six! You crazy vitamin! Six tells Blossom she has to get to school early so she can show a new student around.

Wait, what?

If Six was just coming over to study from home, why would Blossom get dressed for school that early, too? And if Six was sleeping over, then suddenly got up early and started getting ready, why wouldn’t she tell Blossom to stay in her pajamas a little longer? There’s no way Six having to leave so early just came up. Besides, it puts Blossom out, since now she’s got to spend the rest of the morning studying alone, and is fully dressed an hour before she has to be.

Anyway before Six leaves, she and Blossom have a quick conversation that establishes everything we’ll need to know about Blossom and Six’ friendship, like if a checklist for the episode:

1. It’s Monday, and Blossom and Six always go to the mall together on Mondays.

2. There’s a new band named Rupture playing at a venue called Royale on Saturday. Rupture throws up on the audience, and Blossom doesn’t want to go.

3. Blossom and Six are the bestest friends ever and nothing will ever change that.

The black and white photograph, presumably of Maddy, is back, and it’s framed well in the shots that demonstrate how Blossom sees Six, as a pleasant, funny, best friend. The possibility of losing Six and the reality of losing Maddy are the two conflicts of the episode, and they’re related, so this is a good parallel. Fuck, I really hate when they get a small detail like that right.

Pop Culture Rerefences: David Lee Roth (for the episode title, since it was his cover of “Gigolo” that was inescapable around this time)

Blossom heads into the kitchen and Joey’s studying, too! Like every Russo he loves a good kvetch to open a scene, so he says math is stupid, because you always have to have the exact answer! Hilarious!

Blossom notices an envelope on the kitchen island, and Joey says a guy just delivered it. At 7:30 in the morning. Blossom recognizes the names on it as Maddy’s divorce lawyers, because what fourteen-year-old doesn’t know such information? She also makes the presumption that these are the final divorce papers, for who knows what reason.

Joey asks if this means Nick and Maddy really getting divorced, “like, final final.” I don’t know why the possibility of Nick and Maddy getting back together would still be in play at this point, since they’ve established Maddy is off performing in Europe, but I guess the episode needed a second conflict.

Blossom and Joey fight over who should give Nick the papers and Joey says he doesn’t need that kind of heat with his birthday coming up, which establishes Joey’s birthday better than the prior episode that featured his actual birthday.



Blossom says the papers are gonna break Nick’s heart, she just knows it.



Anthony comes in and says he’s rich! He just read that some guy got paid three million dollars to write a screenplay, and he’s going to do the same thing! This is a relic of old TV: a character like Tony, with a light heart and a whole lot of time on his hands, could attempt a skill that normally takes a lifetime, then forget it by episode’s end. This time around the story won’t even make it to the third act, so clearly they just needed to give Anthony Stoyanov something.

Blossom and Joey tell Anthony about the divorce papers arriving and Anthony volunteers to give them to Nick. He says he learned in AA that pain is a part of life, and the audience laughs at this for some reason. It’s in solidarity to all the people struggling with alcohol addiction, I’m sure.



Nick stumbles in, looking superbly hung over. We learn he’s actually just exhausted, from his gig the night before. So the plan to give him the divorce papers has been humorously thwarted by circumstance!


Nick barely gets a “Good morning” out and the kids smile and cheer “Morning, Dad!” in unison.

Nick, because he’s a chump, not an idiot, realizes something’s going on but won’t force an answer. Anthony skirts the issue by asking Nick about his gig from the night before. Since it’s his first scene in the episode, Nick kvetches, too, about playing keyboard at a 20,000-capacity Oom-pah festival until 3am.



“Between the beers, cigars, bratwurst and sauerkraut, the men’s room was quite a thrill.” Ha. I wonder if all the actual funny lines on this show are the work of one writer, and if I can meet him or her and shake their hand. Even if they don’t know that venues holding 20,000 people typically have a green room.



Anthony decides to give Nick a hug, and forces Blossom and Joey to join in. Nick asks what the deal is, but of course the kids are in charge so they plead the fifth.

Nick leaves and Anthony volunteers to take the papers. That’s the end of the scene. No joke to close it out. That should signify that it’s an important story element, and that maybe from this point forward the task of giving Nick the papers is Anthony’s responsibility. Naturally Anthony doesn’t make a single active decision for the rest of the episode.

Pop Culture References: Orson Welles


We’re back in Tyler High’s lunchroom, because they built the set, goddammit, so they might as well write stories that cater to it.

