"Grand Opening"

"Grand Opening"
December 9, 1980
B-

Ruth Bennett's first of two L & S stories has a few overlapping threads.  Although Frank and Edna said in the season premiere that they were opening their new restaurant in a couple weeks, it's not until this episode that they, yes, have their grand opening.  (Maybe there was a soft opening earlier.)  Enough time has passed that Shirley has found a job and collected her first Californian paycheck.  Laverne hasn't had any luck in her job search, although she had fun exploring Disneyland with the boys after she applied there.  (Marshall, McKean, and Lander are freaking adorable singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme.)  Shirley is trying to be patient, but it's tough when Laverne won't clean the apartment and she keeps spending money, including on calls to Milwaukee.  (Terry Buttafucco is name-checked and apparently still working at Shotz, but I guess the loading dock didn't have lay-offs.)  Also meanwhile, Carmine is going to visit and he ends up deciding to move to Burbank, in with Sonny, who he's just met.  (No word on the dance studio, but he could've sold that in '63 for all we know.)

Sonny offers Laverne $10 to be part of his knife-throwing act, and she agrees to do it for $20, thinking that she's in real danger.  He doesn't explain then or later the trick in the act, so when Shirley takes over for Sonny, after he's hurt doing a stunt, Laverne thinks Shirl must really be mad at her.  She offers Lenny and Squiggy "anything" if they'll free her, and Lenny looks at Squiggy hopefully, but Squiggy says that's not much of an offer from a dead woman.  Everything works out OK of course, and Sonny apologizes to Laverne and asks her out on what I presume is their first date, although it becomes a double date with Shirley and Carmine when an "unplanned pregnancy" leads to Shirley being fired.  (The pregnancy of her boss's sister, who has a husband who needs a job.)

So now the core cast of seven are all out in California, plus the two newbies, but the show is going to throw in a waitress in law school as well.  (Becky Gonzalez would play Rosita once more.  At least she gets lines, unlike poor Mary at the Pizza Bowl, whoever that actress was.)