Noiseless Chatter

Well, Jodie’s gone and she’s never coming back, which means it’s time to return to the weekly parade of distracting guest stars so that the writers don’t have to bother developing their main characters.

That’s not to say that “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” is without merit, but it is to say that it’s much closer to a standard episode of ALF than it is to…you know. Something good.

We do open with a real surprise, though: Brian.

Yep, that’s him! On screen! Saying and doing things! Of course, it’s not a very reassuring sign that he’s taken to wearing a shirt with his name on it. I guess it helps keep his family from forgetting who he is, but it’s still kind of sad.

This is tremendously funny to me. We don’t see Max Wright wearing a WILLIE shirt, but 19 episodes into season two the writers haven’t done enough with this kid to feel secure that we’ll even recognize who he is.

Anyway, “Brian” (if his shirt is to be believed) has found a dog. ALF somehow fucked up the Tanners’ chimney, so he’s cutting hedges as punishment. At last we can add asphyxiation to the list of ways ALF has thrust this family into mortal danger.

Brian shows ALF how to play fetch with the dog, and ALF responds by lightly lobbing a stick over the fence. It travels at a speed and angle that couldn’t possibly connect with the Ochmoneks’ window, but we hear it shatter in an explosion of glass as though a fucking horse just ran through it, so what do I know about physics? Remember back in “Isn’t it Romantic?” when I hoped that, for Benji Gregory’s sake, ALF had a great foley artist? Well…now we can officially dismiss that possibility.

Willie comes running out, and Mr. Ochmonek shouts that he’s coming over. Of course, Willie yells loudly at ALF, calling him by name, telling him to run off and hide, and reminding him that he’s always taking the fall for ALF’s antics. All good points, Willie, but is this the best time to be bringing them up? So loudly? When you know your neighbor is within earshot? And when you also know he’ll be stepping into the back yard in a matter of seconds?

Sorry, but that’s stupid on a number of levels excessive even for ALF.

Willie hands Mr. Ochmonek $20, but Mr. O says that he’ll need $80 this time, because he’s putting in Plexiglass. He explains to Willie, “It’ll be cheaper for you in the long run.”

See? However many times this family of assholes smashes up Mr. Ochmonek’s property, he’s still nice to them, joking around and saving them money. Tell me again why we’re supposed to see him as the bad neighbor?

Jack LaMotta does this great little physical flourish when he comes over, flipping the stick ALF threw into the air and catching it as he walks. This is a major part of the reason I came to love Mr. Ochmonek: Jack LaMotta knows who he is. I can guarantee that almost none of Mr. O’s physical business was in the scripts; the writers, we can say conclusively, weren’t that interested in developing any of these clowns. Which means LaMotta, like Anne Schedeen before him, made these decisions for himself. He saw what was on the page, figured out what kind of character would say those things, and fleshed out the character himself.

Did the writing staff know how Mr. Ochmonek would carry himself when stepping onto Willie’s property with the stick that broke his window? I promise you they did not. But Jack LaMotta knew, and I have a massive amount of respect for that. From what I understand he didn’t enjoy working on the show any more than anyone else did, but based on his performance alone, I wouldn’t be able to find evidence of that.

Anyway, Willie says they can keep the dog, wherever the fuck it came from, the dog growls at ALF, and we get our credits. That has to be the longest opening sequence yet. In fairness, though, it managed set up a lot of things that could be explored in the rest of the episode: the broken chimney, Mr. Ochmonek’s windows, Brian enjoying his new dog, the dog hating ALF, Willie at wit’s end…

Oh, who am I kidding. None of this shit pays off in any way. The opening scene isn’t long because it’s establishing things we need to know; it’s long because it’s padded.

I miss Jodie. :(

ALF is under the table or something who cares.

He’s feeling around for a plate of raw steaks, which Kate moves out of the way. She then places her hand on the table instead, and when ALF feels it he hesitates for a moment…then stands up, shakes it, and introduces himself. It’s a cute little moment, and the sort of thing I’d like to see more often on this show.

Kate then notices that a steak is missing, and blames ALF. ALF says he didn’t do it, but…well…he was clearly going to do it, so I’m not sure we can feel too sorry that he’s being falsely accused.