Blossom runs into her previously unseen and unmentioned friend Doris, who she almost didn’t recognize. Doris’ deal is that she shaved her head as an act of youthful rebellion, only to discover she has a large birthmark on her head. One kid called her Gorbachev and then they all did. So now she’s wearing a Tina Turner wig, hoping no one will recognize her. Not that I’m speaking from experience, but I think it would be hard to disappear in a crowd wearing a Tina Turner wig. Maybe Tyler High has a high population of drag queens.



Six comes to lunch with the new girl, Adrien. Adrien’s beautiful and all the boys invite her to sit with them at lunch, et cetera. Adrien blows Blossom off, then drags Six along with her when a suitable generic boy invites her over to eat. Blossom says to go ahead, and Six does.



Then Blossom asks “Six, where are you going?” It was a best friend test, and we get the kind of back and forth where the characters act contentiously in a fashion that overtly services the story.



Feeling betrayed, Blossom sends Six away. Sad music.

Pop Culture References: Sinead O’Connor, Mikhail Gorbachev, I Love Lucy

Back in the Russo household, Blossom asks Joey if he’s ever lost a best friend. Joey says he was standing in the produce section at the supermarket, and he turned around and his best friend was gone. I have no earthly idea what this means, even though Blossom does, and so does the laughing audience. Someone please enlighten me.



Anthony comes downstairs and tells them he’s having script problems. I’m assuming this is the intentionally absurd element of the episode not only for the obvious reasons, but also because, for the love of God, Anthony has the Joey story for this episode.



Blossom notices the divorce papers still under Anthony’s pad, and takes them , saying she’ll give them to Nick. Thus concludes the dramatic development of Anthony taking the papers in that kitchen scene.

Nick enters, again looking awful, to demonstrate the conflict over giving what Blossom in her infinite wisdom assumes is bad news.

Nick’s just been to the dentist, and can’t speak properly, so the kids continue their song and dance to hide the truth from him, which I’m shocked doesn’t include an actual song or dance.  Nick wants to know what’s going on, but due to his surgery he runs the risk of biting his tongue in half if he starts yelling now. So he wanders off to bed.

Anthony notices it’s Monday and Blossom isn’t at the mall, because why wouldn’t a recovering drug addict who’s been preoccupied with a B-story keep track of the social schedule of his sister and her friend?

Blossom explains that the producers will not build a mall set, so Six must have gone to the mall without her. Anthony tells her to call Six, because she’d never turn her back on Blossom.


Blossom dials the phone, only to get Mrs. Lemeure, and speaks to her as if they’ve never met. Six went to the mall alright, but with Adrien! How does Mrs. Lemeure know this?



Back in this fucking lunch room set, Doris approaches Blossom, wearing another wig. So instead of being Tina Turner, her plan to remain incognito is to be the crazy chick who wears a different wig every day. There’s a recurring joke where Doris says no one will recognize her in the new wig, and then immediately someone yells out, “Hey, Gorby!” and we get the second instance here. It’s actually pretty funny.



Six and Adrien approach and we’re treated to more of the catty back-and-forth Blossom and Six are having. Blossom acts really petty throughout her fight with Six, which I’m not sure is supposed to be played genuinely, or as a means of demonstrating that she’s not handling the conflict appropriately. She reneges on her previous refusal to see vomit band Rupture, and implies that Six is stupid. Maybe this conflict is just like an argument in real life.



So just like in real life, Estelle Getty is standing in the Russos’ kitchen next. She’s on the phone with her back to the camera.



She turns around and it’s not Estelle Getty but Blossom dressed like Estelle Getty. Okay. She’s talking to Nick, telling him it took 66 long years, but she finally found a new best friend!



The real Estelle Getty enters. Blossom’s new best friend is Sophia Petrillo!



They’re really burning through the celebrity guest stars they got for the first season.



But we learn there’s trouble in paradise. Blossom has been paying Sophia to live with her, and Sophia’s had enough: she’s moving in with her new best friend.


Well, they did it. Six comes in also dressed as Estelle Getty, pretty much confirming my theory that Six is an old woman who stole a teenager’s body.

Sophia and “Sixty” (check that math) leave to check out some boys at the shuffleboard court.


“Not again!” Blossom cries out, even though this conflict doesn’t really parallel her fallout with Six. It might make sense if it was Adrien dragging Sophia away, but not Six.

Pop Culture References: The Golden Girls, Elvis Presley



Blossom wakes up, crying “Don’t leave me.” I wonder if Mayim Bialik got tired of shooting these shots of her waking up every week. It must be very strange from an actor’s perspective. Anyway.



