March 30, 1976
C+
This Arthur Silver story is unfocused and doesn't live up to its potential. It does, however, manage to feature both Mark Harmon and Robert Hays, as Victor and Tom respectively. More notably for the history of the show, Carole White is Girl "A" here but is recognizable, despite the hair, makeup, and costume as the girls' future frenemy Rosie Greenbaum.
Carmine returns from a boxing championship in New York City with a new girlfriend, who also lives in Milwaukee. Shirley has never been in "I love you" love with him, but she always thought that she'd find someone before he did. Now she enters the slump of the title, partly because her standards are higher than Laverne's, and partly because she's always had Carmine. So Laverne gets them a double date, not having learned her lesson from the bank robbers. This leads to an offscreen fight with tough chicks (Girls A and B), in which Laverne almost loses her L. In the last scene, Carmine offers to be a big brother to the girls and still protect them.
I would've rather have seen an episode with Shirley really dealing with the loss of Carmine as back-up boyfriend. Still, there are moments I like here, including of course Lenny and Squiggy's persistence in buying the girls' nonexistent Jeep. (They show up at the door with flowers, but it's not shippy.)
Michael L. McManus, who's Moose here, would be Herb Prange the next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment