Season Two Ep 1 Power Play

Diane: Sam, it's so filthy.

Sam: Oh, no-no, it doesn't have to be! Not if we care about each other. 

Diane: No, I mean my apartment! 

Welcome back for Season Two! After season one's finale, it looks like Sam and Diane are set to seal the deal, but the course of true love never did run smooth. Actually, the bar's Sam's 'true' love, but Diane runs a very close second! Besides the consummation of our leads' long-simmering love affair, we also get to leave Cheers for the first time ever in this episode. It's impressive how much mileage they got out of just three main sets--the bar, pool room, and Sam's office--in season one. Diane wants everything to be perfect for their first time, while Sam's not so picky. Since Sam's sullied every hotel in most of Massachusetts, that option's out. And Diane doesn't even want to see Sam's bed post before becoming another notch in it, so Diane's apartment's the first location outside the bar we get to see. But eager Sam's lack of bedside manner offends Diane's sense of ceremony, and she throws him out when he pokes fun at her stuffed animals (Mr. Jammers, Freddie Frogbottom, Mr. Buzzer among others) while taking off his pants. I think this is the first time we see Danson's knobby knees, and it only makes me love him more to find a chink in that studly armour. What's not so lovable is how he takes some unsound advice from Carla and winds up breaking down Diane's door. For reals! 

It's amazing how much sitcom social mores shift over time, and Sam's brutish break-in would NOT fly with modern audiences 37 year later. But there are some mitigating factors: first, it was Carla who told Sam that "women like power...raw, naked power!" It also helps that Sam's more buffoon than brute, and Diane's always in complete control of the situation. Still, a frustrated horny dude busting down a woman's door being played for prime time laughs says something scary about the world we lived in. The whole thing brings to mind this scene from The Philadelphia Story: 

Even though Hepburn's character has all the agency here, I can't imagine, say, Ryan Gosling pushing Emma Stone to the floor by her face and getting a laugh today. But Long and Danson are as deft at screwball comedy as Grant and Hepburn, and they mostly make it work. So Sam breaks open the door, picks up Diane, plants a wet one on her, then orders her to "get in that bedroom, woman!" Shelley Long just gets better and better, and the expression on her face says soo much! There's fealty mixed with lust, and just a hint of the wheels turning behind those blue eyes, cluing us in to her real plan. Just back up that Emmy truck! Diane asks to be excused so she can change into something flimsy, then call the cops on her intruder. As she casually explains while offering a cup of coffee, "if you're going to act like a marauding Hun, you have to expect to be treated like one...you take cream, right?" When a despondent Sam begs Diane to call off the cops, she reveals she never called in the first place and they head to the bedroom. But Diane doesn't feel right with the prying eyes of her plush pals upon her and asks Sam to remove them, which is when he exacts his revenge, chucking the whole collection out the window. How he ever got laid again after that dick move, I dunno. 

TRIVIA

- Rhea Perlman delivered her first child between seasons, and Carla's baby bump in this episode's notably smaller than it was in the previous episode.  

- John Ratzenberger's name finally takes its rightful place in the opening credits in this episode. 

- Now that the cast is settled in and the writers are comfy with focusing solely on their cast, we don't get a single guest star in the episode. 

- I wondered if they just filmed the continuing opening scene along with the finale, but Shelley Long's hair and a couple other clues suggest they did not. 

STRAY THOUGHT

Sam's horrid behaviour in this episode reminds me of myself back in the day! Just subtract the charm and good looks, but keep the knobby knees. 

As evidenced in this episode, there's a thin line behind love and hate, so here's some songs about bad romances that aren't Bad Romance: 

The Persuaders (also covered by The Pretenders and Annie Lennox among others)

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan 

Antony and the Johnsons

Can Carly Rae Jepsen ever do wrong? Nope.

Cheers!