Episode 42 - Shut It Down pt. 1 & 2

Weird getting way media. Hi, misters.

Is see that guy with it now?

He's an actor phone, I'm a cam driver. I'm the only camp driver in his place.

Good evening and welcome tonight, mister Walters a Taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host, and with me as always is my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening?

Go blow dry your face?

My favorite insult In this episode we'll get to that. We're talking Taxi season two, episodes nineteen and twenty. That's right, this is a two parter. You're getting a two for one with this episode. It's Shut it Down parts one and two. This is interesting, Father Malone. This one is credit to It's a story by Mark Jacobson and Michael Tolkien and teleplay by Howard Gewertz and Ian Praser, directed by James Burrows.

Why so many writers?

Well, before we get to that, let's remind the people that we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. Now, eagle eared listeners to this podcast might recall that Mark Jacobson wrote the original article that this show is based on night shifting for the hip Fleet. Right. He had this idea for this particular story, but not being a scriptwriter, he enlisted his friend Michael

Are we talking about the screenwriter director of The Rapture that Michael Tolkien?

We are in fact talking about the same Michael Tolkien. Also, he would later adapt his own novel The Player for the You and I both know he's best known for writing Gleaming the Cube for Christian Slater.

Of course, I didn't want to go that deep on anybody. I wanted to start with something really obvious.

Yeah, something you know, it's just a little thing like The Rapture. That's the Mimi Rogers movie, right, Yeah, Yeah, that's a good one.

It's one of those movies where they don't skimp on the ending, they actually give you. The apocalypse.

Take Shelter with Michael Shannon was a similar thing. Have you ever seen that? It's about this man who he has these apocalyptic visions that there's well, he has these visions that is going to be an apocalypse, but no one else can see them, so it becomes.

No, you know what, stop telling me because I want to watch that.

Okay, it's a good one. It's really good, similar to what you were just describing. Anyway, we're here to talk about Taxi, dammit. We open this episode in the garage as a somewhat disheveled Tony stumbles in. He's declaring that he's gonna kill the mechanic on duty. I felt like we were finally seeing the animal man coming out and Tony losing whatever civility he possessed, and he's going to kill somebody.

You know, he's finally your nature you thought was on display here when he comes out Blood Thursday and you know what, He comes in screaming that I'm gonna punch out the day shift mechanic. But all I could think is is Banta about to kill Laka?

I guess Laka technically is the late shift mechanic, right.

I guess, And I'm sure they're making that distinction, so we don't think, oh, he's about to destroy Loaka, But like, how can we not think he's gonna kill Loca, the only person we've ever seen in the garage really a side of a couple of day players has been Loakka because he could.

Kill Loca with his bare hands. Let's be honest. I mean Tony would not be denied. Bobby and Alex they intercede and asked Tony to sit with them and tell him what happened, because there's something going on here. Tony explains that he was driving his cab. He came to a red light and we went to put the brakes on.

Yeah, you know. Everyone now calls that the parking break, but originally called the emergency break for good reason.

I still think of it as the E break. I mean, that's what I always knew it as. But you're right it is. No one uses it unless they're parked on a hill. That's the only time I ever use it. But you know it's there for a reason. Elaine goes on to say that this isn't just an isolated incident. Apparently there's been a recent rash of Cabby's getting into accidents in their cabs. Tony is still wanting to pound the mechanic, but Alex correctly points out that they're not

I did see him all riff raft up this time.

Yeah, he's always got a newspaper in his hand. I think that's his trademark.

Now, lots of scarves in this episode, a lot of scarves, A lot of scarf work going on with the background players today.

Well, this is one of those episodes where they go to great lengths to make it seem really really cold. As we'll talk about, you'll see a lot of like there's a few moments where like Bobby has to come in from the cold and for reasons we'll get to, and he's really over selling it, like rubbing his hands together, going cold. So that's why you're seeing all these scarves and gloves and things.

Are you saying that he overdoes it as an actor? Are you accusing Jeff Conaway of going over the top? How dare you?

It's not. This is the one of the rare instances where I'm not calling Bobby a ham. I'm calling Jeff Conway a bit of a ham. Here, Bobby takes the initiative, steps forward and tells Louis that the cabs have been falling apart lately and Tony's breaks just went out on him. Their lives are in danger every time they go out father alone, and it's high time the company did something about it. And then Alex goes even further and says to Louie, you better be careful because this mob could

Of driving years so probably not.

That only elicits more groans because they know that this is going to do nothing to solve the problem. Bobby in fact blocks Louie's retreat into his cage and he's insisting now that Loui's got to do something about it. And this is where Louis gives Bobby the great insult that you let off the top with which is go blow dry your face. And what ensues is a cartoonish chase around the garage where everybody.

Up. Where'd he go? I think he's over here. He's gotta be behind this box. I think fellas when.

