1950s housewife Eve is preparing a breakfast that looks like the buffet at the Hilton — actual brewed coffee, toast, eggs, fresh-squeezed orange juice.  All this is very strange in that Eve and husband Jordan are constantly but eruditely sniping at each other and are on the verge of a divorce.  Why would she go to such trouble for him if the last ingredient wasn’t rat poison?

I must say though, the bickering is pretty entertaining, and well-played in that non-plussed British style where each insult is met calmly with an equally pointed retort. Asses will have no caps busted up them in this fine home.

It is strange, though not problematic, that the style changes dramatically at this point. The first scene is played strictly for deadpan laughs.  Once the intruder arrives, it becomes a farce without the laughs — yet remains comical throughout.  Whether it is a failure or brilliant balancing of styles, you can only answer for yourself (hint: brilliant).

They are interrupted by the doorbell.  A man in a rumpled suit immediately elbows his way inside and pulls out a pistol.  When Jordan comes out of the kitchen and sees his wife with a disheveled stranger, his calm response is, “Well now, this is a highly interesting development.”  He assumes Eve is having an affair, but even when he sees the gun, he very calm.

Chester the intruder demands something to eat.  He says, “The cops are after me.  I killed two people yesterday.  Only the first one counts.  You can figure that one out, can’t ya?”

Jordan says, “Yes, I think I grasp the general meaning.”  Well he’s one up on me.  What could that mean?  That it only takes one to make a man a murderer? That the second was a cop in pursuit?

Chester plans to take the car, and Jordan says that is fine as he takes the train to work and dismissively says he really must be going before he is missed at an important meeting.  His refusal to buy into this lethal situation really is a unique take.  When he describes how someone at the office will come looking for him, Chester agrees to let him go and keep Eve as a hostage — which is OK by Jordan.

Eve protests to poor Chester — yeah, I’m starting to feel sorry for him — that Jordan won’t come back, or that he will call the police just so Eve will be killed.  “He’s been trying to get rid of me for a year.  Ask him about Sylvia Lester.”

“Who’s that?” asks Chester.

Jordan says Eve is crazy, Sylvia is just an author he works with.  Eve and Jordan start bickering about divorce as if Chester isn’t even there.  Chester gets fed up and tells Jordan to just call in sick.

After Jordan hangs up, Chester admits that the two people he killed were his wife and the guy she was fooling around with.  So I guess he killed the guy second and he was the one who “didn’t count.”

Chester thinks maybe having someone in the car would get him through the roadblocks.  Eve says since Jordan was so anxious to leave, to take him.

Chester says he could do that but would have to shoot Eve to keep her from calling the cops.

So then Eve offers to go with him, surely a couple would not be stopped at a roadblock. Jordan points out that the exhausted Chester will need help driving and Eve doesn’t have a license.  Eve assures him that they would never shoot at a woman. Jordan assures him that he will take turns on the driving.  Both of them are playing to Chester and repeatedly throwing the other under the bus.

Finally, Chester decides to take Eve.  As he is leaving with Eve and preparing to shoot her husband, Jordan reminds Chester that he will need money.  Jordan can get the money for him at the bank — and it’s not a joint account.  He offers to write a check for $500, but only at the bank.

Eve rats him out that he keeps that much in a box in the bedroom upstairs.  As they go up the stairs, Jordan tricks Chester into chasing Eve downstairs as he locks himself in the bedroom.  There are more twists and turns as Eve and Jordan continually try to get the other killed.

The ending is sweet even if the last line is cringe-worthy.  This really was a great episode in both premise and performance.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Two outta three ain’t bad; unfortunately all three are dead.
• Note all the 1950’s tropes — dutiful wife still cooks a full breakfast for a man she hates, she has no job, she has no license, she is not on the checking account. Maybe Hillary was right, this was slavery.
• Jordan often looks very much like Phil Hartman.
• The comical screenplay is by Robert C. Dennis who wrote for such other laugh-riots as Dragnet and Perry Mason.  He also wrote four episodes of Batman, oddly all of them featured King Tut as the villain. Maybe he was working pro-buo…..I can’t even write it.
• For a more thorough review and background on the players and production, head over to bare-bones ezine.

