"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.)

"Rocky Ragu"

"Rocky Ragu" [sic]
January 26, 1982
C+

Maybe it's that some lines are repeated, but of all the things to recall from Season Seven, it's Carmine's dialogue of the movie within the television script (written by Albert Goodman, who has only soundtrack credits otherwise on IMDB), like "You're the one who makes me sweat in a cold shower," that came back to me today.  Rhonda is up for the role of a boxer's girlfriend, so she suggests that Carmine try out for the lead.  He says he doesn't want anyone else to know except Shirley, in case he doesn't get the part, and yet they rehearse at Cowboy Bill's and he lets the Squignowski Talent Agency manage him.  (And the boys actually help!)  This is just so that we can have the farcical set-up that Laverne thinks Carmine is cheating on Shirley with Rhonda, and Laverne can repeatedly slap him.  There's also some Lavmine, with her mending his torn pants and later "going for the meat," to put on his eye, the latter leading to Shirley slapping him.  Not a very happy episode for Carmine (especially when the movie is cancelled), but at least Mekka is given more to do than lately.

And, yes, that's 27-year-old Julie Brown (a couple years before she released "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun") as the Secretary.  She'd have the role of Patti later in the year.