It should have been under cranked, just to make it seem a little bit hard day's night and right. But Louis scurries around, he goes up the steps to escape the mob, and he actually goes like Alex follows him, and Alex even exclaims, hey, there's a secret passage.

Here by the way the ad R line, there's a secret passage here to explain to the audience what was going on. Give me a fucking break.

That was a bit much.

Oh we were, you know, thank god that they threw that in. We wouldn't have been able to follow the accident.

When I watched this as a kid, I remember because what happens is Louis disappears from the second floor to emerge from the first floor. He comes out basically through the bathroom door. So the idea is that Louis is privy to all these little nooks and crannies and escape roots throughout the garage. Of course, now I know that this is just one big stage, so he probably just walked down a set of stairs that are obscured by

So you can got them right right.

He goes through this escape patch and he escapes to the relative safety of his cage.

Which we know would actually afford nothing, because we've seen Riga rip that cage open. If they really wanted Louie to Palmer right now, they could get him.

That was it, at least in the heat of the moment. An enraged beyond all reason.

Riger I'm just saying, they're all acting like, oh, now he's in the cage, Now he's safe. Like that cage is in no way secure. This isn't Danny Noonan behind that very secure door at the caddy shack?

You don't want no coke?

You don't get no coke? What do you think of that?

It y? What's that sign say no bare of feet? What's that sign say no fighting? Well, what's it mean? No fighting?

So you don't near me for anything else?

Lou Bobby in frustration just says, you know, we should just walk. But Elaine being the voice of reason, which I think makes a lot of sense. The first thing Elaine says they should do is file aggrievance with the shop Steward. But no one can remember who it was. How could they forget?

How dare they ben Gerretzky. They don't even mention ben Gerretzky. That's what's the fucked up part here. They met, they go through a couple of names, and I don't ben Gerretzky e than once. And ben Gerretzky, as far as I know, is still the shop Steward.

He's dead, but he's still the shop Steward. But more to the point was he was referenced in at least two separate episodes if I recall, so it's not like I mean, this was a gimmick that had legs that they continued through a couple of episodes. I don't know why they had mentioned ben Gerretzky. It was a really clearly it was a lost a missed opportunity, in my opinion. They go through a couple of names, neither of which are ben Gerretzky. So they need to elect a new

Because ordinarily I don't agree with you with your assessment of Banta, but something about this episode really rubbed me the wrong way about that prick And as soon as he like no, First of all, he came in angry and he was going to punch out one of the mechanics, as if that was going to help anybody, and it was potentially going to be lacked. And then now on top of that, with this dopey grin on his face, he's like, well, you should make me the boss around.

The whole point of him being the shop Steward is that he's because he insists that he's the one who's been wronged. He had the accident with his cab. He's mad as hell and he wants it. He wants to be the one to take it to the boss. Alex admires his gumption and seconds his nomination, which naturally passes unanimously among the rest of the cabs. Tony marches over to louis cage. He's full of piss and vinegar, but

Tony Banta sold out his union brothers and sisters for a potential meal.

Now it's either a credit to Louie's powers of persuasion or.

To Tony is not smart.

No, and this is proof positive. Right here, Elaine realizes that Tony's been Bamboozled by Louie, she calls for a recall election, which is unanimously agreed upon by the rest of the garage. Out of frustration, Bobby still insists that they walk until the cabs are fixed. Elaine calls everybody back, pointing out that walking is only going to give the company the excuse they need to fire everybody.

I love Elaine in this episode.

She's fiery. She really seems to have a clear idea of how to get this thing moving and to.

Drop her channels, like, yeah, you all want to walk, and we're gonna, but we're gonna do it right.

Even Riager, I would expect to be more logical. You would figure that he, being the one that everybody goes to for their problems, would be the natural person to spearhead this whole effort. But he's more than happier.

Yeah, he clearly doesn't want it that. He's just so like, yeah, give it to Tony. Why would anyone ever say yes, give it to Tony. As we're gonna see, Alex Rigor is in a real fallow point in his life. He's feeling kind of low and unchallenged as a human. So I don't think he wants to take up the mantle of the hero of the Sunshine Cab Company pretty much.

But I do like you're kind of implying a little bit that Alex's doesn't figure particularly well in this episode. But I'm going to actually challenge that. We'll talk about it momentarily. But I like Alex in this episode despite the fact that.

He's no, you misunderstand me. I'm projecting into the future where he reinvigorates himself. I'm saying right now, at this point in his life, he's like, I'm not feeling great about myself, and the last thing I need is to have to fucking deal with either Louis de Palma or the bigger boss for these idiots who are all going to be screaming and crying.