Fran and Ed are having a nice breakfast before he goes off to work. He notices that she is not wearing her watch and she says that it is being fixed.  Ed mentions that the race track has just re-opened and questions whether she might be going there today.

He asks her if that is why her watch is missing.  This would be one pro-active chick — not even waiting for the bookies to threaten her, she is hocking her watch before the track opens just to get some scratch.  Ed tells her that if she is betting again, there will be no excuses, and no tears — they are through!  You know, unless she hits the trifecta.

After Ed leaves, she goes to the pawn shop and gets her watch back.  When she gets back home, her partner-in-gambling Lana Shank is waiting at her door.  Lana is ecstatic as she hit the Daily Double yesterday, presumably not on Jeopardy, for $268.  She wants Fran to come back to the track with her today, but Fran tells her Ed threatened to divorce her if she started betting again.

Picking up the newspaper, she notices a horse named Pink Angel, then hears a song on the radio by that name.  Armed with this ironclad information, she calls her bookie to place a bet.  Luckily, she is able to control hersellf and hangs up.

Coincidentally the bookie calls her seconds later.  There is the small — literally small — matter of $26.40 she owes to him.  She hasn’t even been to the track since it re-opened, so I’d say this is the most patient bookie on earth.

He comes over, but Fran is only able to come up with $1.55.  Wow maybe $26 wasn’t so small back then.  In the closet, she goes through her husband’s pants but finds nothing. Maybe if she had gone through the bookie’s pants, her problem might have gone away.

Then she gets a bright idea.  A pretty snappy dame when she smiles, she goes downtown and tells a series of strangers that she forgot her purse and needs $.15 for the bus.  She does OK with the suckers (i.e. men), but a woman getting off the bus tells her to ask the police for money. Seeing that she will never make it to $26 that way she shoplifts a $50 compact.

Outside, a man busts her and puts her in a car.  As they are driving, he offers to give her a break.  She doesn’t know how to thank him, but he says, “I’m sure you can think of something if you put your mind to it.”  He peels off a $20 and drops it in her lap as he admits he is not a cop, but can still help her out of a jam.

He says to “pretend I’m your husband for a few minutes”, so she nags him he’s going too fast.  She hits him in the face with her purse, causing them to swerve into a light pole.

She flees the scene, but leaves behind her purse which allows the police to track her to her apartment. They found the $20 and put it in her purse.  After a day more antic than the 4th Indiana Jones movie, the bookie shows up and Fran pays him off.  He offers to place another bet for her, but she tells him she is through forever.

She gets a call from her husband that he suddenly has to fly to Washington.  She remembers a horse named Washington Flyer, so calls her bookie immediately.

A nice, enjoyable episode.  I really thought it was going to end on a happy note with her not gambling again.  Guess I’m just one of those suckers (i.e. men).

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Tharon Crigler still hanging on just as she was in The Motive which just aired 2 weeks earlier.
• AHP Proximity Alert:  Carl Betz was also just in that recent episode.
• Fran’s last name is Holland and she is “in Dutch” with the bookie.
• They live in Apt 3-D but I got nothing for that.
• The $.15 for the bus would be worth $1.24 today.
• The $26 for the bookie:  $215.
• The $50 compact Fran stole  $413.
• The $20 to be her “husband for a few minutes” — priceless.

Eldon Marsh (Martin Balsam) has just whipped his boss at golf.  The boss is better at the long drives than the diminutive Eldon, but has a tendency to be a 3-putt chump. Eldon credits his putter which he dubs “The Equalizer” for the win.

At the Club that night, his boss isn’t sure he will fare too well against the strapping young new salesman Wayne Phillips (Leif Erickson (really?)).  At the moment, Eldon should be more worried as Phillips is dancing pretty close with his wife Louise.

