"Perfidy in Blue"

"Perfidy in Blue"
May 11, 1982
B+

The only L & S story written by Laurie Gelman shocked me as being not only one of the funniest of the series, but one of the most outrageous, yes, here at the end of Season Seven.  It starts mundanely enough with Shirley feeling guilty for having "borrowed" and lost Laverne's favorite blue purse.  (She pretends that she's talking to Carmine on the phone about "the situation in Southeast Asia," i.e. the Vietnam War.)  The purse has a snake on it that's like the tattoo of Laverne's latest boyfriend, who said he won't show her his "snake" unless she shows him her "purse."  This is just a hint of the innuendos that are about to fly like Squiggy's moths.

Laverne goes out on her date and Shirley falls asleep while watching Twin Kitchens, a soap opera, on the bedroom TV set, and of course she has a soap-operatic dream, about the Baublenik family.  Frank plays billionaire Fritz Baublenik, while Squiggy is his son, Sqven, and Shirley is his daughter-in-law, Sharlene.  Already, we see that Shirley's subconscious is shuffling around reality, and we're only getting started here.

Sqven and Sharlene are, the persistent narrator tells us, celebrating "their fifth and deliriously happy wedding anniversary."  Before you go, So, wait, Shirley is secretly a Squigley shipper?!, things get shaken up further.  Laverne slinks in as Lu Ann Del Duit, Sqven's "very personal secretary."  She pushes Sharlene into I presume the soup course and plants one on Sqven.  (If there are previous scenes where Laverne initiates a kiss with Squiggy, I'm blanking out on them.)

"Then there was Leonardo de Chevy," which I almost thought was going to be a time-traveler's Leonardo DiCaprio joke.  He's the "family's loyal if clumsy chauffeur."  He sits down at the dinner table and spills a drink, so Sharlene dries him off, and he says, "Thank you, Missy."

And lastly, there's Rhoda the Maid, "Fritz's favorite handy-person."  (If you're wondering where Carmine is, be patient.)  She is of course Rhonda in a French maid's uniform, and she offers "a nice, young Beaujolais," but Fritz tells her, "Later.  Right now I'd like some wine."  So Fronda is a thing after all, at least in characters' subconsciouses.

Lu Ann proposes a toast to "the happy couple," who pretend to bill and coo.  Fritz thinks "the lovebirds need a little time to themselves," so Sqven and Lu Ann make out, at the table (!), and Sharlene and Leonardo look like they're about to do the same.  Fritz explains he means Sqven and Sharlene, so they go back to pretending to bill and coo.

SHARLENE: Oh, My Darling, I've never known such happiness.  Have you ever known such happiness?
SQVEN: Only once, My Dear.  And that was in an airport in Tacoma.

(Michael McKean can be spotted trying not to laugh as Leonardo hides behind a potted palm, so either this was an ad-lib by Lander, or the delivery got to his long-time comedy partner.  I found it hilarious myself, but then I've been to SeaTac.)

As Sqven heads upstairs, he and Sharlene exchange endearments, but as soon as he's gone, she calls him a doorknob, declares her unhappiness, and starts making out with Leonardo.  He even makes out with her hand when she says she can't go on like this, "under Sqven's watchful eye."  He suggests, "How about under the piano?"  And they kiss passionately.

She tells him that the only way they can live happily ever after is if she dies.  He asks if a divorce wouldn't be easier, but she says that Sqven would never agree to a divorce because it would "smear the good name of Baublenik."  She suspects that her husband has been sharing his "honor" with "that hussy secretary of his."  Lu Ann enters unseen and starts taking down notes of Sharlene's plot.

Leonardo worries that Sharlene passing away would put a crimp in their relationship, but she tells her "little jellybean" how she's going to fake her death.  She'll get a drug from Carlisle the pharmacist (guess who) that will put her out for two or three days.  She and Leonardo kiss again and then she tells him to bury her with all her jewelry, so they can live off of it when they run away together.  She asks him if he's ever known such happiness, and he replies, "Just once.  In a bus station in Tacoma."  She remembers it well and they leave to "go relive it."

Sqven emerges from upstairs and he and Lu Ann call each other Darling and Dear several times.  Then he jumps on her with his legs wrapped around her, which Laverne sometimes does to guys.  (Marshall must be pretty strong, because she holds Lander a good 25 seconds.)  And they kiss passionately.

LU ANN: Ah, alone at last!
SQVEN: What are you talking about?  I'm here.