Fuck this sure not that makes perfect sense to me. Elaine's fiery declaration motivates Bobby to nominate her for Shop Stewart, which at first she refuses like anyone logically would, because she doesn't, you know, she wants to help affect some change, but she doesn't want it anymore then Alex wants it. She's just like, I don't really want But eventually Elaine relents and She accepts their nomination, and her first action as acting shop Stewart is she doesn't want to talk

Now here's my question to you, asked me before we get to this hilarious bit. Was that the first duo of writers who came up with this? Or was it the actual taxi writers who came up with this? I'm going to hope that it's original taxi writer Mark Jacobson and Michael Tolkien who contributed this bit of vaudeville fucking dio six mock in a bullshit.

This does seem a little hacky. I do like how they follow it up, though, but this initial bit is sort of corny. At the moment that Louie is proclaiming, where are they gonna find cabbies? This kid walks in delivering newspapers. He can't be more than like thirteen or fourteen years old, and of course Louis hires him on the spot to drive a cab as we fade the black and it's silly because it would never that would

A kid wouldn't have walked into the building to sell newspapers. What the fuck was that? Get your paper, mister.

We fade back in on an awesome aerial shot of New York, including the World Trade Center. It's really really cool. We don't see aerial shots like this very often in taxi Usually it's ground level stuff. This was pretty cool. We cut into the garage where Louis is handing out assignments to the five or so random guys milling about. Now in addition to the paper boy that we just

And Louie, all I kept thinking about that particular actor was I'll bet that guy got together in nineteen forty five with the veterans returning home and they all talked about what it was like to fight in the World War, because he no doubt fought in the first.

WAW one for sure. It's just something about the display of all these old men who are showing no emotion. They all look maybe even a little bit embittered, tired.

They're a cast of a Tom Waits song.

Perfect. This is the crew that Louie has hired as scabs while the cabbys are picketing. That I thought it was great. It's a great rebound from the corny joke about the kids selling newspapers. I thought that was I thought it was awesome. After sending these old guys out to drive the cabs, Bobby hustles in to get coffee for the rest of the picketers. This is where he comes in, rubbing his hands furiously cold. So he comes in,

This is rough. Actually, I gotta say. This is mean. I mean, even if it's not real, it's really mean.

What happens is that he's oh. He says, oh, Bobby, I got a message for you from your agent, you know, such and such wants you to come in to read for this movie. And Bobby's like what, really? What when? And Louis says it was yesterday. I didn't give you the message because you were pickinning. So of course Bobby is completely crestfallen about this. It's really cruel on Louis park to your point, even if it's not genuine, which I think it is genuine. At this point, the rest

And I would say at that point, realistically, HP, I would say, okay, well, me and the twelve other people standing here all heard that. We'll see you at the meeting. We all witnessed, and each of these people will attest to that. He said, we're cooking the books so that we can buy ourselves enough time to get the cabs. So I'm suggesting, today, your honor, we go look at the cabs. In fact, I have photographs of the cabs here they are.

You would figure it does seem rather odd that they all just should have shrug off the threat. They're completely unmoved by it, except for Alex. They all go back to picketing, and Alex is in there with Louis and Alex starts to play on Louie's religious case.

Yeah, now, this is this is good because this is actually a callback to an earlier episode when you think about it, when right.

He had the operation, Yeah yeah, when Louis had that operation and he was afraid for his soul, he made a vow that he was going to be a better person until Bobby pushes him too far.

Alex remembers this right, and Alex told him it was okay to be himself, that God wanted him to be that way, so he knows there's a god angle. I love this. This is actually a good writing. I'm going to guess that it's the fucking taxi writers came up with this, bitch.

Totally consistent with that earlier episode. Alex points out to Louis that he's going to be under oath when he's called upon to testify in this hearing, So, in other words, Louis is going to be swearing to God that he'll be telling the truth, and then Louis will proceed to lie. This catches Louise's attention in a way that the Cabby's hen't up till now, but he plays it off like, ah, this is just business. That's you know, that's fine. But

Think, But yeah, I think so too. I think, you know, I think it should be a case by case basis. Yeah, I mean, for years, Stewart should be completely welcome to make the decision whether or not the car is actually irreparable or not.

It should have been, like you know, they will be evaluated on a case by case basis, like you said, and if they're deemed too old or too far gone, they should be retired. But she says older than five years dumb them. She wants new breaks on all the cabs. She wants the maintenance budget increased by ten percent, and at least one new mechanic per shift. Louis agrees to all of this, provided that she honor a few demands of his own. And this is where Elaine's delight starts

Who doesn't come on.

This is Louise's way of compromising. He's his way out of this situation. So of course she starts to walk out. She says, this is ridiculous. She walks out. Louise starts paring down his demand. He says, all right, one weekend, one date, one date to save Cabby's lives, and that causes Elane to stop and turn around, and she says to him, you'll give in to all the demands for one date. That's right, he says, one date, and then they proceed to haggle over the terms of the date.

