"A Visit to the Cemetery"

"A Visit to the Cemetery"
November 14, 1978
A-

The best episode of the series so far (maybe ever) was written by Leschin & Duclon and it features just the core cast of seven, and although it is mostly about Laverne, everyone gets something to do.  In fact, Laverne is the last to enter in the first scene and we get a very silly-- and kinky!-- magic act, I think to lull us into expecting farce rather than dramedy, giving more impact when she comes in upset.

The Great Sguiggini and his "lovely" assistant Lenny are practicing a magic trick.  (Why?  I don't know.  Maybe there was going to be another talent show, or maybe they hoped to get rich quick.  Do we really need an excuse?)  Carmine and Shirley are playing along with it, because they seem quite content to be tied together by "the King of Bondage" and are smooching during the patter.  Squiggy throws his bedsheet over them and then Lenny reveals that Squiggy is now literally between Carmine and Shirley, and she's unknowingly kissing Squiggy.  I expected this to be Squiggy's plan all along, but he seems as surprised as anyone, although Shirley is of course revolted when she realizes. 

As Lenny tries to free them, Laverne comes in and then her father calls.  It's very slapsticky with the four friends clustered in the living room, yelling to Laverne and her dad, and we still don't know why Laverne is upset, but it seems to be related to her dad.  She tells Shirley to make the guys leave, and just her yelling, "Get out!" is enough to undo the knots.

Shirley drags Laverne down to the Pizza Bowl to make peace with her father, although we and Shirley still don't know what the issue is.  Edna has corralled Frank as well, and we see that the DeFazios are both stubborn.  They do make up, and we still don't know what the fight was about, and the viewer could assume that it's about Mr. DeFazio pressuring his daughter yet again about marriage.

Then it's revealed that he wants her to make the visit of the title.  Her mother's 50th birthday is coming up (so born in 1910?) and Laverne never goes to the cemetery.  She talks to Shirley about how hard it was growing up without a mother, learning all the "woman stuff," like how to shave her legs.  I vaguely remember this episode having an impact on me at age 10, like when Mindy would later talk about her mother on Mork & Mindy.  If you're a motherless girl (I lost mine when I was 3), you never do really get over it.  (Not that it doesn't affect boys, just not in the same way.)

Shirley tries her best to relate, and we know that she has a difficult relationship with both her parents.  But it takes Lenny to really understand what Laverne is going through.  His abusive mother abandoned him when he was 5 and he says he was angry at her for a long time, and maybe Laverne is angry at her mother, too.  Laverne slaps Lenny for this and then immediately feels remorse.  They talk some more and she says, "You know, Len, for a guy who keeps falling off the roof [mentioned but not seen earlier], you got some pretty good smarts."

He smiles when he sees her come over to kiss him, but winces in advance when she heads towards the cheek she slapped.  She sees this and chooses the other cheek.  He giggles at the affection and she tells him not to.  And then he stumbles out of the apartment, maybe because he's clumsy or maybe because he is always really affected when Laverne kisses him.  As with the "proposal" scene in Season Two, Marshall and McKean play this whole scene just right and it adds an extra layer to their characters and to the relationship. 

Laverne does go to the cemetery, where Frank is talking to "Josephine."  He hugs Laverne and tells her she's beautiful.  Then he gives her some privacy and she talks to her mother, with a cute interruption from Shirley, to provide comic relief and show how supportive Shirley is.  Laverne even makes the silly face that used to amuse her mother.

And in the tag, everyone abandons Squiggy in a trunk for free beer at the Pizza Bowl, because this is still a goofy sitcom.