"The Note"

I'd bet $100 that this was part of the one of the school sets for The Brady Bunch.

"The Note"
October 19, 1982
B-

I like this episode, too, the penultimate one written by Judy Ervin Pioli.  It offers a nice blend of humor and sentiment, with a sense of history that a writer less familiar with these characters probably couldn't have managed.  That said, it is the first episode without Shirley, so it's got a bittersweet feeling.

I literally got chills watching the opening credits, like I'd been slapped across the face with a time machine.  When the multi-ethnic group of children marched across the screen chanting the girls' rhyme, it all came back to me, that initial jolt of What??? in October of '82.  Then Laverne was dancing by herself, doing a bunch of stuff from earlier seasons by herself, while the lyrics were still in the plural, while Shirley was still in the title.  The rest of the cast do appear later, with and without her, but it was a shock to the system, then and now.

And there were lines I remembered, like Squiggy's tasteless one about "incense."  I vaguely remember the plot that Shirley's left, with a short, impersonal goodbye note.  Laverne is hurt and angry.  Her friends, who are apparently of the "if your dog dies, get a puppy" school of mourning, send over potential roommates.  But only when Laverne finds the rest of the note, a couple pages' worth, can she move on, honoring nineteen years of best-friendship, ten years of living together.

And the episode sends out random romantic signals like ships that are lost at sea.  Squiggy pursues Rhonda (of course), Lenny pursues Rhonda (more surprising, but not totally new), Frank doesn't pursue Rhonda (thank God).  Lenny wants to dance with Laverne but she chooses Carmine.  Squiggy suggests (with Lenny's full approval naturally) that Laverne move in across the hall.  And the Lavmine ship is teased but more subtly than when Shirley was actually around.  Yet, Shirley wrote about Carmine in her P.S., something Laverne couldn't share with her father, the boys, or Rhonda.

Not shippy per se, but the reveal that Lenny has been telling Squiggy an installment of a bedtime story every night for eight years certainly shows some devotion.  (Note that Lenny has broken out the Bullwinkle pajamas from "Road to Burbank," so he does actually own them and they weren't just a product of Squiggy's imagination.)

The casting of Laverne's potential roommates is interesting.  Julie Brown returns, this time as Patti.  Penny's sister, Ronny Hallin, plays the Laverne-like Maxine.  (Yes, there's an Andrews Sisters joke.)  Bag Lady Kathryn Fuller was Ernestine at the Vegas wedding chapel.  And frequent director Tom Trbovich plays Tom.  (This episode's director, Gabrielle Alice James, wouldn't do any other directing.)