A mysterious
stranger tells Carla he’s a spy, but Diane pokes holes in his stories right and
left. Finally, he confesses to all that he’s simply a bored writer, tale
spinning for attention, much to the chagrin, and unpopularity, of Diane, who
feels terrible for being a wet blanket to his barroom illusions. When he
returns, he elaborates on his story by claiming to be a poet, but when Diane
gets him on the horn to Atlantic Monthly, his purloined verse is revealed,
again to Diane’s embarrassment. Finally, he writes a check to buy the bar for a
million dollars, and Sam naturally disbelieves him and rips it up, but when a chauffer
arrives and seems to confirm his wealth, the “spy” seems to have the last
laugh.
First half of
this episode is fantastic, in which Diane’s hypocritical lie-puncturing leads
to Sam’s great mini-speech, explaining the “bar purpose” of allowing regular
folk to “shoot off their mouths and et away with it.” When the patronage casts
her with stones as a result of her behavior, she has the opportunity of some
deep reflection and reformation, but the second half continues the spy’s
duplicity (ending with the theme of “we should have had fun with this guy all
along). It’s a chance for some real character development, which Cheers is perennially so good at;
unfortunately it went a more sitcomely route.
 |
| Raab in the "A Life in the Theater" |
Cold open: Norm,
none too enthusiastically, is meeting his wife in remote Maine, then hands off
directions to meet her to a young Naval officer. At the last minute, he takes
them back, explaining, “I couldn’t do that to the Navy!”
Norm’s opener:
(Diane: What’s new, Norman) Most of my wife.
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