On Saturday night, Nick tortures the kids by playing board games. I know it’s a sitcom standard to pretend teenagers hate everything, but who doesn’t like board games?


Anthony picks a category, and Nick draws the question:  “What is 28 grams?” Anthony says it’s about 2500 dollars, plus mandatory jail time.


That was actually hilarious, but it doesn’t explain why they did that stupid screenplay plot for the first two acts.



Finally Nick gets as tired of this point in the story as everyone else is, and lets the kids go. Joey and Anthony run for the hills and Blossom stays behind, so she can exposit her fight with Six to Nick.



They hash out the story, and Blossom is able to bleed details about Nick and Maddy’s relationship, to test the waters on Nick’s reaction to the divorce papers he’s not yet aware of. For someone who’s supposed to be the moral compass, Blossom sure isn’t opposed to underhandedness, but then she spies on people regularly and encourages Joey to cheat.



Nick tells Blossom you can’t force people to stay with you. Blossom accepts Nick’s advice and experience for once, and Nick tells her to call someone else to go to the Rupture concert she didn’t want to go in the first place. Good thing they introduced Doris in this episode so Blossom has another friend.

Seeing that Nick says he likes a little reality and that Blossom’s conflict lined up with the one contained in those divorce papers, Blossom uses the opportunity to finally give them to him.



Nick is devastated. I'm shocked, shocked they didn't have Nick see the papers and scream out “YES!” for a cheap laugh. That's exactly what they'd do in one of the later seasons. Instead Blossom got the chance to ruin what we’re told is Nick’s first Saturday night off in years. It’s refreshing to see Nick have a genuine emotion; he’s already in the acceptance phase of his grief, but it’s still sad. Blossom, since she’s so wise beyond her years, must have sensed that Nick’s unresolved grief was the reason he was acting out with the board games hostage situation. She’s so smart.



Blossom and Doris wait in line for the ladies’ room at the concert venue, which apparently is a stadium. I can't believe they built a set for this.

Doris has yet another crazy getup to hide her shaved head, this time a babushka that completely gives away the fact that the actress didn't really shave her head.


Six comes over to the line since this episode is supposedly about her. She begs Doris to let her go ahead in line, because moving ahead of one person will apparently make that much of a difference. Doris says “Sure, Six,” allowing her to go ahead, and Six says that she didn’t recognize her.


Doris exclaims that that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to her all week! I guess it never occurred to Doris that if she wanted to remain anonymous, she should stop saying hello to acquaintances who actually didn’t notice her. Her disguises actually sort of worked until she outed herself to Six and Blossom in every scene.

Anyway Doris leaves the line for no reason, and as she’s headed back into the stadium, someone says, “Hey Gorby!” again, proving that even on Blossom, the rule of threes works.


So since this is a show ostensibly about female empowerment and breaking stereotypes, Blossom and Sis finally hash things out on the line for the ladies’ room.

Six says she drank a whole lot of soda, which is why it’s a potty emergency, and Blossom allows her to cut ahead, too. Other than it being a coincidental way to have Blossom and Six meet each other, this is a pretty big missed opportunity, because if they cut out the stuff about the soda, they could have had Six seek Blossom out to ignite the reconciliation. Because counting this as a coincidence, Six makes zero active decisions in the episode that’s supposed to be about her.



Anyway, Blossom and Six have some reluctant back and forth, which establishes that Blossom didn’t go to the mall to meet Six like she was supposed to, though there’s no real evidence this was her responsibility.



Blossom says she thought Six would be happier being best friends with Adrian, because she’s smart, sophisticated and beautiful, and Six tenderly replies, “Yeah. Just like you.” And they’re instantly best friends again.



So all Blossom wanted was a shallow compliment. Yep, breaking stereotypes all over the place.



Blossom gets home somehow. Nick asks her what happened and Blossom said it was all a misunderstanding.

They talk about the divorce papers, which I guess Blossom was right about, and she says she was trying to protect him.

Nick says he’s alright with it, and asks if Blossom is. Blossom says she thought there was still a chance Nick and Maddy might reconcile as long as the divorce wasn’t finalized, and Nick says it’s better this way. “It’s harder, but it’s better.” Which doesn’t parallel with Blossom’s fight with Six in any way, so I don’t know what the lesson is supposed to be. I definitely spoke too soon about that photograph shot.



Blossom heads upstairs and turns back to watch Nick sign away the last bit of hope that her parents will ever get back together.



So, why did they need that story about Anthony’s screenplay?

Pop Culture Reference Tally: 7