At that point, I would say, fuck you, we'll see you in court. I think I would probably have said yes until he brought up the cookbooks thing. Then I would say, well, you know what, we're going to pool our money and we're going to get a forensic accountant in here, and we'll see how those books look.

He does seem very sure of himself, and it is curious that she doesn't just call his bluff. But she doesn't.

I'm sure we have receipts for all of these parts that you've been buying, the most parts of any cramp company in all of New York, that you're spending on repairing these caps, right, Louis.

She wants this to be over with quickly, and I think she's struggling with the notion that, look, she doesn't want to go out on a date with Louis under any circumstance. But if this is what it's going to take to save Cabby's lives, to get them back to work, to rectify this whole situation, sadly she doesn't see another way around this. She kind of.

Listen to me, fella, I'm not questioning the quandary that they're putting a Lane in or her reaction to it. I'm saying the mcguffin of the cookbooks is stupid, and I wish they'd quit referring to it.

After a lot of internal deliberation, Elane reluctantly agrees, and this sends Louis into ecstatic hopping and whooping. He is jumping for joy about the idea of going out on a date with a Lane and she but she yells at him, and I actually, I there was something in what she says that really got through to me, and it made me really feel sorry for Elane and really feel hatred towards Louis even more than I should, she says.

Well, yeah, this whole fucking scenario is terrible for playing it for laughs, but it is a huge fucking problem.

We shouldn't have to say this, but obviously we're not condoning what Louis has coerced Elaine into doing. It's awful and it shouldn't happen. But I mean, this is you know, it was a different time. This is the show. This is the plot that they've cooked up. She lays all this on him and says, well, how does this make you feel to be doing this to me? And I think his response is something like it makes me horny? Is all get out, and that's what we fade out.

That's the title of my autobiography.

Horny as All get Out. Part two commences with a tracking shot of the empty garage Cabby's file in as a jubilant Louis welcomes them back while they're coming back to work. And Louis is welcoming them in, he's whistling, he's bopping around the garage. He seems thrilled. Bobby again cautions Louis against premature celebration, but Louis says there's no chance that negotiations fall through. He's not going to give him any details on the concessions, but he feels pretty

And you know how you know he's suspicious because he's got on his suspicious jacket. Here, this weirdo corduroy thing with this giant fucking batman collar and this belf that could choke a fucking rhinoceros.

We've seen this in a couple of episodes, We'll see it in a few more. There's something that's nagging at Riger's perception of what's going on. There's something nagging at his mind. He's not sure what it is. So something about Louise's unrestrained happiness that doesn't sit well with Riager.

I say, Bobby, have you noticed a miss with mister de Palmer? Today seems unusually jubilant.

As Alex points out, yesterday they were at an impasse, and today, like magic, everything has been settled. But Bobby says they should trust Elane. Elaine said it would all work out. But curiously, Elaine is missing. Tony says she was taking the night off to rest.

Well. No more to the point, Rieger says, where's Elaine?

No?

I agree with you, Detective Riger. Here is fucking great.

I love it. We see it in a few episodes. It is Detective Riager. It's like something's not right.

When Riger is in a suspicious mood, he puts on this jacket.

So he's like Sherlock Holmes.

He has to put the deer stalker cap on to exactly to.

Solve the crime. Bobby also raises some concerns that Elaine appeared to be more stressed than.

Usual, something Bobby would never notice. By the way.

Perception is not one of Bobby's best qualities. We've seen this unless it has to do with a woman.

Here's what he would have said.

She looked terrible, and that would have been it. It wouldn't have been.

Oh, momsst something must be on her mind.

Hmmm, yeah, like the best kind of detective. Something doesn't sit well with a riager. And he's picking up on all these little clues.

Subtle things like Louis saying, I don't know why I'm putting a shirt on. It's just gonna be ripped off. I mean in an hour or two.

Louie comes out of the bathroom, He's got several bottles of aftershave and asks them to give him their opinion of the best one. It's a silly joke, but he singles out Alex's honker is being the best suited to the task. But that, combined with Hersch's wordless expression, he just looks at Louie when Louie lays this big nose insult on him. He just looks at Louie like he doesn't even know what to say to respond. It is so fucking funny. I thought it was great.

You're correct. The expression. It's so good. It's like you don't even know to be offended, like when somebody's like so fucking rude, and it's like just like I can't even really be hurt right now because I'm just shocked.

It's the best. It's the best reaction of the whole episode. Speaking of which, Father Malone, do you remember which cologne Alex chose for Louis to wear?

I know it was the first one, but I couldn't hear what he called it.

They make reference a couple times in the episode. It's the aftershave is called cruel cavalier.

Cruel cavalier.

It's sort of like sex panther from Anchorman.

I guess right, Cruel cavalier.

It's two adjectives, cruel and cavalier.

Yes, like what a horrible thing the broadcast. Here I come, ladies, I'm both cruel and cavalier. I'm a catch all.

