Episode 305--"legacy"

Writer Joseph Dougherty Director Scott Winant Air Dates 10/24/89, 6/12/90 Guest Stars

More screencaps from this episode.

Richard Gilliand as Jeffrey Milgrom; Dan Shor as Kit; David Clennon as Miles Drentel; Richard Cummings Jr. as Mark Harriton; Dana Sparks as Sylvia Davenport; Laurie Lathem as Lucy; Angela Bassett as Kate Harriton; Felicity La Fortune as Valerie Milgrom; Lisa Waltz as Beth.

After a near plane crash, Michael has Miles over for a dinner party. Nancy takes Elliot back.

Upon returning from a trip to visit Minnesota Brands, Michael and Elliot are celebrating since they have successfully (and unexpectedly) stolen the account away from Werner Breslow of Mr. Squeeze. Michael proposes throwing a dinner party for Miles since he wouldn't expect it. The plane goes into a very frightening rapid descent of several thousand feet, but pulls out. Meanwhile, Hope is meeting with Kit and Lucy, the people who have bought Synergy and are turning it into a mass commercial product. Needless to say, it didn't go well. Elliot has lots of presents from the kids and finally tells Nancy about the near crash. It seems to have scared them both and she embraces him tightly.

As they discuss the details at work, Michael invites Miles for the dinner party this Thursday and he graciously accepts. Hope and Michael go to see their lawyer, Jeffrey Milgrom, who is in practice with his wife, Valerie. There is evidently some small tension between them. The Steadmans are trying to write a will and the prospect gets a little daunting as Jeffrey rambles on about the different considerations, especially that of a guardian for Janey. Nancy goes to DAA to ask Elliot for lunch, but takes him to a hotel instead. At Synergy, Hope's article is going to be watered down and treated against "darkness."

At home, Hope and Michael run through a series of horrible fantasies about what would happen if they made Melissa, Ellyn, Gary, or Nancy and Elliot the guardian. Hope hires a party person, Beth, to help with the dinner party. Melissa shows up to take Janey for the evening and hears Hope's news that she was offered a spot as associate editor at Synergy, but turned it down and had a fit over the cigarette ad on the back cover.

The guests arrive: Ellyn, Jeffrey and Valerie Milgrom, Nancy and Elliot, Mark and Kay Harriton, and Miles Drentell with Sylvia Davenport. Michael has to drag Hope out to meet Miles and then forgets to mention her name. During dinner, Valerie keeps running off to do business on the phone and Ellyn ends up talking to Jeffrey a little. Hope seems to be silently beginning to get a little sour as she watches Michael and Miles together, feeling perhaps a bit like an appendage. Jeffrey and Ellyn talk some more, remembering how they knew each other from Hope and Michael's last New Year's party when he weighed more and didn't have a beard. Kay and Hope visit--she and Mark have been together for six years and don't have any plans for kids. Michael hauls Hope back out into the living room where Sylvia Davenport is telling an anecdote about a woman who had to give away trays of fancy hors d'oeuvres to a homeless man who rejected them, asking for spare change. Hope replies very coldly that she doesn't think it's funny and manages to embarrass everyone.

After the party, Hope and Michael have a fight about the world at large, what they're fighting for, and what they should tolerate. Michael's primary goal is succeeding at his job to provide for the family and Hope thinks it should be more global than that. Hope goes to Melissa's loft, tells her that she's turned down the Synergy offer, and looks at Melissa's old family pictures.

At D.A.A., Miles throws a little party to congratulate them for the success with Minnesota Brands. As Michael fumbles around and tries to apologize for Hope, Miles says that he likes Hope because she reminds him of Michael, and then waxes cryptic about the roles of husband and wife. Nancy and Elliot finally and officially get back together.

Michael comes home and finds Hope with Janey, and everyone rambles on about horribly philosophical things like life, death, birth, mothers, and fathers. Hope proposes that they let Melissa be the guardian and Michael agrees.

Lauren the babysitter is mentioned

Beth the party person [caterer] was played by Lisa Waltz, who later played the Lauren the secretary, guest lead on "Shadows" in the first season of The X-Files, and then went on to play Hallie Rosenthal in the Bedford Falls production, My So-Called Life

The drywall, paint peel in the Steadman bedroom is looming quite large

This is the first appearance of Jeffrey and Valerie Milgrom.

There is a hilarious series of nightmare fantasies by Michael and Hope regarding what life might be like for Janey if they made Melissa, Nancy and Elliot, Ellyn, or Gary and Susannah her guardian. She would be alternately turned into a pouting little fashion monger, a bystander in a marriage's demise a la Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a power hungry miniature Ellyn, or a young counterculture guerrilla.

"Nobody here but us demons." --Miles

--"I thought you hated [Miles]." --Elliot

--"I do. Why do you keep asking me that?" --Michael

"Kit and I do have some problems with the darkness." --Lucy

"I always try to get complementary cookies. In fact, these cookies are downright obsequious." --Ellyn to Beth

• Joseph Dougherty was asked about this episode in an interview:


Q: In "legacy," Miles tells Michael one of his little teaching parables, about husband and wife and the mirror. Was there any particular source for that? Also, for the story of the two samurai facing each other from "michael writes a story"?

A: The trick to writing Miles is to come up with something that almost makes sense then give it to David Clennon who would say it with such authority people simply assumed it had to be logical. Case in point, the mirror speech in "legacy." As for the samurai story in "michael writes a story," I remember reading that somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t quite pin it down. There’s a good chance it comes out of Joseph Campbell somewhere, but the true source is lost in the more mushy parts of my brain.
 

• In response to some of the confusion about Sylvia's anecdote regarding the homeless man, Turenne writes:


The homeless man in the joke is referring to Nedick's, a popular New York hot dog joint. Actually, if you look at it, the joke makes fun of the rich people, who haven't a clue about what it's like to be hungry, more than it ridicules the homeless man. I mean, who the heck wants a caviar puff when you're really hungry - let's have some real food. It's funny how the two couples respond differently to the near-crash: Nancy and Elliot check into a motel for some blazing sex, while Hope drags Michael to a lawyer to make a will. Also, did anyone notice that Michael introduces Hope to Miles as "my wife," while Elliot says "Miles, this is my...this is Nancy."
 

• JBrun has noticed that "Hope imagines Nancy and Elliot as Janey's surrogate parents; this fantasy is from the first scene of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and exemplifies, I think, the brilliance of this show's writers."

• Terri Decker has written in with this interesting observation:


"Before the plane almost went down and Michael lost his soul...but I digress. Before the plane almost went down, Eliot was reading I, Tina. Appearing later in the show was the gorgeous Angela Bassett who, of course, a couple of years later would go on to portray Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It.

• Hope actually calls Michael hypocritical, which for me is very hard to swallow. Nobody's perfect and she doesn't seem to be capable of seeing that. The way she becomes a materialistic monster at Christmas should make her sit up and take notice--how can she condemn Michael for his desire to be successful when she herself went through paroxyms of agony about her desires for a career?

• Is there any weird significance to the fact that Hope and Melissa analyzed cigarette ads and then Beth is shown smoking in a solitary shot?