Writer
Richard Kramer
Director
Scott Winant
Air Dates
12/6/88, 5/30/89, 3/6/90
Guest Stars
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Writer
Director
Air Dates
Guest Stars |
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Jo Anderson as Sally Spangler; Lenny Von Dohlen as Roy MacCaulay; Maureen Mueller as Sally Spangler's sister; Rosalind Cash as Val Shilliday
Synopsis
Hope tests the house for radon and discovers heirlooms from the family before them. Michael wants to have another baby.
Summary
The season opens with a nice domestic scene of Hope and Michael getting off to work, leaving Janey with Nancy because Hope just can't seem to find decent daycare. At the office, Janine the dippy secretary has won $109,000 on a gameshow out in L.A. and quit. Michael has begun thinking about having another kid, obviously really wants to.
At Synergy, Hope has been assigned to write about an average homeowner testing for radon, so she puts the house through its paces. In the process, she and Melissa uncover a trunk in the basement with letters, photos, and journals of the previous occupants, Roy and Sally MacCaulay.
Michael and Elliot hire a new secretary who is incredibly efficient and types like a machine-gunnist. They struggle with the Spread and Shine floor wax campaign as Hope procrastinates writing about radon by looking for more stuff in the basement. She comes up with Sally's journal, beginning on April 10, 1943. Hope and Nancy read through it, finding out how Sally met Roy at a party during World War II.
Michael tries to convince Hope to have sex without contraception (i.e. "Let's have another kid!"), but Hope isn't ready. In the journal, Roy and Sally are married and Roy went back to the war and is reported missing in action. Sally found out she was pregnant, but then miscarried. Hope and Michael finally talk about the baby issue. The radon results come back as borderline and which sends Hope flipping over the edge.
Back with the journal, Roy comes back from the war with a limp and they plant a rose garden together. Hope has a strange dreamlike experience in which she sees Roy and Sally moving away from the house together and that Sally is pregnant again. They manage to communicate somehow, just for an instant. Hope takes a midnight walk to the garden, has a change of heart, and makes love with Michael in the garden (all things hopeful, new and growing).
Notes
Hope and Michael's address is 1710 Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia PA The references to Janine possibly key into the fact that Faith Ford got the part of Corky Sherwood on Murphy Brown and took off Michael was in the Cub Scouts A diaphragm is the Steadman's contraceptive choice Roy has a brother and twin sisters married to twin brothers Lenny Von Dohlen (Roy) is the guy who played Harold the orchid man from Twin Peaks and Jo Anderson (Sally) was Diana, Linda Hamilton's replacement as the female lead on Beauty and the Beast Grendel appears by name Amy the babysitter made reference to Hope made use of phrase "half-assed" for perhaps the first time on network TV Nancy really doesn't like spiders More intimation that Elliot's mother has a drinking problem Elliot was less 'into' having Britty than Ethan Opener clip of Michael and Hope in bed
Fashion
Elliot wears a jacket pin.
Music
"Stardust" was playing when Sally and Roy met.
Goofs
From Stephannie Pugh-Hoese:
"This episode has a glaring error that has been driving me crazy for 10 years. When Nancy and Hope find the rest of Sally Spangler's things, they hold up a copy of The Grapes of Wrath and read from the flyleaf, "Sally Spangler, 1937." The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939. Every time I see it I want to go back and correct them.
Quotes
--"No, what you're really saying is that you'd be happier if I got pregnant again." --Hope, in a self-righteous snit
--"Yes. And barefoot, too." --Michael
"This is a good house. It might have a little invisible poison gas, but it's a good house." --Hope (fourth worst line of all time)
Analysis