Episode 113--"separation"

Writer Susan Shilliday Director Paul Haggis Air Dates 1/26/88, 9/6/88 Guest Star

Amy Benedict as Amy

Elliot leaves Nancy and, amazingly enough, she doesn't fall apart.

There is some tension apparent as Nancy behaves in a somewhat innocent, silly way in social settings--screwing up stories and jokes at parties, and also at Ethan's parent teacher conference. Elliot suddenly leaves to take time "to think", appearing very confused and upset while Nancy seems to be shocked but coping numbly. Hope covers to go get Ethan and tries to help, but Nancy is forging ahead like supermom. Elliot stays with Hope and Michael and seems in limbo, getting Michael and Gary to go out with him to a bar. Eventually he gets in the way a lot, eats all the breakfast food, and invites the Wrath of Hope. Hope is finally caught in the middle as Nancy finally vents her side as does Elliot as well. Elliot and Nancy are separated, finally, and he remains with Hope and Michael, as the loss begins to sink in.

As a strange subplot, Hope's Aunt Libby has died and left her enormous hope chest to her in the will. Somewhat disillusioned after all these years, Hope alternately loves it and then tries to give it away.

• Grendel the dog appears
• The Westons drive a station wagon hatch back
• Hope asked for the trunk when she was 12
• Opener clip of Nancy reading to kids
• Michael's favorite toys were Lincoln Logs (also Gary's favorite)

• When Hope slams down the empty carton of milk (angry because Elliot drank it all) and then in the very next cut she's got it tucked under her arm.
• After Elliot and Nancy battle it out in the Steadman's front yard, Hope gets up and goes inside about FIVE TIMES!!
• Michael's dad is stated by Hope to have left when he was 19 which contradicts later episodes.

Elliot wears a jacket pin.

The song playing in the bar where Elliot drags Gary and Michael has been dubbed over in the Lifetime version (no telling what it was originally).

--"Here comes the tone." --Michael

--"What tone?" --Hope

--"The Presbyterian thin-lipped tone." --Michael

"You know I've always wanted a place to hide a corpse." Michael, regarding the trunk

"Oh my God, is it carnivorous?" --Elliot, also regarding the trunk

• [4/23/99] Extensive thoughts on Elliot's reaction to Nancy's social ineptitude at the opening of the episode, courtesy of BriRos:

I view his reaction to her joke as an action that he has already checked out. I believe he had already had the affair with Sheryl Eastman (going off of memory here) and that was a sign of him being bored with their relationship.
Elliot hates who he has become. A "Grown-Up". A married, two child, working man. He hates himself and he therefore hates her for what she has made him. This is his rebellion against what he has become.

Remember when Elliot and Nancy first met (in flashbacks) they shared an artistic bond between them (both being artists) but when she became a mom, she stopped being his equal, because she stopped being an artist and started being a mom. Then he begins to feel himself being pulled away from what he thought he was all about by their growing family and need for stability. He feels her pulling him away from that and he becomes resentful for it. Sure, his reasoning is childish, but that is Elliot (a male - I can say that, I'm a male too).

So he begins to reach out for the life he had when he was "free". He goes after another woman and the more he pulls away from his current life, the more he sees Nancy is someone he thinks he hates. Anything she does makes him embarrassed and sick. Only after they have gone their separate ways, does he realizes his freedom is not all it was before. While they are separated, he is free to date and have sex with other woman and do what he wants but he is miserable. Why? He has grown-up and out of that stage in his life. So have his friends (his biggest influence). He is no longer the person he once was or who he thought he wanted to be again. He realizes his needs for Nancy and she begins at that time to her rediscover the person she was before being Elliot's wife/mom. She realizes that is the person she likes and wants to be again. More confident. More sure of herself. It is the irony that she becomes the person she was when they met and he realizes the person he was is no longer in him. She is now closer to the woman he fell in love with (she writes a children's book) and her artistic side comes out again. Plus, his near plane crash shakes him up as to what he is missing in life....his family, who he turned his back on. He is no longer the cut-up young man of the past, he is a grown man and has a family and wife who he really loves. One in which he must fight to get back and when he gets them back he must hold together during a crisis. It is during the cancer, we see a new Elliot. One comfortable with being a grown man and able to balance his life better. Between Nancy and his artistic expression. In the end, he is able to move on with his life without Michael and go it alone. More confident. More grown-up on his own (Nancy's rediscovery helps his comes out by this time). More successful for the road he traveled to get to the point he is at in "california".

• I still can't believe that Hope and Michael let Elliot stay for as long as they did, especially after he ate all the food.

• I believe that the trunk served as a sort of metaphor for marriage in the sense that it's a wonderful old tradition handed down to through the years. Hope saw it as a beautiful thing she yearned for as a child, but when she finally came to have one "of her own" it turned out to be a lot more cumbersome and unwieldy than she had romantically envisioned. Still, at the end of the episode as she sees the hopes of Nancy and Elliot being broken, she decides that it's worth keeping around for the future.

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