The while, riger is still bothered by Elaine's absence. Something is just not adding up for him, like like like Lieutenant Colombo, he just can't let this thing go. He's working these clues like a dog, you know, nibbling at a bone.

That collar will not let his mind rest.

Louis's big show of getting prepared for a big night, including he's removing pins from a brand new dress shirt.

Oh my god, okay, hb you remember dress shirts with all the pins? Why why were so many pins? Are there pins anymore? There aren't. They're just like little plastic things.

No, there's still pins. Some of them are Some of them have like the alligators.

I don't. I don't buy fancy shirts.

Occasionally I have to go get a new dress shirt, and they do. They have a million of those little pins that you have to like take out. Yeah, it's weird.

What's the purpose at this point? We know it's gonna be wrinkled. We're good with it. Just give us the fabric, like, I don't need twenty seven potential punctures.

This is all very puzzling to riger and he tells the rest of the cabvies that he's gonna go check on a lane and we cut to just a terrible nighttime b roll of what's supposed to be the exterior of her.

Apartment at night or is this the bee roll with all the flash in the star Stroby things or that in.

The no no, no, no, no no. This is just no, no, we'll get to that one.

Okay.

This is just a pan up to her apartment at night, but it's so dark you can't make anything out. It's terrible.

You know what, every time they give us Elaine's apartment or anyone's domicile, they always keep it particularly vague looking in murky, and I think that's because they probably learned their lesson with Marios in the first season that sometimes the bee really ain't gonna match.

We cut inside to Elaine's apartment and she's despondent, and she's laying on the couch in a pink robe, and she's guzzling something straight from a blender pitcher. It's like this giant pitcher.

This is great. So she's got a bottle. It's whiskey, it's scotch. I think a bottle half full on the table. The other half of the bottle is just sitting at the bottom of this picture without anything else. There's no ice, there's no mixer, no nothing, which means that she could not find a glass big enough for her appetite to be drunk, so she used a blender. Fucking picture.

The doorbell rings and she shouts something very desperate to the person behind him, and she's really really freaked out about the state. She doesn't want to go in the state. So Riager comes in. Like Poirot, he seems to have put two and two together. He now has figured out that Elaine and Louis are going on on this date, probably to settle the grievance with the cabs and all that business. Elaine tries to make a show of lying about her plants, but.

Eventually Joe and he's a doctor and he really likes me, and he won't hurt me.

He won't hurt me. Really good in this Mary Lehnna's really really good.

Yeah, she's spectacular all around.

Alex figures it out, and meanwhile Elaine now starts chugging from a wine bottle. She's gotten up from the couch and she's gotten a wine bottle on the table and she's drinking from that.

It's gonna have a rough morning.

Riga's trying to make some jokes about the situation, but Elaine is very very worked up about this whole deal. A knock on the door causes her to scream at the top of her voice, hide me, and it's pretty good. She goes off to get ready while Riger lets Louis in and the door opens.

Oh my god, no, no, no, no, no. Before the door opens, he's back there. He's like, open the door and feast your eyes on one hundred and fifty pounds of blah blah blah, and Rigo smiles like, oh my god, he doesn't know him back here. This is gonna be fucking great. Jud Hurst is spectacular in this scene.

He opens the door and Louis is there, and he's resplendent in a three piece suit. He has a long jacket, he has a fedora. He's wearing an outfit that would make Don corleone jealous. He looks a yeah, he looks like Capone. He does looks like al Capone. Riger puts on his patented kindly grandparent routine. Come on in, let me our Elaine is getting ready. Let's talk to young man.

And he comes in and with a dispatcher.

He's giving Louis the business comedically about what's happening, and Louis assures Riager that Elaine's going to have a great time. He's been out all morning. Louis has been greasing.

Palms, yeahs and palms. The faith.

It's great. He's been spreading money around all morning to assure them of a fun evening. Finally, Elaine comes out of the bedroom in the back and she is truly She's resplendent in a different way. Her hair is pulled back in the most unsexy bun that you could imagine. She's wearing several layers of bulky clothes under.

The purpose it's all gross house coats.

Yeah, it's there's not there's no skin or anything showing. She looks like completely unsexy, shapeless and miserable.

And on top of it, she's wearing this puffy, floor length, fucking winter coat that weirdos wear. You would there was all you would always see one of these weirdos. It's like this. It's the most people would know, the George Costanza Gore Tex kind of thing. It's kind of like that, a little more form fitting, but very disturbing as a piece of outerwear.

And it always when you see somebody wearing this, it never looks clean. It always looks like it's just sort of dingy and grimy, and if you look closely, like they've been wiping their nose on their sleeve, it just it looks disgusting. We've all seen people wearing.

The salt stains along the bottom of it from the snow, from the side.

