Still The PlaceAn episode that will make you mad AND sad!
Doctor Shaw turns to Michael when she needs help with her plumbing problems.
Jane is feeling deserted, Billy is full of grief, and Amanda makes a major funeral faux pas!
Still The Place with Laura Layton, Courtney thorn Smith.
And daphnews Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast.
Hire for a recap, Yeah the Place, guys. We are getting so close to the end of the season, and yeah, it's sort of like the up and down of energy of the episodes, like really fun stuff is starting to happen, and then we have this one. It's a little bit yeah, a little bit more emotional, a little bit a little bit more down.
Yeah, that's good though. I thought everyone, especially Andrew, really hit the mark on this one.
Yeah.
He had a lot to do. He had the most to do for sure.
This episode is called end Game and it was written by Frank South, directed by James Frawley. And I would like to start by pointing out at the beginning of the episode that the pool cleaner is not Matt still because you asked him. It's still not Matt. No, I'm just noting like I saw that.
You just ask your husband in the other room if he's ever cleaned the pool off.
Him?
I mean, oh, you can't identify him.
Did you not notice the pool cleaner?
It looks like that.
I think it looks like Doug.
You think it looks like Doug. Yes, yeah, you please just ask him? Will hold funny?
Okay, So the second episode in the row you in a row, you guys think it's Doug, and I'm convinced it's not.
It's it's not.
I had a note this time it is Doug and it was the same guy that it's just from the back of the head and the camera moves in over him. But I thought, I don't know, it looked like Doug.
Did you ask him, Laura, I hear you have ads hysterical. You please just ask him. You know, in the next room. We make it such a mystery. He's literally right over there working out.
Probably Yeah, I do know where he usually hangs out, so I I can confirm it is not Doug. Oh okay, Yeah, I just think it's hysterical that you wrote the note that it's definitely Doug the and I wrote not that it's definitely Well, you you might know.
I don't know.
I just maybe you should just take my word for it.
Well, don't you remember Scotty the props guy props He used to do it all the time, and I really haven't seen him yet.
Maybe he came like the regular pool guy later.
Right, I think he hasn't started being the pool guy and maybe whoever this guy is, because we only see this guy's back, Yeah, this pool Guy's back.
Yeah.
No, he's not going to be surprised to know that this episode is not actually about the pool Guy. Yeah, it really feels like we're land Pipe.
Really, it's not remotely like that. I was so surprised to find that we both had notes on it and we were on such different pages of news. It's like nearly irrelevant.
But so in order to bring managed expectations for the audience, bring your mood back down to the soffer.
Land episode is not about the pool or the pool guy.
What is it about?
It is mainly about I have to say, this is what this episode is mainly about, Billy finding out that his father has suddenly passed away from heart attack. So it's kind of an emotional episode throughout, and it's definitely the main story is his journey through that. And at the start of the episode, he's back in his lonely empty apartment because Alison is gone in Seattle and it is just him in his ratty dust chair since he's also a man the chair see in his ugly chair and sadly. He learns early on that his father has had a massive heart attack and has died, and Billy struggles with his emotions for the whole episode. He sort of buries him deep, but he also is considering taking over his dad's furniture store, which he thinks would have made his dad proud. And so the gang at Melrose Place is trying to support Billy while he's really unemotional and they're concerned, and Amanda tries to console him too by suggesting that she spend the night with him.
She shows up of the shadows one night in the courtyard, is very bizarre, rude.
Out of the shadows, saying hey, rude, yeah, and but admirably he even turns her down, which I was pleased.
Yeah, even when she kissed him really slowly.
Very provocatively, come on sure, and he manages to say nope, I think I need to just be alone tonight. So he is. However, he does seem to be interested in talking to Allison after he hears a voicemail from her on his answering machine, and then he's disappointed to only reach Keith when he tries to return Ali.
Oh yeah, well I'll wait to later go ahead, so much to say about it?
So you just Keith is like a trigger word.
It's like, wait, he's not even in the episode. He's pissing me off again. Yeah, I just.
I don't think William Moses would want to be a guest, even if.
He be like, you have no thank you, ladies.
It's all we're really just just annoyed with Keith. Yeah, we love Billy Moses, lovely Keith character. But then Allison shows up at the cemetery right after the funeral. She's delivered in a cab, just as the service is finished.
And how much did you guys, I think we'll get to it, but how much do you guys think?
Finally, well, I just felt like it was perfect.
But of course when she lands there, she's there just in the moment to witness Amanda doing another like sort of sidling up to Billy.
She lands at Lax by the way, not that rinky DNK Valley Airport, I'm sure, yeah, Elia, it's the famous sort of Jetson's building.
Yeah, yeah, we actually shot an churistic episode.
Yeah.
Well, and so when she sees Amanda sort of you know, snuggling up to Billy, she's a look weirded down. Amanda also manages to sneak in a comment to Allison about how tired Billy was the night before, but then Billy both emotionally and.
Physics just in case he didn't get my drift.
And then Billy assures Allison that he and Amanda are indeed broken up, and he invites Alison to come spend the night at her old apartment. And so that night, Alison and Billy talk and they're sitting in the empty living room with only the chair, and.
Even Allison doesn't want to sit on it. She's like you, yeah, no, on the floor. Yeah yeah.
