Episode 108--"weaning"

Writer

Liberty Godshall

Director

John Pasquin

Air Dates

12/8/87, 7/26/88

Guest Stars


Sound wavs from this episode

Amy Benedict as Amy; Rosalind Cash as Val Shilliday; Marg Helgenberger as Cooper; Meg Wittner as Alex Miller; Clive Rosengren as Larry Richards

Synopsis

Hope returns to work and the household adjusts.

Summary

During a business dinner with one of Michael's big clients, Hope begins secretly seething because she has no career and Janey is weaning herself, which causes her to get on a soapbox. Michael tries to clue in as best he can and works a more sympathetic tone into his next commerical shoot, which Hope promptly hates and does a typically bad job of telling him about.

In the midst of trying to work out if she wants to go back to work at Synergy (the controversial environmental magazine where she was an editor ten months ago), Hope has a great conversation with Ellyn while sitting on the hood of the red Cherokee. Hope finally caves in and hires Amy the babysitter to take up the slack so that she can go back to work at Synergy as a parttime researcher. She and Michael end up exhausted and only seeing each other late at night. She gets frustrated, can't write the reports as well as before, and somehow ends up admitting that she doesn't really want to go back to work just yet and can't quite reconcile herself to it.

Meanwhile, Ellyn and Woodman go away to New England for the weekend and she deals with more relational issues.

Notes

Everyone at work calls Hope "Murdoch," which is apparently her maiden name.

Music

Fashion

Hope wears large, I mean huge, glasses while writing and looking productive.

Quotes

"I feel like I was sick for two weeks and everyone learned long division while I was gone." --Hope on maternity leave

--"I feel like that woman in the novel who's about to have a nervous breakdown, but no one notices, not even her husband." --Hope

--"That'd be hard with you." --Michael

Analysis

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The dashed line marks the point where Lisa Stevenson Blackwell's original version of this page ended, and where Bob Fahey began adding material.

Two scenes edited in Lifetime version. - Luiza Hirsch (Luiza@gmx.org) has both the Lifetime versions and the unedited versions aired in Germany. She describes these cuts:

A short scene about 4 minutes into the episode. Michael is rushing to get to a business meeting with the diaper people, looking for misplaced documents, finds them, kisses Hope goodbye. Hope (with Janey on her arm) asks (in a tone that could be either mocking or real) if he couldn’t stay a while and "play with us. We feel soooo abandoned."

Michael, as he walks out: Other wives ask their husband 'Why aren’t you at work? Where’s the money? Couldn’t you start getting interested in a standard of living we’ll never have?'

The scene at the restaurant was cut short. After Hope gets off the phone with the babysitter, she’s seen in the ladies’ room trying to dry her blouse at the blow dryer, with Michael peeping in. Apparently she’s unsuccessful since they both come back to the table with their heads hanging low, clearly stressed out, and excuse themselves to the others. They commit a blunder when Hope says that Michael isn’t feeling well and Michael simultaneously gives a different excuse that I couldn’t make out.

Sound wavs from this episode - All sound names starting with "08"


Return to the Season One index

Return to the Bedford Falls index