Yeah for walking in the snow. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Rieger goes to leave, but not before cautioning Louie. He goes right up to Louis and he says, listen, Louis, you try anything with a lane and I'll kill you. He doesn't mince words. He says, I will kill you, to which Louie replies, it'll take the coroner a week to pry the smile off my face.

Riager, Okay, HP, let's talk about this episode for a second.

Yeah, let's talk about the implication of this episode.

Let's take a step back for a second, because the way I see it, or the way they've set it up, is that this is a date, right. This is not a sensual favorite thing. Do you think that the writers are using the date as a metaphor for sex or is this actually what we're given He's saying, I at least want was Louis looking for the chance to woo her in a traditional way, and this was his only way of doing it, knowing he couldn't have sex with her.

Putting aside the fact that Louis a couple of times does do a little bit of grab ass and tries to kiss her at one point. Both put aside that for a minute, Yeah, I do believe that he is genuinely trying to show her a good time. He's been working very hard to arrange the date in such a way that there'll be no rough spots, that everybody's going to have a good time, that everyone is going to be happy, They're going to go to this restaurant and

Right, Okay, so you think as well as I do, because I believe this that this is all the date is the thing. There was not an implication that she had to have sex with him at all. Right, there's no coersion towards sexual congress between the two of them, agree, I agree now, Having said that Elaine is acting like a fucking lunatic.

And they do call her to task on that a little bit, as we'll see during the course.

They do sort of by the end. But if this were a situation where she was gonna have to have sex with him. Then seeing her laying on the couch with the half empty bottle and the pitcher full of booze, like that makes sense to me. Hpo, Are you a fan of the television series mad Men by any chance?

I'd never watched it, to be honest.

At one point that the lead characters have broken off and formed their own ad agency, and they have a chance to get Jaguar, which would put them nationally on the map, but they first have to square it with all the Jaguar dealers. If the Jaguar dealers aren't going to play ball with their agency, then they're dead in

Well, maybe it's a case where she couldn't necessarily give Louie the benefit of the doubt, because for all she knows, he just wants to have sex with her, and he's gonna put her in a position where she's going to have to do something she doesn't want to do. But we have the benefit of having seen Louis in a lot of other different scenarios that Elayne isn't privy to, so we know that there is a soul underneath the

Okay, this is where this is what I'm talking about, Exactly like I thought she was being over the top, just like I don't want to go on a date with Louie, but.

This I Yeah. She calls her kids and she is literally in tears, begging her kids on the phone to remember her their mother as she was, despite what they might hear about her later, as.

If she want to go have sex with this horrible person and words gonna get out.

Right or it's like she's being held hostage and she is so desperate and worried about her what's going to happen to her that she has to talk to a loved one or what have you. Having said that, as they're walking out, Louis does grab her ass. So he's not totally blameless in this whole thing.

I mean, he's still he grabbed a handful of foamy, fucking like he got nothing. She couldn't feel a thing, bohm. Basically he copped a styrofoam feel.

We fade out and we fade back in. It's the interior of a Polynesian restaurant. They're in the they're in the tidepool at the place that Louis mentioned in the first part of this episode. The notion of a Polynesian restaurant. I think this is like an East Coast thing.

As someone who's been living on the West Coast for the past twenty five years, let me tell you something. They don't know Polynesian here.

When you think of a Polynesian restaurant.

Kowloon, knowing Kowlaloon exactly. Kowloon Restaurant for those of you who don't live in Massachusetts on Route one in Sagas. It is a massive Polynesian restaurant.

It's a landmark. It may be the largest Asian restaurant on the East Coast.

I go every single time I go to Boston, I will go to kal.

Though they've been around since nineteen fifty they've been there, what is that almost seventy five years they've they've been serving the good folks of Saugus.

It's a land I know in there, there's a volcano.

There's a volcano. Some of the tables are actually situated on a mock boat that you can eat on a ship.

The SS Kaloon and there's water like you got to step off the dock to get onto that fucking boat man. Fucking fountains everywhere, the Polynesian music everywhere. Oh, it was so gorgeous. There's a dance club they at it like. You go in there now it's like hip hop. They might seat you in their new sort of Thai cafe with all these shiny new booths. Get the fuck out here. Put me in the dark under a thatched roof. Motherfucker.

It is like you walk in there and it's like going back in time. But it's Polynesian. You can't to call it a Chinese restaurant is not entirely accurate.

Not accurate at all. No, this is at GI's coming home from the war, having spent some time in Hawaii and the South Pacific, cobbled together what they thought those people were eating. So it's not the little spare ribs and taraiaki strips and lobster sauce which contains no lobster at all.

I could never figure that out as a kid. It's called lobster sauce, but it has sausage in it.

It's evidently meant to be put on lobster, which sounds even less appetizing when you know what lobster sauce tastes like. By the way, lobstau is one of my favorite things in the fucking world to eat. But I can't imagine it going on lobster And I don't know why we continue to call it that.