But this is where sort of the emotional cracks begin to show for Billy, and he eventually ends up breaking down with Alison after he lets off some steam at the pier. They're playing some games where he just throws the heck out of some baseballs and tries to break a bunch of stuff, but he ultimately ends up crying on Alison's shoulder, and he reveals to her his wish that he had told his father that he loved him, and Alison tells Billy that his father knew that he loved him because there's an invisible line connecting people who love each other.
I think all this double on tundra and.
Say it, just say it.
Of course it's coming back. So then when Billy feels like more at peace with things the next day, he even has a random philosophical conversation about heaven. The next day with Joe, we'll talk about that too.
And then before.
Alison flies back to Seattle, she and Billy attend a brunch with his sister and his mom, where Billy's mom tells Billy that she has sold the furniture store because Billy's father would have preferred and he would have wanted Billy to be a writer. She then asks Alison to read a letter out loud that Billy's father had written to him, and the letter says all the things that Billy had needed to hear, including that his father loves him and is so proud of Billy and his talent for writing. So then at the airport again, Billy is taking Allison there to fly back to Seattle. They're reluctant to say goodbye. They're both saying how much they've missed each other, and Alison decides at the last minute to tell Billy that she doesn't want to go back.
She doesn't like it there, she missed.
Billy and everything else here, and Billy is a static and he tells her that she should absolutely stay then, and she agrees, and then they spin around in the airport terminal like in an ice skating duo, in a total embrace, as only people do when they're you know, totally in love but really only just friends.
Wonderful angle, high camera angle, so you could see down him spinning hopefully noting anybody knocking anybody over.
It was a very cute and romantic way to end that storyline in the episode. But meanwhile, there's a There's a There's a B story where Michael and Kimberly are heating up, with her complaining about her apartments, bad management and faulty pipe maintenance, and it sort of becomes a very thinly disguised metaphor for everything that she needs and.
Thinks zero disguised, Laura, zero disguise and fair.
No.
I was going to say, does anyone do a pointed line better than Marcia?
Wow?
I mean, so obvious, so fun.
Everything she says, it's like, you know, if only you weren't married to someone else is basically, yeah, it's.
All so yeah.
Their scenes are super loaded with innuendo and tension, and Michael ends up at her place fixing her literal pipes, and you can see that he's clearly torn. He's, you know, revealing his desire to give in to this mutual attraction with her. But thankfully he does walk away, and he does go home to Jane.
We'll talk about that.
And we also follow, yeah.
Thank god.
We also follow Randa and Terrence and the too close for Comfort decorator undercase. Terrence an ultimatum saying either carry goes or she does, and Terrence says, all right, Randa, you you go ahead and fire her yourself, though only after a few very annoying Terrency comments about loving seeing Ronda so jealous.
Yeah yeah, but she shut him right down. This is not funny. Yeah.
So. And then Matt also uses this moment and the loss of Billy's father to reconnect with his own father, and they have a really nice scene towards the end of the episode, not cleaning the pool, but where they agreed you really get to know each other, Mount and his father and they agreed to spend time together more often. It's very sweet. And the episode has sort of got an overall theme of love and expressing your true feelings.
Everyone else could happen kind of thing. I think the death of that heart attack really took everyone.
You gotta like it.
Yeah, And it was a really deep episode of my was place in terms of everyone's reaction too. It's the first time they kind of had this is the theme and everyone's reaction to this event, right. I thought that the way people are trying to show up for Billy was so sweet. Him not being able to deal with it was so interesting, and then watching each person have their own experience of what it feels like. We were young, right, probably I certainly hadn't lost a parent yet. Had you guys lost a parent? Yeah, at that point you had.
That was a huge deal. And it was you know, Billy Billy being shut down and unable to experience his emotions and like.
Yeah, you know, I got it, I'm fine the whole beginning of it. In fact, nothing he didn't let he thought he had to step into his dad's footsteps, which is probably a common you know, think thinking your head is like, oh, I guess I'm the man now or something.
He's like, I'm going to take over the store.
But it was all above, you know, in the head, no emotion until until you know who comes to town and he can be himself.
And it was such a beautiful scene that with.
Billy and Allison, don't you think when they were at the pier, like you said, and he's just telling the truth and just in a side for that peer that you know.
I don't know if you guys have ever been there outside of shooting the scene. And to that arcade there's a.
Wonderful carnal coaster and carnival games and you know, Mary Ground is very childlike and very innocent and soft, and I just thought it was a great place to do it, he said, He said, my dad used to take me here, and so he's reminiscing to when he was young.
You know, yeah we did. But we're going way to the end. Can we go a little bit to the beginning, because well, and that was the episode. Yeah, so good to see you guys. I want to talk about the first scene for a second, right because it spends with Billy in bed and then you see Alison and I'm in this really weird white satin negligee and this bra so I've told you guys like I was very chesty, and I was very self conscious about it. So it's just thinking this poor costumer. They must have said in a White Negligee, Now, can you imagine any worse words? If you're conscious about self consciou about your body and your breast anyway, And we're gonna.
Pull it from our dynasty closet.
By the way, you're going toraw like from the thing looked like it was made of iron, and this weird negligent and I'm doing this sort of film noir monologue and he's having a dream about me being there. But I was just like, oh, I can't even imagine what the costume you remember shooting it? I don't, but I can promise you I probably blacked out. I probably blacked out, but I look was so uncomfortable. I just look comfortable.