She doesn’t believe him, and she tells him he’s not getting dinner as punishment. Now this seems like a good angle for the episode; the new dog misbehaves, doing all the things that ALF has done often enough in the past (eating food that isn’t his, ripping up the furniture, shitting on the rug) so that ALF keeps getting blamed, even when he’s innocent.

That sounds like a pretty good half hour to me, and it could lead to some fun, character-based comedy. But then Lynn walks in with the dog explaining that the dog ate the steak so…I guess that’s that. Why bother setting up the “ALF is wrongfully accused” angle if they’re going to dismantle it with the very next line?

There’s a very well-observed moment next, though, when Kate walks over to the dog to scold it. She kneels down, says, “Bad dog!” and then immediately starts fawning over it and apologizing.

Schedeen absolutely sells the comedy of that instant reversal, but even without her that would have probably worked as a smart gag. Dogs absolutely have the innate ability to defuse their own punishments with their big eyes and their droopy tails.

There was nothing my old dog could do wrong that I wouldn’t feel terrible about scolding her for. She could spill the trash, eat my dinner, knock something fragile over…and I’d send her to her bed, but then I’d always — always — melt when I saw her apologetic eyes staring back at me.

Usually I could hold it inside and let her stew, because that really would be the only way she’d learn, but even then I’d be dying inside. Yes, she knew what she did was wrong, and yes, she had to learn that certain behavior was not acceptable, but she is SO CUTE AND FLUFFY AND OHH COME HERE. OHHHH WHO’S A BAD DOG. OHHH YOU ARE. YESSS YOU ARE. OHHHH WHO WANTS A TUMMY RUB

ALF, understandably, thinks this is bullshit.

Kate tells ALF not to sulk. It’s just a dog, and it doesn’t know any better. ALF says, “Ignorance is no excuse.” Then Kate shoots perfect daggers directly into his soul and says, “Ignorance is your excuse all the time.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is probably my favorite exchange the show has had yet. Both sides have perfectly valid points, and both sides are willfully overlooking things. It’s an intelligent way to structure this conversation, boiling the entire dialogue down to two very potent lines, and in this case it only works because of Schedeen.

The scolding / apology a moment ago was a strong enough concept that even the worst actor on the show could have probably pulled it off. Here, though, it only works because of Schedeen’s commitment to it. She delivers her rejoinder perfectly, and the bemused tone of voice she adopts is spot-on, as is her body language. I cannot stress enough what an asset she is to ALF. Often, she’s its only asset.

We then get another well-observed moment of dog ownership: Lynn tells the family to watch as she issues commands. She tells the dog to speak…and it doesn’t. After a moment, though, it lies down, and the Tanners laugh and coo.

ALF, of course, doesn’t join in* but the reactions of the rest of the family are perfect. Dogs are indeed adorable when they do tricks. Dogs are exactly as adorable when they fail to do tricks, or misinterpret commands. People end up fawning over every little thing a dog does, from sneezing to snapping at a fly to twitching its little feet while it sleeps. They get so much credit for doing literally nothing more than being themselves that it’s an inherently funny thing to draw attention to.

Sadly, we find out later in the episode that that’s not what’s going on here at all. The dog’s real owner taught it, for some reason, to respond improperly to voice commands, so this well-observed moment is turned retroactively into a brainless throwaway gag. Well done, ALF.

Also, we learn that Brian named the dog Alfina, which almost seems like my wish for “We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert,” in which Uncle Albert was instead Uncle Alfred — a human double pulling the same shit ALF pulls — might be coming true here, with a misbehaving dog in his place. Especially with the whole dog-eating-the-steak setup earlier. This would be a chance (arguably an even better one) to filter ALF’s normal behavior through an outsider, and reveal to the alien how dickawful he is.

But, no. It’s a decent little suggestion that the dog is replacing ALF…but even that doesn’t pan out. I’ll get to why shortly.

The evil mom from The Goonies comes over and says she saw one of the Lost Dog posters Brian hung up. She swears it’s hers, even though she doesn’t know its gender, doesn’t recognize it, and doesn’t know its name. (“Come here, dog,” doesn’t get a fake audience laugh, but I liked it.)