She sets him down and tells him that she just overheard his wife planning to run off with his chauffeur.  Even though you can see the line coming, Lander sells "Oh, no, this is terrible!  Good chauffeurs are so hard to find."  (And I'm pretty sure he cracks up Marshall, too, although she's able to play off her amused smile as affection.)

Lu Ann tells Sqven that she'll drive him anywhere he wants to go.  He says she really understands him, and they kiss again.  He says he loves her and she calls him her "little sugar tart."  She says they need a plan, and she kisses him again.  He says he "can't come up with a thing," and then, ahem, the organ plays a note, and he reacts like something has indeed come up.  She says she has a plan, but kisses him instead of telling him what it is.  (The communication in their relationship is apparently not as strong as in Sharlene & Leonardo's.)  The narrator, who's been quiet for awhile, wonders, "What evil lurks behind Lu Ann's lips?"

The scene with Carlisle is the weakest part of the episode, although it's not bad.  Lu Ann manages to order a more lethal drug, and Carlisle refers to a lot of what I suspect are '60s-era commercials.  At least Laverne wears a stunning leopard-print outfit.  (And poor Carmine wears a hairnet.  Sometimes you have to wonder why Mekka stuck around.)

We return to Twin Kitchens Manor.  (The interior is the girls' apartment, the exterior is some white building in what I'm guessing is the Hollywood Hills.)  Sharlene reminds Leonardo of their plan and slips the drugs she's had delivered into her own drink.  Lu Ann enters and Sharlene tells her she's certainly dressed to kill.  She also says that Lu Ann's "unusual" earrings are very her.  Lu Ann tells her, "I used to have a purse just like that.  How very me also."  (It is in fact the blue purse that Shirley has lost, resurfacing in her dream.)

Lu Ann spills Sharlene's drink, and then, as Sharlene and Leonardo talk in whispers, Lu Ann doses another glass.  Sqven enters and almost drinks from that glass, so Lu Ann spills that glass, too.  As Sharlene and Leonardo again talk in whispers, Lu Ann does yet another glass, as Sqven watches closely.

The more traditional pairs, but that's not what Shirley dreams about.

Lu Ann tries to serve that drink to Sharlene, but Sharlene excuses herself and Leonardo so she can speak to him about "motor mountings."  They step aside and he watches as she doses her drink.  Then she drinks her drink and collapses to the floor.  Lu Ann yells, "There'll be one less for dinner tonight, Rhoda!"

In the next scene, Sharlene is lying on a chaise longue.  Sqven enters and seems genuinely upset, although as soon as he says, "To see you lying there, not moving," you know he's going to say it reminds him of their honeymoon.  Lu Ann enters and tells him to stop kissing up to Sharlene, "kiss up to me."  He obliges.  An angered and conscious Sharlene pushes on Lu Ann's head, and then Lu Ann tells Sqven, "I love it when you're rough."  He replies, "So do I."  She reminds him of when he danced on her back with his golf shoes and then we get a few double entendres about golf: "tee off," "stuck in the sand trap," and his "putter."

They exit behind the curtain and we cut to the funeral.  (Eulogist Paul Barselou previously was a Mailman, while Narrator Harvey L. Kahn was Dickie.)  We hear Sqven making sounds of pleasure, and it turns out he again jumped onto Lu Ann with his legs around her.  They enter from behind the curtain and it looks like either she gave him hickeys, or her lipstick is really dark.

The Eulogist rhetorically asks, "What can you say about Sharlene Baublenik?"  Squiggy eagerly answers, "She's dead!" and the other "mourners" tell him, "Good answer!", like this is Family Feud.  (McKean can again be spotted breaking character, a character he's been playing with serious intensity almost throughout, because his buddy amuses him.)  The Eulogist gives up, says, "Amen," and leaves.

Rhoda wants to go play "Attila the Hun and the slave girl" with Fritz.  He tells her that first they have to pay their last respects, which he does literally, by dropping money onto the "corpse," to bribe St. Peter with.

Leonardo tells "Missy" he enjoyed driving her around, and she says she wants her money back from Carlisle the pharmacist.  She tells him to gas up the Edsel so they can "blow this jerkwater town."  He objects that he's already put gas in the Cadillac, but she says she's died for him and the least he can do is "suck a little gas" for her.  He irritably says, "Yes, Missy!"

Then it's the grieving husband's turn.  He calls her his "little swan song" and confides that he was only unfaithful "once.  A week.  For five years."  Then Lu Ann and Rhoda fight over Sharlene's jewelry.