Let's also point out this is another one of Billy's dream sequences, right, So he dreamed Alison up in this White Negligee and she's there, like, you know, speaking like she's in a nineteen twenties movie. And it's so funny that he that there's this recurring theme of him having these dreams, but this one even though, like Allison's appeared to him in this like lovely look for him, it's still a nightmare because the reality of the broad No, because she's saying, because she's saying, you know, you blew it, Billy, Yeah, you blew it. Literally, I'm still in Seattle. I'm going to wake up with Keith and your spirit and you're still alone. And he wakes up to realize that, Yep, that was a bad dream because I am, you know, still alone. She's still gone. I'm still alone in this apartment with just my jink.
But it's funny you say that look for that it's his vision and it is a satiny sort of look. She belongs on like a fifty year old woman or something with all this lace and floral stuff or something, but it's white. And then you go to his home and his sister's childhood home with this floral and flower on the flower paper, and you're like, yeah.
That would be Billy's sexy Emma, Yeah, I don't I would fit in.
I don't know.
I have some thoughts about Billy's like the home setting and the like dynamic with his mom and his sister who comes in for the funeral and all that The funny thing is that you looked great in the Little Nighty Courtney, And I'm sorry it brought up like feelings of you know, ooh and scary and vulnerable, but you looked great.
I was just remembering how it felt, and I was like, God, that's a bra, Like I was just so self conscious and I just wanted to hide them. And then so then moving past the bral but I just I so saw that scene they're talking about. Do we go right to Thomas and Kimberly talking about Kimberly needing a place to stay. Yeah, that's before you find out about his dad.
So exactly. So like those things are overlapping. While Billy's you know, waking up bum that he's alone in his apartment, Michael is having a conversation with Kimberly at work, and she's revealing that she's kind of, you know, hating her apartment because the maintenance sucks and management sucks, and Michael is suggesting that she maybe consider becoming Billy's roommate. That there's an apartment that you know that is vacant in Michael's building, and hey, you should we should have this dinner and you should meet Billy because maybe you could become his roommates. So they set up a dinner where it's kind of awkward, it's gonna be gene yeah, like a weird double day. Yeah yeah, and Billy and Kimberly and it's such an interesting foursome. But and I just totally can't imagine Kimberly becoming Billy's roommate.
You and I have to say, it reminded me. Remember I told you that.
I lived with Darren in this dumpy little apartment in college right off of UCLA. It was a two bedroom with one bathroom and this dinky little bathroom. And and of course I wasn't like this, you know, doctor to be evil, gorgeous woman like.
Like Kimberly was. I was a college kid like okay. But we lived in there and I had a roommate in my room.
You can imagine that, as tiny as these rooms are, I had a roommate, two single beds.
And then she he had a roommate. And it just kind of reminded me.
Of that because it just was so old fashioned and remind me how young we are and how long ago this show was, and that kind of like, you know, your first time out this the shape that the building's in and the apartment, you know.
And she goes over after the dinner, she goes, like, I feel like she gamely sort of goes along with it. Yeah, it goes check out the apartment, and she's walking around and she's being really polite about it, like looking into the space. But I'm having the same trouble endition, you're sharing a bathroom with Billy, Like that just doesn't that doesn't match up or whatever. And that's that's of course when Billy.
Maybe Kimberly wanted to do this because it meant he could well, she could spend more.
Time with Michael right this dinner, but then.
She would have to see the wife because she keeps bringing up the wife.
Yeah, that was my thought, like your.
Wife is such a pain in my ass, you know, to what she dinner Michael.
She's going on and on, like Michael's going on and on. He says, he says, we should do dinner, and then Kimberly goes, is your wife coming too? And then at dinner he goes, he says, oh my god, where did I put it? But he says, Kimberly is professional, smart, easy to get along with easy on the eyes, and Jose's like, what do you like.
She's like, you're not they're not getting married, Michael. Yeah.
And then in that same thing, she's talking about complaining about the plumbing and he goes, I have tools, I could take care of it, and she says, I'm sure you can't.
Yeah.
It was so not not thinly discussied.
She just takes at those lines.
It's yeah, so.
Totally and he's like keeps playing like oh well yeah, yeah.
Well you can tell he's completely like into it.
Like he's kind of not quite doing it, but you know very much that he's interested. Like there's no that's a hard line. It's like it's kind of a light, foggy line of spaces in it. You can, yeah, right through the spaces.
He's definitely she's coming on like a bulldozer.
I mean that Kimberly is like leaving. No, he's literally there fixing the pipes. It wasn't just a sexy innuendo that she said. Like then he's there fixing her sink, you know.
And then she goes she goes, I have some meat in the fresh Yeah, speaking of meats, wine, I.
Have a bottle of line, But I guess you have to go home to your wife.
I'm going to try that. Maybe that's why I'm not dating very much. I have some meat. Maybe that's the secret. Maybe that's the line, and.
I could cook it. I could have.
Swear, I said, at these settings, so we can have a little thumb down.
He's definitely trying to thumb up because this is where it belongs. It bels bum.
You can make a big rain cloud like a storm has there.
You go you no, Michael, don't do it.