Folks who have seen the Brady Bunch episode about in Hawaii with the taboo, the tiki that Greg has and it costs all these problems the tiki. There is a giant version of the tiki on the front facade of Kowloon as you walk in. That's the decor. It isn't your typical Chinese restaurant decor. It's more like Blue Hawaii.

Do you agree it's a tiki place? Is what it is. I mean, that's what you would just call it. Now, that's the sort of blanket term these days. But tiki bars are effectively Polynesian lounges.

That's a good point. That's a good point. That's what the tide Pool is.

They cut in central chairs.

Yeah, everything is bamboo and wicker, and there's Polynesian masks and decorations all around this. Uh, this place, the tide Pool, and it looks I mean, honestly, again, it's another feather in the cap for the decorating department because it looked like a lot of places that Father Malone and I have both been to when we were going to Politian restaurants.

It's over lit, I'll say that.

That's I think that's the only knock. You're absolutely right, because most of these are.

Totally understandable because this is a fucking three camera televisions area, so nobody's expecting them to do whatever.

But yeah, these places are dark. Kowloon is dark.

Yanky's teeth room is a cave. Baby.

They take their seats and Louis tries to make some small talk with Elane, and this is where we kind of get at this idea that he's just trying to show her a literal good time, not trying to get hanky panky with her. He just wants her to have a good time, so he's trying to make small talk, but Elaine has a scowl on her face and she's not having it, and she's just sitting there anticipating this.

This is silly, but it's funny.

Though it is funny, it's fun yeah, it does. So he pulls out these papers and he says he took some notes to get the conversation going, and what they amount to is essentially a script that they're going to follow to break the ice. I gotta say, it is silly and it's not very realistic, but they're timing the comedy. Timing between Mary lou Henner and Daniel Vito is perfect.

And he grabs her ass and she pulls his hand up. And then the second time they dance away from us, and the dance back. This time he puts her hand on his ass and she pulls it up. That was good.

It's but their timing is so good, and it's just great physical comedy. In the middle of this you know this mockup of a Polynesian restaurant HPN.

You're going to catch the name of their waiter.

So he orders the drinks and he calls the guy Fritz, and then the guy brings the drinks to the table, the two monsoons, and Louis goes, ah, thank you, Edmundo. You didn't notice that.

No, so he's just calling him whatever, yeah, Jesus whatever.

But to Louise's earlier point, he's been throwing money around all morning and he's probably had this guy drilled to know, Okay, when I come in, you bring me two monsoons and you call me mister de Palma and all of this kind of business. We cut to a b roll of Times Square at night, Father Malone. This is where you have that classy It's a star filter. They've put on the camera lens.

So who did this? I wonder if they The crews come back and they're like watching the b roll with James Burrows and he's like, what the fuck is this? Like at the start of the season, like looking at it all, he's like, was this star fucking business? And then they get to this episode it's like, I remember that stupid fucking star thing that they did give me that piece.

It kind of works in the context of the scene because the idea is that Louis is trying to give Elaine this night on the town, this glitzy, fancy night on the town. The star filter is kind of put me in the mind of that.

I you know what it did for me though, hp It made me wish that that everything that Louis was attempting was working. It made me wish that Elaine was seeing the other side of him by the end of it, right right, not him guilting her, which is what we're about to get, but her actually going Like Jesus, he really is trying, and he is being charming.

He does put the full court press on her and tries to work this insitivity angle a little too hard, but I think that's part of the scene. So we cut to Louis and Elaine walking down the hall to her apartment. He's in mid joke, he's laughing, he's trying to jolly her up a little bit. But now Elaine is still wearing this ridiculous outfit and she just is disheveled. She looks miserable. She just wants the night to me.

He apparently has drunk six of those monsoons.

Yeah. Well, he says that that was a record yeah.

Which when initially told about in the previous episode, part one, when he was describing it to Tony, he's like, you won't be able to see for three days. On one, he wants.

A nightcap from Elaine and she says, no, I just want the night to be over and I just want to burn my clothes and go to bed. And what Louis finally says to her is that he was looking forward to this all day. He wanted to take a woman out for a night in the town. And he does this move where he walks away anticipating that she's gonna say wait, but she never says it, and you can see it on his face like he's kind of like, what this was the point at which she was gonna say wait?

There's no wait, Louis.

Right, he says that, and then he turns back around a few times and he continues on this sort of vein of look, I wanted to show you a good time, but I guess I've just it's just not I'm not good enough for you, or something to that effect. Right, So they go back and forth a few more times.

You know how many times do you use that move? HB?

But I guarantee you didn't do the next move, which he does the swivel. He grabs her forcibly, and they end up rolling around on the ground where his mouth is now pressed up to hers and she's begging to be let go, but she can't talk because they're liplocked at that point. And this is really where Louis's sensitive routine all the air goes out of it right because he's been exposed for really being the pig that he is.