It’s a little sad to see Anne Ramsey here, especially since she’s in overtly poor health. Looking up the spelling of her name I found out that this was indeed one of her last roles, and that’s upsetting. Her walk is clearly pained and her line delivery barely this side of comprehensible. The joke is supposed to be that this is a stingy old argumentative coot, but with the state she’s in it feels a lot more like we’re supposed to be laughing at her for being at the brink of death.

I can’t express just how much this shakes me up, but I can’t blame ALF for this. It happens on great shows, too. Elaine Stritch toward the end of 30 Rock was so obviously ailing that it became uncomfortable to watch. Richard Dunn always looked like he was at death’s door during the run of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job, and even though that was offset somewhat by how thrilled he was that he found such popularity with an audience so late in his life, the fact was that he could clearly go at any time.

And then he did.

So, no, I don’t blame ALF. But this is heartbreaking to watch. Especially since we’re supposed to hate her here. (Something that admittedly wasn’t true of Stritch or Dunn.)

It’s a genuine shame we didn’t get a rewrite (or a re-casting, as much as I hate to say that) once Ramsey’s rapidly declining health was seen by the production staff, because as it plays out we end up with Willie being a raging dick toward a woman who doesn’t seem ornery so much as she seems lost in the hallucinations of a fading mind.

The dog growls at her, and Willie tells this dying old lady to go fuck herself.

Then she gives him her number in case he changes his mind and leaves, at which point we watch Willie carefully shit his pants. At least that’s the only explanation I have for what we see him do here:

I don’t know. I guess he’s flinching from her, but Max Wright forgot to do it until after she turned around and left, making it look unprovoked and like an untreated symptom of St. Vitus dance.

Brian takes Alfina for a walk, and then ALF pops up through the plot window, moping that the boy is no longer interested in “the alien they left behind.” It’s not a joke, because the fake audience of dead people doesn’t tell us it’s one, so we’re actually supposed to feel sorry for him.

I’d like to.

Really. I would. But since ALF has made literally no effort to bond with this kid ever, I don’t know what he thinks he’s bitching about. We’ve seen them watch Gilligan’s Island together. We’ve seen him put Brian to work on his backyard plantation. And he talked some rambling bullshit to the kid about how he was once Don Quixote. I might be forgetting something, but I certainly can’t be forgetting much. ALF simply has never given much of a crap about Brian. Period.

Of course, this too could be a great inroad for the plot. ALF never bothered to bond with Brian…and now Brian is bonding with something else. ALF’s jealousy could play out in several ways for comic effect, and the episode could end with ALF realizing that he is the one to blame. The problem isn’t that Brian is sick of him…the problem is that ALF himself never put forth any effort, so the kid moved on. It’d be a bit like the realization at the end of “Cat’s in the Cradle,” except instead of the kid having a father who realizes what a mess he’s made of their relationship, he has an alien who rapes him a bunch.

Whatever. The point is that there are an infinite number of ways to handle this setup…and nearly all of them would be better than what we actually got.

Very early the next morning, ALF brings Willie his paper in bed, Kate tells him to fuck fucking off, and ALF complains that dogs get treated better than aliens around here. Which would probably have been a more compelling argument in an episode that didn’t open with this alien smashing up their neighbors’ windows.

He then finds that the dog has taken his bed. Fortunately it hasn’t truly taken over ALF’s place in the family, though, because it’s just lying there and not masturbating to Lynn’s unmentionables.

The dog yawns or licks its chops or something, and those masterful foley artists lay a totally incongruous growl over top of it. Startled by the dog’s impressive display of ventriloquism, ALF shits everywhere.

The next morning Willie and Kate cook ALF his all time favorite Sunday breakfast: naked pictures of Brian.

Sorry. They make his second favorite: French toast, Jell-O, and spaghetti. They’re doing this by way of apology. You know, because they busted up some windows and blamed him for it, broke his chimney, woke him up in the middle of the night for no reason…

Oh, wait. That’s all the crap he did. Why are they apologizing to him? Because he’s jealous of the dog? Fuck you, ALF. You send Willie to Gitmo without batting an eye, but they’re supposed to drop everything and kiss your feet because a better behaved animal is getting attention more attention than you?

This happens a lot in this show. ALF fucks some shit up and / or places the family in mortal danger, then they either apologize to him or thank him. Granted, in some cases he does actually save them (“Come Fly With Me”), but that should hardly get top billing over the fact that he’s the one that endangered them in the first place.