But I thought it was really funny. Back to that dinner when Billy sort of he breaks the tension by going, hey, do you have any furniture? And she goes, I have an apartment full, and he says, do you want to Elope, And.
It's like he's charming, he's funny.
He breaks the attention. That's obviously so you know, awkward between the whole Jane and Kimberly and Michael thing, yeah he did. But so then it's then when he when Billy learns about the heart attack and they're at the apartment with Kimberly checking out the bathroom really politely, like pretending like this might actually work out, which I can tell clearly it's not going to work out. Even then, when Billy runs off to the hospital and he meets his mom there, his mom is sort of like, this is where she's sort of like manic and she's going, well, we were this, we were dancing, and then you know, all of a sudden he wasn't feeling well and she's sort of manic and whatever, and they're just the conversation is like they're assuming the doctor's going to come out and tell us what the next steps are are.
I know you listened to a lot of the scene. All I could look at were her shoulder pads.
Man, Yeah, right, they were a flowery or something. It was like that.
Do you remember that time though? Shoulder pads are big. I remember remember Home Shopping Network had just started, and I remember buying from Home Shopping Network like a box of shoulder pads. Yes, I was an early adapter. That's shoulder pads and you would tuck them in and you'd like put them under your bra member and they were rounded ones and square ones because I think we thought and my mother did too, because I remember they were always like falling out because they were spongy. The their fham boone foam.
They would fall out and all of a sudden you'd be walking and all.
Do you think that she also had one in her hair do, because her hair was really big and maybe they just used to like pump it up a little bit, kind.
Of like she wandered over from Dynasty. She was very but you yeah, And I also felt like her character was sort of in a Tennessee Williams play the whole time.
Like it was.
It was very dramatic and stuff, and it was like, whoa, this is jarring and a little bit everything was a little bit surreal and kind of weird. Like when Billy went home, I just felt like his home life and his relationships and stuff, and his mom's dynamic.
It was very very experience. There was a totally it felt different.
It did. It felt different tonally, like they came in with this intensity. I was confused different. That's a good point. Yeah, that's an interesting point.
I was confused. But you know, so they learned in the hospital that that his dad is dead, and Billy goes home. He's just sort of numb and that's when he owners all of his Like Melrose.
The friends come over.
Says, is your dad you know if you need anything, of your dad needs help the hospital and goes he's dead. It was just like felt like a thud.
Yeah yeah, which made it easier for them to avoid talking about Matt's loud shirt and his really long mullet.
Yeah, colorful shirt. Just had to see the kids.
At least we could ignore, because when Matt first steps out of his apartment, I'm.
Like, well, yeah, that was right.
It was cool.
It was a lot a big print, but you know, he was just kind of.
Like was like, nope, I got everything settled, I'm good, you know. And then I think it was Joe and Jake. Michael and Jane came over to say they're sorry, and then Joe and Jake come over, and he was.
Kind of out of it. I think he was still stunned. I think yeah, And.
I thinked like too. I think I still like so good in that scene because I could see that Joe knew, like he was saying I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, and I could really see on your face that you knew, which is why the late scene that will get you but played so well when you bring the coffee machine over because you you had had this shared experience with him, which is which is rare at that age, right most Yeah, I had lost her moment. Yeah, so you I could see and I was like, oh, she knows. I actually wrote that down. She knows he's not.
I really like that scene that we had that we'll talk about in a minute.
But and Jane, Jane is also commenting. She's like, I don't think he's expressing his emotions, like he's not, you know, And Michael sort of like, yeah, yeah, he'll get to that.
It's just going to do He's fun. I got to go back to the hospital. Do you really is that where you're going? Cut to I'm under the sink cleaning the pipes, the lining and the pipes. Yep, the lies are already Star was a lie, and it's starting.
Yes, he's like he's in that kind of like yeah, there's I don't know, he's in that kind.
Of like buffoon is kind of like, oh, what are you talking about? And then you know, I came on, coming on, I'm married, let me come clean your back. Now he's lying to his wife.
Yes, latantly, I expected that he was going to go back to the hospital because and then he gets to see Kimberly.
But then he's like there under her sink.
Right, and he uses the excuse like, oh, I've been at this funeral all day. I haven't been to the hospital. I need to go see patients. He just blatantly lies and we cut straight to underneath.
And I think Jane was a little I think I picked up from Josie like a little did you guys see this?
Like I don't know.
About this because she's now seen her quite a few or a few times, saw Kimberly, sees what she's like, sees that, you know, he was over bored on talking up her, you know, assets and how great she was at that dinner. So now he's like, I have to go back to the hospital. I saw a little bit of suspicion or something.
Well, she's definitely disappointed that he's not just staying home and being with her.
I mean, I think it's related. I think it's story forwards.
She might know about all of Kimberly's meat. I think so how much that they're going to eat it.
I think she's going to go out to Ralph's and get a steak and some wine and Jane and.
Put and Frederie boy has all that meat.
I have to say, Jean was a little bit dressed like Charlie Chaplin for the funeral, which.
I thought that was interesting too.
Yeah, there was a cute little velvet bucket hat, but.
There was a giant overcoat. Yeah, a giant pant over her cute.
I'm sure it was a pin stripe cute pin stripe suit on underneath, but the giant coat with it, plus the hat.
She was just like, this is nineteen ninety three.