After they return to the table, the boss suggests the men-folk retire to the game-room for some Bridge.  Phillips declines, mortifying the other salesmen; maybe because of the effrontery to his new boss, or maybe because he is left alone with their wives — a situation he immediately takes advantage of by flirting with another wife, making Louise visibly jealous.

That night in their bedroom, Eldon asks Louise what she thinks of the new salesman Wayne Phillips.  She not quite convincingly assures her husband that she did not like Phillips. She slips off her robe and they get into their separate twin beds, as real couples did in the 1950’s.

The next day Phillips, with his salesman smile, comes into Eldon’s office.  He tells Eldon what a lovely girl Louise is.  Phillips accuses him not not trusting his wife,  Eldon says he trusts Louise implicitly but doesn’t trust Phillips as far as he could throw him.

Phillips stands up, about 6 inches taller than Eldon and says, “That wouldn’t be be very far, would it little man?”  Eldon warns him, “Don’t try to test your irresponsibility with my wife.”  Eldon actually comes off as a pretty cool customer.

That weekend when Phillips misses a tee-time with the boss, speculation runs wild among the salesmen that he was playing a round with some dame instead. Overhearing this, Eldon assumes Phillips is banging his wife; especially when she does not answer the telephone (back when they were tethered to the wall and not easily transported to a Motel 6).

Later at the club, Eldon believes he sees his wife and Phillips making eyes at each other.  After she leaves, he throws a drink in Phillips face, and says, ‘I want to fight this man!’  Phillips refuses to fight, but finally Eldon takes a swing at him and Phillips decks him.

At home, the real switch is that Louise admits Eldon was right.  Not only that, she berates, him, “These things happen all the time.  Some men have enough sense not to make a spectacle of themselves.”

He assumes she will go to Phillips now, but she blames him again.  “You very nicely ruined that for me!  You created such a scandal that we couldn’t possibly go on!”  She does leave him, though, just not to go to Phillips.

The next day, cleaning out his desk, even his boss blames him, saying, “I don’t understand why you put me in a position where I had to fire you. You couldn’t just let this blow over?”

Eldon says he could have tolerated it if Phillips had loved Louise, but he was just making her look cheap.  For that, they must fight.  His boss even offers to fire Phillips instead of Eldon, but it’s no good — he wants that fight.

Later at the club, as Phillips is flirting with another of the wives, Eldon comes in and challenges him to a duel.  They idiotically agree to meet for a duel — 10 paces, turn and fire.

Eldon arrives for the duel, but doesn’t see Phillips.  As he is looking out over the city, he hears Phillips emerging from the shadows.  Before he can say anything, Phillips plugs him.  Phillips dutifully calls the cops and claims self-defense.  Unfortunately, Eldon is unarmed, not even bringing a knife to this gunfight.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  All equally dead.
• Title Analysis:  The titular Equalizer is the fact that Eldon feels he has nothing left to lose, thus he is not afraid of Phillips.  That would be good had they not muddied the water-hazard by Eldon earlier referring to his putter as the Equalizer rather than, say, the old Billy Baroo.
• For a more in-depth look at the story, performers and production, head over to bare-bones ezine.

This was brutal.

It is 1907 and Millicent Bracegirdle is going to Paris to bring her sister back to England.

Just so much to dislike — the older woman in the lead, the score, the relentless voice-over, the English accents, the French accents.  Normally, none of that would bother me, but it just piles up.

Then we get a voice-over in an extended scene with the unattractive old woman in the tub where we are treated to as much skin as 1958 TV would allow.  She claims to be 45 in the voice-over, but the actress is really 53.  F***n’ actors, man.

After her bath, she mistakenly enters the wrong room and is trapped in there with a dead man.  So to top things off, this is the same premise as an episode from just three weeks ago.

Except this time we get the high-larity of an old woman hiding under the bed or in the closet and some jaunty komedy music.

Just a really dreadful episode worthy of no more discussion.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  All dead, maybe of embarrassment.