Angie tells Larry to cut it out and jumps up off the sofa.  She adds, “If you want to wrestle, go down to the gym!”  Which is a funny line, although I’ve never seen wrestling at my gym unless it was to get the treadmills that overlook the aerobics floor.   She is ready to settle down, but Larry just doesn’t have enough cash to suit her.

He has a plan, though.  He’s through taking bets for Patsie.  He is going to work for a guy with a man’s name — Stefan Bregornick — who owns an import-export business.  Angie ridicules him because this job will pay only half of what he made busting kneecaps, but Larry assures her there is money to be made there.  She angrily complains that she isn’t going to wait around 25 years for him to get a gold watch.  Larry inexplicably kisses her on the mouth rather than . . . well, I can’t advocate punching a woman in the mouth, but wow.

At the job interview, Bregornick asks if he speaks any other languages.  “No.”  Did he finish high school?  “No.”  Do you know anything about the exporting business?  “No.”  However, he gives the correct answer when Bregornick asks what he does if a guy pushes him around:  “I push back.”  Bregornick calls Larry’s father a fool, and mocks the neighborhood he lives in.  Who knows what misogynistic, awful, accurate name he would have called Angie if she were there.  But Larry gets the job.

The next night at Bregornick’s apartment, Mr. Miklos comes by to do some business.  Bregornick agrees to buy 900 cases of wine for $7,000.

Four months later, Angie is still bitching that Larry is not making the big money.  Larry finally reveals his plan.  He says Bregornick is the biggest importer on the east coast because he deals in cash and is lax on the paperwork.  Larry figures he has $200 grand in that apartment.  He says after the big score, maybe they’ll flee to Rio, but that could be tomorrow or 6 months from now.

Bregornick tells him to come to his apartment for another big deal with Miklos at 10 pm.  Larry senses this is his big opportunity.  He calls Bregornick and imitates Miklos, but pushes his luck by segueing into Jimmy Stewart there at the end.  As Miklos, he tells Bregornick he is too sick to come to him, and suggests that his handsome, well-built assistant Larry bring him the $30k for the deal.  Bregornick agrees.

That night, Larry goes to Bregornick’s apartment to pick up the cash.  Then Bregornick starts talking about his mother.  He tells Larry they had been engaged back in the old country, and that he could have been his father, but I don’t think that’s how that works.  After this non-sequitur, Larry goes to Angie’s.

She is loud and angry about everything as usual. Then Larry shows her the $30,000 which excites her, and she is happy for once.  But she can’t not be a shrew and says, “I didn’t think you could do it!  I didn’t think you had it in you!”  Then she more positively continues, “You beautiful thing!  Momma’s gonna take good care of you!”  But she is talking to the money.

Thinking big, she is excited about all the shoes she can buy.  She says they can buy all new clothes in Rio!  Although they don’t seem like the type who would have passports ready to go.  Maybe back then all you needed was a driver’s license and a carton of Luckys for the pilot.  He tells her he needs to take every bit of the cash out with him that night.  As he leaves, she yells after him, “You are coming back?”  Obviously he has some master plan, but I applaud him not answering, leaving her to worry.

He goes back to Bregornick’s apartment where Miklos has now arrived.  Larry confesses to making the call as Miklos, and stealing the cash.  Then he says he thought of his father.  He could not steal the money because his father would have been ashamed of him.  He hangs his head and walks to the door.  Bregornick is touched by his almost-son’s revelation.  He stops Larry and gives him a big ol’ bear hug.

Larry goes back to Angie’s.  He tells her he gave the money back to Bregornick and she looks disgusted.  “Why!” she screams.  He just laughs and says, “I got something better than his money.  I got his trust.”

I’ve complained recently about AHP’s that don’t have a murder.  This one doesn’t even have a crime.  It has a good first act for a movie, but even that is ruined by the production.  Larry and Angie are just loathsome human beings.  She is loud, greedy, angry and domineering.  He is Robert Loggia.

I never thought about of Loggia as being particularly vile.  He was pretty curmudgeonly but avuncular in Big.  But then I think about him as a psychopath on The Sopranos, and as low-life trash in An Officer and a Gentlemen.  Maybe he just had great range.  Here, he is just as loud, angry and abrasive as Angie.  Come to think of it, Bregornick shouts all of his dialogue too.  Maybe the director was hard of hearing.

So this gives us 3 viscerally unlikeable people.  The only decent person is Larry’s father, and he is dead.  Add to this an overbearing score, and this is a rare off-night for AHP.

Other Stuff:

• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
• It took me 6 weeks to get through this episode.
• If the title sounds like a Seinfeld episode . . .