It did not need she did not need all that fabric and she it was a little bit Charlie Chaplin was.
Nineteen ninety three.
Here's a fashions got to be super fashion forward, I guess.
Yeah, she was trying something new and she got it and we didn't.
Yeah.
I mean, let's you know, I think those the palazzo pants, the white pants, all that fabric that, you know, was big back then. I know that Joe did after a while. Right now, she's still in her kind of black jeans face. But after a while we got in some of these all these printed sort of flowy pants and floey shirts too.
But you know, I don't mind palazza pants. What I don't like is parachute pants. Have to say remember.
Those Oh that's nineties two, isn't it.
Yeah, Pat mc hammer.
Taking a stand on thank you.
Somebody finally did Laura thank I'm different.
Had the courage.
Yeah, I'm just gonna see it.
We skipped over that after Billy sees Matt Amanda comes out of the shadows and she says to him, I've been waiting for you.
Yeah.
She appears are dockery, creepy, yeah, but incredibly beautiful stocker about running. That really softens it. And then she says, would you like me to stay over?
I'd like to.
So this is not the show of subtle women like this this episode, it's not women being subtle.
And I read the the show.
I really thought Andrew played it like so he was so firm and strong, like I'm not, no, you know, he wasn't even like a little bit tempted. And I just thought, good for you, Billy.
Yeah. And that's when he goes home and gets a message from Alison and calls and Keith answers, and I'm like, oh, yeah, Keith, we all had the same reactions when everybody misses. Yeah, when people just miss But you.
Know, all of this like before, before all of this has happened, we haven't quite touched yet on the weirdness of the sister because Billy has to go pick up his sister at the airport who's flying in for the for the funeral, right, and it's that it's with her that he has this conversation outside the airport as they're getting into his car about, yeah, he thinks, you know that he might take over the furniture store, because she's the one who says I always told Dad he should retire earlier, and you know that he was it was too much and he should retire. And I think he was just waiting for you to take on the store. And then he goes, well, actually I'm thinking of doing that, and she yells at him, She's.
Like, stop talking business like she just sort of it's like the weird moment.
I was like, what is this relationship? Did you guys get confused?
I didn't.
I didn't feel the relationship. I don't think we've did. Is this the only time we saw him.
I was wondering that if we'd established it had a sister before, I don't think so.
I don't know.
I feel like you know it wasn't written with a familiarity of these two characters. And this guest star comes in and it's supposed to be like very dramatic. You know, she reads it and she finds out her dad just died and stuff.
So there's that.
Yeah, no, I think like it was written for her to do that. It wasn't like, yeah, she.
Keeps calling him little brother, little brother, and he's like, stop calling me that. It was just I agree with you, Laura, it's just awkward. I didn't understand the relationship. And then when I saw her bedroom, I really didn't understand her because it's like either a dumb it's like a queen or a king size or two twins pushed together, brass framed.
With all this flowers everywhere.
Floral bedding, floral wallpaper, but different florals, just like different everywhere.
Yeah, but it's the nineties. You never know.
The dad's old suits still hanging in the closet, you know, the mom's like, I'm sorry, he was using this for his work closet, and Billy just sort of recognizes the suits in there, and he's really thinking about this furniture store and really becoming the furniture guy.
It's always interesting with situations like this because this is a show about all the kids together, right, all of us in this building, each of us have families. So whenever they're hired and we have scenes with them, it's the first and probably maybe the last time we're going to see these people. And the writers also don't know. There's nothing, there's no familiarity, there's no like thing to anchor it. So sometimes it works, and sometimes you're just kind of like they're on another planet, you know, well, right, because it's sudden backstory, like you just suddenly have to tell your backstory in this scene when we're meeting you.
We have to learn all about this relationship all once, and you know, based on these circumstances, but also like me give you the backstory. And it's just like it was jarring. I just felt like it was jarring and it was just a little odd tonally.
It was just weird.
Yeah, I mean I know what you mean. She came in really hot, but I think she only had a couple scenes.
Yeah, with what was written for her that way.
It was written that way. Yeah, and they so it felt like I like what you said about it feeling like a play like that storyline felt like a really separate thing. And then we go back to our familiar Melrose Place. And it's true when you introduce someone's family, all of a sudden, you've got this whole new cast of characters, and our Melrose Place is our family now.
So we're trying to introduce these people.
And she has to be there to help him get to the breakdown at the end, right well.
And just yeah, and his thought that being the furniture man was the thing that would make his father proud. And for some reason that makes the system.
There's a really nice path with the screen.
And it does. It does all end up in the right.
Place, really nice.
Yeah, there's a sweet scene at the funeral. I always love it when we're all together, even at a funeral. And Doug looks very handsome in his turtleneck.
Did you notice, well, maybe he tucked some of his mullet into the back of the turtleck.
No, of course, he looked very handsome. He did.
He looked very handsome. Didn't have any dialogue at the Joe had very big funeral hair.
Big funeral dude.
You notice you got all all done up for the funeral.
Joe has had really bouncy hair lately.
You know who I thought, Amanda? I mean, she was right at a dynasty hair. The falcon crust was pulled back French twist.
Was it kind of a high updo?
Yeah, very like this.
It was so not Amanda, all of us had.
It's kind of like, wow, we're going to a funeral, We're just gonna change it all up.