Anyway, they ask where the dog is and ALF reveals that he murdered it with a screwdriver.

A little girl comes over with one of Brian’s posters and says it’s her dog, Francesca. I don’t know how she knows that, since there’s no picture of the dog on the flier, and in fact has nothing printed on it apart from Andrea Elson’s next lines, but, whatever. Lynn, not knowing yet that ALF has disemboweled the dog in their bathtub, invites the girl in.

Where’s Brian in this scene? Seriously, why wasn’t he the character who answered the door? We could have had a scene between two little kids who are attached to the same dog. They both want it…they both feel entitled to it…but it rightfully belongs to the girl, and Brian has to learn to let go.

I like that idea. I don’t even care if you do, because the main point is that this episode about Brian bonding with the dog, which hinged a seemingly pivotal moment on ALF’s realization that Brian was bonding with the dog, is almost completely devoid of Brian.

It’s bizarre, and it has to be a joke at this point. Right? Not only are they making a point of not integrating him into stories that don’t need him, but they’re crowding him out of the stories that do need him.

Willie and Kate go into the kitchen to fist ALF to death. He admits he gave the dog away, but defends himself on the grounds that Brian was getting too attached to it.

See? This is a Brian episode, and he’s barely in it. The only thing we’ve seen him do with the dog is take it out for a walk, and the camera stayed behind while they were gone because fuck Brian. This kid isn’t even getting invited to his own parties anymore.

The dog is currently in the home of that woman who is going to be dead in a few weeks, so Willie heads over to throw her from the train.

I have no idea how much time is meant to have passed in this episode. I thought the whole episode up until ALF tries to sleep in his bed is the first (and only) day that the family has the dog, judging by the fact that their outfits don’t change and the dog doesn’t seem to have found anywhere else to sleep. The next morning is when they try to cook ALF breakfast, but that’s also the morning on which he reveals that the dog is gone.

Fine. But there’s also some worry during that scene because Willie and Kate know that the dog “usually” comes running when they’re cooking. It’s a bit early to say that if it’s only the next day, and way too early to be worried that the “usual” routine — of, what, 15 hours? — has been interrupted. So I have no fucking clue what’s going on except that this lady has the dog and who the hell cares how quickly time does or doesn’t pass in this dumbass show.

She demands $500 for the dog, and man is it hard to watch this. Ramsey’s speech is noticeably slurred, and she’s barely mobile. Then it gets even more unintentionally heartbreaking when her ex-boyfriend starts pounding on the door. We don’t see him until later, but we hear his voice, and IMDB informs me that the ex-boyfriend is played by Logan Ramsey, her real life husband. Anne died the same year this episode aired, and Logan died in 2000, twelve years later.

The running joke that these two hideous people could be in any way attracted to each other sure is a sour swansong for their lives together. In fact, the mere suggestion that this lady has or ever had a sex life is enough to make Willie do this:

Your social worker, ladies and gentleman.

Ugh. They really, really should have changed this script once they saw how poorly Anne Ramsey was. It’s not in good fun when she spends her time between scenes making funeral arrangements.

Her ex threatens to beat the piss out of whatever guy she has in there with her, so Willie jumps out the window and this show sucks.

Back at the ranch, ALF is trying to console Brian, who might as well be in the episode again, I guess. He’s not successful at talking the kid out of his funk, but ALF does get a good line when he suggests they go shoot some hoops: “I’ll get the pea-shooter. You see if the Hoops are in their back yard.”

Yeah, yeah. Sue me. I liked it.

Brian isn’t caving, though. He’s inconsolable, which we can tell from the fact that he sits in emotionless ignorance of anything going on around him. Just like every other episode.

Willie comes home and apologizes that he couldn’t get the dog back. Brian stomps off, pissed, but why? Had Willie gotten the dog, it still wouldn’t be Brian’s. It belongs to that little girl, and Wilile was getting it back for her. I can understand the idea that he’d be upset on her behalf, but that’s not what’s happening here. He’s mad because he doesn’t have the dog anymore…but no matter how things went with Mama Fratelli, that dog wasn’t coming back to the Tanner house.