You're happy what I have gone further. But it hasn't been someone scirming away from me. We have rolled around, but there was never a moment where it was like, get the fuck off of me, help help.

You were rolling, but it is a consensual rolling around, right, whereas in this case there's nothing consensual.

You know, my sushi house, they just put that on the menu. The consensual role a little bland.

The interesting thing is, so it's awful, right, No one should have themselves forced upon by another guy.

Whatever, especially the penguin, right.

But I do have to say they do put a little bit of a sweet button on the scene, which I think kind.

Of works where bdell, you know, so he.

Kind of picks himself up and shakes himself off, and they he had made a show of this little doggie bag that they had from the restaurant that had shrimp puffs, and he takes the shrimp puffs and sort of tenderly leaves the shrimp puffs in front of her door for her to pick up or whatever. And then he leaves, which I think is supposed to be him trying to tenderly.

Give her apologize maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, cocksucker hair at the end of the day.

It's his way of apologizing. I don't know that it works, but.

No, she shows out of the way in the morning.

It's well, she's not gonna know that it's there at a minimum, and it's gonna be spoiled by the time because it's shrimp. You're gonna leave shrimp out all night.

You know, it's gonna be disgusting, fucking completely hung over her head pounding, She's like, I need to get into the fucking the pharmacy to get something for this headache, and she's gonna step into a fucking thing of shrimp. It's gonna be all screen, and you know she's gonna have like open toad shoes on. Oh thanks, louis perfect. Then to the fucking evening.

Now the smell, because it's gonna be shrimp that's been sitting out for hours.

Eryl Katz are roaming the hallways.

So that's the episode. Let's shut it down, Part two.

Shut it down, Shut it.

Down, douncate. And this is the point in the show where we talk about yellow lights. What doesn't yell light me? So to remind you, we're scoring this on a scale of one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode and five is the best taxi episode, Father Malone, As is our custom, we're going to throw it to you first. What do you give Shut It Down? Parts one and two?

I'm gonna say three three yellow lights. I think that sounds about fair, because there's a lot of stupidity between both episodes. There's newspaper boys walking in to make a joke, there's the overall rapiness of the scenario. There's lots of little comedic business that the show is better than, particularly when they're dealing with an episode like this. But performances

It's fury, but it's also numbed by all of the alcohol that she's consumed, so there's an element of you don't know what she's going to do, Like she's just sedated herself into a catatonia almost, but she's got anger in those.

That's when the Redheads aren't the fucking scariest.

So this I struggled with this one a lot to bottom alone, because what I want to do. I really want to give this at least four yellow lights. I want to because of everything I love about it. We have to recap We have inspector Riager that we've already talked about that's got to be worth a yellow light right there.

That coat might be worth an extra yellow light.

On my part, the comedic business between Louis and the Lane is just phenomenal, really really funny stuff, all timer stuff between the two of them. But I can't overlook. I mean it's hard. I guess we never really did talk about the fact that when we grade these episodes, are we supposed to be grading them with a modern view In other words, if there's something that we don't that is unpalatable to a modern viewer, do we dock them just for that?

No, because I don't think the intent of anyone here is a rapiness sort of the scenario, even though he's a gropy motherfucker. Like this was nineteen eighty, you know, it was a primitive time. We were living like Cavean back then. I was tethered to the wall when I needed to talk on the telephone. These were dark times.

If we accept the premise that a favorable rating is in no way condoning some of the things that happened in the episode, if we're dealing just strictly on the humor and and the elements that make it a classic episode, I guess I'm going to give it four yellow lights. I have to stand by that. That's my gut. I give it four yellow lights. Father alone gives it three. That's gonna do it for this episode of night, mister Walters, Father Malone, what are you? Where can the folks find you?

You can find me over at midnight viewing the Horror Anthology podcast, which is it's on twice a week Mondays and Fridays or Sundays and Thursdays, depending on when I finish things. So go check that out.

I say this every week, but the Weekly Roundup is my favorite of the podcasts that Father Alone, and he produces an awful lot of content a lot and it's all quality, but it's my favorite. Don't forget Also, Father Malone. You have a Patreon do you not?

Oh yeah, Patreon dot com slash Father Alone, where HP and I do a Patreon only subscriber show called Cable Box Theater where we take a look at Broadway shows that were put on video tape for cable networks in their early days the seventies and eighties, when they didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

So check that out and give, give, give. He's he works hard for the money, so hard for the money, and he's worth it. So for myself, you can find me also on the Weirdingway Network. I have picked up the reins on a podcast called Noise Junkies, which has been a lot of fun. Some new episodes on that. Check that out. I am an occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Christashu as well. I have a band campsite Hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com, very very close to