Charlie Chaplin on.
Jay Joe's like all curly and bouncy. Amanda's up like you know, Linda, I don't know. It just seemed very Why do people do that for funerals?
I don't know, like out of the norm. The priest or whoever was saying the words over the grave, you know, he was I think he got the memos because he was a little bit Tennessee Williams too. I thought the whole thing was very Usha yes to Usha's yes.
Well, then we're looking at it, and I am, of course yelling at the screen because that's why I want to watch you together one day, so we can all yell at the screen because West, where are you? I was so annoyed, and then all of a sudden, you see after and this was a little I don't know if you guys caught this little mistake. But she shows up after the funeral, and then later she tells Billy's mom was a lovely service and.
Don't want to go you loved say you weren't there.
But after the service, the cab pulls up and I think Billy was talking to Amanda at the time, right, aren't they having a little conversation.
And then he looks over and sees Alison.
That's where she's kind of, you know, nuzzling up to him again, saying, you know, if you need anything.
She's man, I mean he already rejected her. I know he didn't invite her to the funeral, but she's right. Amanda shows up anyway, even though she was rejected by Billy after their breakup last episode, and she shows up anyway, and then she's gonna nuzzle up next to him in front of Alison like it's just it's endless, like it's it's I don't know, I'm speechless.
It's very Amanda.
It's very very She has no emotion, no shame, no humility, no insecurity about just popping up at a funeral and.
Saying, Hey, I'm gonna make your girlfriend jealous.
Yeah, And also like at the end, when you know he's got his mom, she leaves in the limo and Amanda goes her own way, and it's just Alison and Billy. Billy wants to like lament the flowers and stuff at the ceremony, which he's like angry with the sister for setting up all the wrong flowers roses, which his father was allergic to and would have hated, and he's sort of lamenting that, And I just I felt like to your point, Court Alison had to sort of like talk him down off that, like, hey, it's okay, you know. And so like when she later says it was a lovely service, I feel like almost even though yeah, she was lying, she didn't actually see it, I feel like it was Alison also just trying to go everybody, everything's okay, it was a lovely service, you know. Like it was like I.
Don't remember her being asked about the service. I remember the mom saying, do you think I went overboard on the flowers?
And she said no, it was.
Lovely, right, So she was like trying to say yes.
And the last shot of the whole scene is all of these flowers, like there were a ton of flowers. They were right, they went overboard of the flowers. Yeah, and they're cleaning them up and taking them away.
But Alison's the one who's being diplomatic there, going yeah, totally, everything is fine. It was lovely, you know, like get don't you know.
To all Alison's back. Yeah.
That was such a sweet scene of them by the car, and I really felt in that moment. I thought, oh, I get really get why people are rooting for these crazy kids, right And you could see that Andrew and I were two people who really care about each other, and I thought, oh, that was such a That was really a sweet scene to see them come back together. And then when they walked back into the apartment and they're out of their funeral clothes and they're just in their casual clothes on the floor, I was like, oh, they're home. Didn't it feel like, yeah, oh, they're home.
I really saw at some point in this I forget it was one of your close ups or one of the scenes, probably halfway through the last half of it, where I saw I really saw, this is the heart. You were the pulsing heart of the show right now, the stories which which it goes on, but it really was like all this other stuff sort of happens, but you're like, ah, we're back to come on, we come on, guys. You know we see your love, we know you care, but I don't.
Know why you can't say it.
But it was really important and I could see why the audience just loves this couple.
You know, made sound was really cute.
And in that scene in the apartment is where you know, he tries to ask her about Seattle and she's like, oh, it's fine, it's fine, we're going to do this, you know, next week and it's gonna be great.
It's fine.
She's just brief and short, but like you can even start to see her cracks showing like that wasn't a very like authentic answer, Like I don't think I got the whole story in that answer. And she's like, well, you know, how are you doing and whatever? And he when she questions him about like the furniture store plan that he has, that's when he loses it and he's like, what do you even care? You you left, and that's where he starts to show his emotions about her leaving, and he's really, this is this is what it's about. It's like I need you, I miss you, I loved you, I'm you know you left you. But he you know that he's She's the only one he's safe to reveal his emotions to. And so that's why when he's like, I got I got to get out of here, and let's you know, he goes to take out his anger at the carnival or whatever.
It just ends up being.
Well what he says, because I wrote it down because I love that scene too. He says, don't come down your neck like you give a damn And then Allison says, you don't really think you can scare me away that easily, do you?
Yeah?
And it's very sweet, Yeah, because most of their game has been him sort of chasing her and her sort of being so it's nice to see it reversed where he's sort of acting and she's saying, I'm here and I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. It's good to see the show.
I mean at this point, you know, which I've been wondering in other scenes as well, Why can't why haven't they what's keeping them from being together? Honestly, as human I talked about, I get the conceit of the script and YadA, YadA, YadA.
You know what did Chuck say?
Because it's at one point it's too much, like it just doesn't make sense.
It makes no sense.
Well, now that's what's hard about these shows. And you know, I just watched Bones and then I watched Castle and Nick Conceited is the same in both. Right, everyone knows that these two lead characters are in love. They have to keep them apart for season.
Have to keep them apart.