Fritz breaks up the fight and says that the family has been living a lie.  Rhoda thinks this is about them "seeing each other."  Sqven asks if his father knows about him and Lu Ann.  Fritz doesn't mean that either.

LU ANN: You mean you know that I poisoned Sharlene?
FRITZ: You what??
LU ANN: (quietly) I guess not.
SHARLENE: (sitting up) You mean you know I'm not dead?

Everyone is shocked, even Leonardo.  Sqven says, "Oh, no!  Oh, no!  Oh, it's good to see you up and around again, Darling."  (Marshall almost breaks character again, darting her tongue out to keep from laughing.)

Fritz says that these are the wrong lies.  He reveals, "You are all my children," obviously a reference to the famous soap, but with a very twisted application here.  The two young couples part in shock and disgust.  At least they didn't know they were committing incest, but what are we to make of Fritz when Rhoda wails, "Oh, Papa!  Oh, Papa!"

LEONARDO: You mean to say that we've all...?
SHARLENE: With each other?
FRITZ: (cheerfully) Yeah!
LU ANN: More than once?
FRITZ: Sure.
SQVEN: (putting his arms around his wife and mistress) Hey, lighten up, Sisters.  We had a good time.

Now of course this is disgusting, but it's also funny, and sort of in character.  Leonardo is implying that they've all been together (homosexually as well?), because Lenny is (at least in Shirley's subconscious) both awkward about sex and surprisingly open-minded.  (When Helmut called him a "fruitcake" for wanting to hug Squiggy's long-lost father, Lenny just reacted to the rudeness, not the homophobia.)  Shirley, who usually can't accept the idea of Lenny and Squiggy paired with either her or Laverne, concentrates on the "each other" part.  Laverne, who's always been ambivalent about her "bimbo-ness," emphasizes the "more than once," like it's the frequency that matters.   (Once, a week, for five years.)  And Squiggy, who is obviously the biggest pervert on the show, literally embraces the idea.

Sharlene pushes Sqven away and says that her own sister tried to kill her.  Lu Ann says sisters are always doing "petty" little things to each other.  She points out that Sharlene stole her blue purse, and then the other characters take up the accusation.

Shirley awakens from her nightmare and it turns out that Laverne found the purse on the floor after rolling off the couch during her date.  It's got Shirley's "lucky Bible" and her "figure enhancers" (socks) inside.  Shirley fervently apologizes and Laverne says it's OK.  Shirley says that borrowing leads to lying, which leads to poisoning, which leads to murder.  So Laverne calls her a "baublenik," meaning "an airhead, a silly person."  Shirley asks if Laverne has been eavesdropping on her dreams.  And thus ends the episode and the season.

I don't know if this was the last episode shot, but it should've been, offering as it does a topsy-turvy view of the relationships we've come to know over seven years.  (Well, two for anything to do with Rhonda.)  The ships are shuffled and somehow plausible.  And whatever offscreen rivalry Penny M. and Cindy W. felt is dealt with onscreen in the exaggerated world of a soap opera.

I haven't talked about physical comedy much on this blog, which I realize is odd, considering that that's what this series is best known for.  It's partly that slapstick doesn't appeal to me much compared to verbal humor, and partly that I think a lot of the physical humor hasn't aged well.  I can still appreciate the skill with which it's done, and there are some good sight gags here, especially with Leonardo's clumsiness.

I feel like the main foursome are very strong in this episode, as individuals and as a group.  (How Williams kept from cracking up at Lander, I'll never know.)  That they had to essentially form a brand-new dynamic and sustain it for approximately fifteen minutes is impressive.  Foster is probably the weakest actor on the episode (Mekka has weaker material), although making Frank an amiable billionaire is certainly casting against type.

Everyone, cast and crew, originally agreed that Season Seven would be their last, so this would've been a strange but satisfying episode to go out on.  Laverne & Shirley was a respectable #20 in the ratings that year.  (Happy Days was somehow #18, while nurse Terri brought Three's Company back up to #4.)

My grades for the season range from C- to this surprising B+, and for the first time this series averages a C+ rather than a B-, although it's a high C+.  An episode like "Perfidy" reminds me how good the show can be when it gives us farce, and a chance for L, L, S, and S to cut loose.  At the same time, there is definitely a conflict this season, I'd almost call it growing pains (no, not Growing Pains), with the "girls" and "boys" growing older, dealing with the past, not sure how to move on into the future.  It would've been interesting if they had pursued either path, or both, in Season Eight.

But, as we all know, Cindy Williams fell for the Bill Hudson razzle-dazzle show, and nothing was ever the same again....