Speaking of which, why didn’t Willie just cough up the $500? Yeah, it’s a lot of money, but he pays ten times that amount monthly to keep his alien happy. He won’t set some money aside — taking it out of ALF’s damage allowance, natch — to help this little girl get her dog back?

Fuck. You. Willie.

ALF feels bad so he sneaks up to the old lady’s window dressed as Sarah Portland. I don’t know what his plan actually was, because the phone conveniently rings, she leaves the room, and he’s free to just waltz inside. We never find out who was on the phone, so I guess the writers didn’t know what the plan was, either.

While ALF is in her living room, her ex-boyfriend comes back. ALF hides, Mr. Ramsey talks about how much he wants to fuck her. Mrs. Ramsey talks about how much she wants to be fucked by him. Then they head into the other room to fuck. HAVE I MENTIONED THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT SHOW FOR FAMILIES

Then ALF starts to lead the dog out the front door. Seriously, what was his plan? If the phone didn’t ring and / or she didn’t get her hands on the treasure of One-Eyed Willie, what exactly was ALF going to do to get the dog out of there?

Whatever. ALF hears the two hideous creatures porkin’ the night away, and starts walking over with the intention of spying on them.

“No,” he says, stopping himself. “Some things are best left to the imagination.”

What a seriously perverse fucking show. And what a horrible way to cap off Ramsey’s career. I’d have been less disgusted if they just dug her up and peed on her.

In the short scene before the credits, the little girl gets her dog back. Brian doesn’t seem to give more than a quarter of a shit at most, further confusing the issue of why he was angry before. And everything else that happened in this episode, for that matter.

The little girl tells him that he can come over and play whenever he wants, and his boner at being invited to participate in anything for the first time in 44 episodes can be seen from space.

THE END

MELMAC FACTS: ALF played Camille in his high school play. One of the common expressions on Melmac was, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it gets run over by a car, you don’t want it.”

—–
* He does make gagging gestures in the background through, and there’s a remarkable show of restraint on the part of the editors for not cutting to an extreme closeup of ALF doing this, a rushing crescendo of fake audience appreciation carrying us through to the act break.

Way back in episode six of season one, something incredible happened: I liked an episode of ALF. Since then I’ve enjoyed a few others to varying degrees, but “For Your Eyes Only” still stands out to me, simply because of how unexpected a treat it was. It was a funny episode that took a touchy subject and handled it cleverly. It didn’t hurt that it also introduced (and heavily featured) a great character: Jodie.

Jodie was a blind woman who lived alone. She and ALF met in that episode and bonded over their shared isolation, and it was lovely.

It really was. While Jodie’s actress did a nice job with what she was given, the real surprise was the big leap in quality of the writing as well. The writers not only set themselves with a challenge — writing comedy about the blind without being needlessly flippant or cruel — but they rose to it.

Since then I’ve been told that Jodie makes a return appearance…a prospect that I certainly welcomed, but I never expected it would come all the way at the end of the following season. The chronological distance between this and “For Your Eyes Only” proves somewhat problematic, but we’ll get to that later. Right now, the only important thing to note is that JODIE IS BACK YOU GUYS.

“We Gotta Get Out of This Place” might not be as strong as “For Your Eyes Only” but JODIE IS BACK YOU GUYS IT IS JODIE AND SHE IS BACK!!

We won’t get to see her for a little while, though. The episode opens with ALF and Willie playing chess. Chess is obviously a pretty complicated game, but I’m okay with ALF knowing the rules by this point. He’s been on Earth for over a year, and that’s plenty of time to develop a decent working knowledge of the game. What interests me, though, is the passive confirmation that Willie has no friends. At all.

It’s actually kind of sad. If poor Willie wants to play a game of chess, he has to pull a naked mole rat out of the laundry hamper because nobody else can stand this man’s company. It’s depressing. As many times as they try to fill the living room with anonymous nobodies we’ll never see again, they can’t fool us. Willie is friendless and alone. Which might make for a good character trait. You know…if the writers noticed.

The phone rings and Willie answers it. It’s for ALF, and ALF says, “It must be Jodie!”

Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’m happy with it being Jodie. I’m not happy with ALF’s assumption that it “must be” her.

Must it? She’s never even been mentioned since her episode way back at the beginning of season one, but this line makes it sound like ALF has been in regular contact with her.