Yeah, you have to keep them apart. You have to just is the one that loved me? In this scene where I said, uh, it seems so often so much goes unsaid, but so many times we hear it. Maybe you didn't say I love you, but he heard you anyway. I'm like, hello, yeah.
I mean And she says there's an invisible string between two people, and this is he's plocking about his dad, people who literally and.
He doesn't bring it up, and like, there you wanted to kiss?
So I get that they're This means the writers are being very successful at what they're.
Supposed to do because we're so frustrated.
But I just know, yeah, at this point, because we can see very clearly what they're.
Not married at this point, I mean, especially after We'll see what happens now that she's left Keith sin Seattle.
Here's the thing, like, we're not interested in each other at the same time, right, there's something going on that always keeps us a little bit a little bit. Now, we want to keep that tension because that's what keeps you coming back week after week.
We'll see what happens next week.
Ye, we'll see what happens if they.
We know by the end of this episode.
That she decides to stay. Yeah.
Yeah. You see her going up the stairs and you're like, oh boy, there she goes again, and she just turns around and says, I hate it. I don't care about the At least she didn't say I didn't care about the environment.
Because he is an environment. She did, I don't care about this.
Don't even he oh, the Pacific Northwest or something.
It was something that.
I was like the Olympic Peninsula or something, the Olympic.
She was like time alone was Keith was not our friend, like it did not when it's just its in her friends, because it's just Keith and this is not good Keith.
Yeah, can we talk about the philosophical conversation between Billy Joe about heaven when she Joe comes over to deliver a coffee pot and it's sort of like a peace offering, and you see that, like both of them are like, hey, let's let's get past this and let's be friends or whatever.
It was super sweet gesture and stuff. And he invites her in and they're setting up the coffee pot and they end up he's and she's like, yeah, you can use me as a sounding board and he's like, okay, sounding board. And then I think he's going to ask something like let me ask you a question. I think he's going to ask something about Alison. And instead of that, he's like, where do you think people go when they die? It's like what the question was so funny, Like I was expecting a.
Comp I thought it was gonna be like, what how was it for you when your mom died? Like I thought I was going to have something related to the deaths of both of their parents.
I was thinking, very surfacing, very melrosine.
I was expecting that, and said I got like a deep, like you know, tangential philosophical thing.
I wonder if the writers was right on his father just died of a heart attack and her mother died.
I thought, you know, I'm.
Just telling you how shallow I was and what my expectation was.
Yeah, okay, that's fair.
You No, I love it, but I thought I was. I was wondering if one of the writers had just lost a parent, because it felt like one of those where you're grappling with that, and I thought that might make a good Mel's minute if we want to talk about that after. But when you're really grappling with that, and where do people go when you lose someone who means a lot to you? And so they wanted to sort of work it out on the page because it was not a normal Melrose scene at all. You guys played it beautifully. It was such a beautiful scene, but I thought, these are ideas we don't normally grapple with. It. Is Michael going to have sex with Kimberly. That's kind of where we.
Keep it usually, right, But I also all these has layers that I didn't know it had because I kept thinking through this episode, which was very emotional and about something that everyone can relate to or will relate to one day, but the.
Loss of a parent.
That that when I thought back to before watching these when I thought back to Malrows, I thought it was just who's going to sleep with who and when and then they're going to betraying. I thought it was just that level. But I'm seeing by watching the show again, it was multiple levels and these writers were really talented at doing that and this to me, Uh, yes, it was different than a typical you know, but I feel like it was. I think it's part of the glue and the depth that that also had to be there to make Melrose's success that it was. It just had to be something had to be a little deeper because we all can relate, you know, to these questions.
It's not just who slept with who, or it just becomes a farce.
Right Well, it did sort of just come like just as our episodes are ramping up and getting to be more you know, like just the back stubbing that had just started the episode before, not the backstop, but you know, like the I'm going to say what I think right to your face and that stuff was starting to come out, and then to have it drop into this energy was just such a shift.
But also to have it be so authentic, like sometimes Melrose tries to has tried to take on deeper things and you kind of roll your eyes, like this was really thoughtful. It was.
It's a very good point, Joe, Like that was right with it. Summer camp. I think having a summer camp. Yeah, that was.
There was a little something like the details of that summer camp is you know how I envision it, and there's soda and a dog.
But before that, it was.
Like an energy.
You rejoin the energy, and there's a lot of that in the show that there was thing theme about regressing to a child. Billy talks about it with Alison. They go back to your childhood bedroom, your dad's dead, you kind of like regress back to these you know. And so I felt like Joe was very childlike I always when I was a kid.
I thought it was summer camp.
I don't know, I just thought that innocent kind of that was a really vulnerable thing to share. Like she was just really honest about like this is a kind of just the way I envision it, but she just shared it with such an intimate and vulnerable sharing between the two of them.
Yeah. I like seeing it how it impacted the characters. I loved it that Matt took his dad out to lunch, and the scene sort of came out of nowhere, but it was really you know, I like Billy's saying my dad died. His reaction is I need to live my dad's life. And Matt's reaction is I don't want to miss this time, and he actually says to his dad, I want to hear about your life. How is your work? Like he finally, as a grown man, there's that moment right where we see our parents as people and we get to it's not just them asking us how our day is, we go and how are you and actually ask who they are, Like I really think at this point in my life with my mom, I'm so lucky, like we're really good friends. We had to re meet as adults and have it be the two of us as friends, because for so long it was like I needed to be my mom and I rose, oh wait, she is my mom obviously, but she's also a funny, smart, interesting woman in her own right. Yeah, And I'm so glad I get to meet her in that way. I thought I loved that scene with mattin is Dead.
Yeah, I was really glad that scene is in there, and I think you're right, like the relationship you have with your parents when you become an adult is so different than the women you have as a child, but of course it's colored by that, and so like there it's such a gratifying relationship when.
Well hopefully not always, not always. I mean for me, I.
Had to really finally just let them off the hook, you know what I mean, like you really have to like let them be. They were young when they had a kid, and Jesus Daphne, like you can't, you know, you just have to let them be human beings and with all their faults, and they try their best and they're so great at these certain parts, you know, certain areas of being a parent, and now they're friends and you know, you're they get older and you're taking care of them in ways.
That you can.
But I thought that was really great to Courtney that scene and that I kind of ads to what I was saying about this is like this kind of deeper level in this whole episode, you know, like with the lines with our characters, because you did think usually Matt's having a scene with his dad because there's something to be gained, you know, there's like a thing I need you to do. I need you to see who I am and accept me for being gay, or I need you to do that. It was like, no, I just want to know who you are. And that's the vulnerability we have when someone dies, like I just want to connect.
Well, yeah, because this letter that's read at the table with Alison there at this family brunch and Billy's mom says she can't bear to, you know, read this letter herself. Could could Alison read it out loud? She's like, you know, I just.
I must have asked for her lines that episode.
I got to read the letter, the letter, but like she's like, you're you know, it's like you remember the family anyway, and so she, you know, sort of shares this thing. But it's like the things unsaid, the things that didn't get to be said to your face. Here you you have this opportunity to hear them now. These are the words that your father wanted to say to you, and he put it in a letter and you get to hear them now. Like it was such important information for ability to hear. It was the very thing he needed to hear, and it made it okay that you know, the furniture store was no longer something he was going to pursue. It was like it was validating his desire to be a writer and all the things that he just absolutely needed to hear. But like that feeling of remorse, like what if I don't say the things I need to say while I'm still alive? You know that Matt took that and it's like, I'm I'm going to make sure we connect.
It was really nice closure on that.
I love that letter too. I felt like I also thought it was really complicated and interesting and they're saying, we don't you know, the dad was saying, we don't communicate well in life. You're the writer, I'm not. But basically, I'm proud of you and I love you, which is all he ever wanted, right and posthumously he wants to work in the store to make his dad proud and find out his dad was already proud. Then he can let it go and I think we would all find out, right, Like that's the thing about conversations when you you meet as peers, you get to just say, no, I'm proud of you as a person, like I love you as a person. If we're lucky enough to have parents and kids that are available for that relationship, it's so sweet, and you felt like when Matt's dad seems so charmed, you know, and he go, yeah, let's have lunch first. But you could tell that he's a very good actor, their connections very yeah, I love this, tell that he took it in in the right way and that you go, oh, this is the beginning of a really sweet friendship for you.
You could just see him at dinner that night talking to his wife like, I have the loveliest yeah with our son, dear.
Yeah, it's so because if you think it means if.
You think it means something to you the child, imagine what it means to the older person, the parent. You know, they're older, they're in their middle age, they're getting older.
It means I know, yes, yes, I know. So I guess next episode we should imagine that this Michael and Kimberly thing is only you know, going to keep escalating, right, I mean, I it was so right in front. I can only guess that we're going to see so much more of it in the next episode.
And I'm thinking that Ronda took care of ray Don Cheng's character Carrie because Camber permission to fire him. She's like, you got to fire this woman who's trying to get get you and he's like, I love when you're jealous. She's like, this isn't funny. You got to fire her. And then he says, we'll.
Let you do that, baby, and she's like.
Okay, I will, And so you know, she went back and I don't I don't know if we see her again, but she took care of that, and I'm curious to see what happens with that. With Carrie gone, and I'm sure all the florals are going to leave too, because remember there was that scene with Carrie coming in and talking.
About all the there's so many flowers in this episode, like flowers every Yeah.
I mean I just had this vision of Terrence with all these.
Flowers, which he love, which is so annoying, Like, oh my god, stop. All right, We're we're getting so invested in all of our characters.
I love it. Well spring for us, we just had spring.
So it's not it's apropos that we had a springtime with flowers abound in an episode exactly.
It's absolutely perfect.
Well, we can probably expect a complete tonal departure for the next episode. Probably I can't wait.
So I can't wait, either of you. Guys.
Always great to see you always.
Seven is next?
Isn't that crazy?
In one season, twenty seven episodes and it's not even the end.
We're not even done, so all right, Even that.
Episode was called endgame, This is not the end, people, There will be more.
And it may have been like it would be interesting to see.
We should pay attention as we go forward, like how many of these were just in case it was the end?
And then her, I'm sure we're supposed to be canceled by now.
Right, she has a theory every episode is going to have.
I'm sure this was the end. No, my dear, you have a few more comings.
Well, this one says it was end game, but this is not the end. We will be back for more still the place, including our next Melrose minute. And thanks as always for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe and download.
Please subscribe.
We'll see you next time.
Everybody, see you next time.
Bye,