Somehow that rings false, and later it’s even proven false: ALF says he only met her once.*

I’m glad she’s back, but why not have her pop in now and again? It’d keep the character fresh in our minds as viewers, and she’d certainly be a more welcome presence than almost any other disposable character they invent to spice things up from week to week. How many people watching in the pre-DVD age would remember this person by name? Even enthusiastic fans of the show would be lost if they’d missed that one episode.

Whatever. It turns out Jodie needs a place to stay, which makes Willie huff and puff and do whatever the fuck this is:

Why is Willie such a massive cock who always refuses to help people?

Remember, this man is a social worker. It’s not just that Jodie wants to have a slumber party…it’s that her apartment building is transitioning into condos, and she has to leave. She has nowhere else to stay, and nobody else to turn to. She’s a friend of one of Willie’s family members, she’s polite, she’s gracious, oh, and she’s blind, and Willie would prefer she sleeps in the rain gutter for the rest of her life than on his sofa for a couple of nights.

THIS MAN IS A SOCIAL WORKER

It’s disgusting, and it’s getting to the point that Willie seems inhuman. As much as I hate ALF and recognize him as an obnoxious freeloader, and as much as the episode wants me to believe that right now — with his offer to Jodie intended to play as one massive gesture of disrespect toward the friendless goon who spends his free time scoring cheap chess victories off a space alien — it’s pretty clear that it’s Willie who’s King Asshole.

The phone conversation even implies that he knows who Jodie is. This isn’t some silliness where he mistakenly thinks ALF is offering another Melmacian hobo a place to crash,** it’s somebody he’s familiar with. It’s the lonely blind woman who has nobody in her life and nowhere to stay while she looks for a new apartment. Willie is fully aware of this, all of this, and he’d prefer to leave her to rot. In fact, he’s appalled that somebody might even suggest a different option.

Why is it that the one time the show wants me to see ALF as an irritating parasite is also the one time I’m entirely on his side?

Please tell me that says more about the writers than it says about me.

The Tanners apparently forget how many people are in their family and eat dinner without Brian. They bitch endlessly about how rude ALF was to invite a friendly woman with a disability into their massive fucking mansion instead of letting her die in a dumpster, but Lynn takes ALF’s side.

Oh, lovely Lynn. It took the show a while to figure out what the fuck kind of character you were supposed to be, but “voice of empathy and reason” is exactly where I’d hoped you’d land.

In the course of this conversation with the entire family — yes, the entire family, I don’t care if you think they used to have a son, you’re obviously just confused — we learn that Jodie still doesn’t know ALF is an alien. This is also where we find out that their one meeting in “For Your Eyes Only” was the first and last time they were in each other’s company. So…I know I was kidding about this in my previous reviews, but it really is starting to sound like ALF actually did lead her on and abandon her way back when. The fact that she’s asking him for help now really makes it clear how much of a pinch she’s in.

There is a funny line when ALF reveals that he invited Jodie to stay for a month. Willie — of course — is taken aback, and then ALF clarifies: “Actually, I told her she could stay forever. But I thought I’d break it to you a month at a time.”

The writing in the first Jodie episode is still some of the best the show’s ever had. “Going Out of My Head Over You” (and possibly “Night Train”) might have surpassed it, but it set an early example of what a good episode of ALF might look like. In large part, that was due to the fact that the dialogue and the gags were well-observed and sharp.

Lines like the above suggest that the writing staff might be capable of rising to the occasion once more, and while this episode doesn’t hit the highs of the previous Jodie appearance, it’s decent enough on its own merits, and it recaptures a little bit of the sweet interplay between her and ALF. That in itself is more than enough to warrant her return.

It takes ALF making the situation explicit (“How would you feel if you were some blind lady that got strung along by a midget in a gorilla suit and then had no place to stay because you’re not good enough to sleep on the couch of some guy who sucks dick for crack?”) before Willie and Kate relent. As mentioned, it’s Lynn who takes the decisive stand here, and I think that’s adorable. In “For Your Eyes Only” she was also the one who stuck her neck out to get ALF and Jodie together, and while I’m positive this is not a conscious nod to that fact, it still provides some nice resonance.

ALF says, “Thanks, Lynn. I owe you one.” Lynn asks, “One?” And ALF replies, “One today.”

If season two introduced any substantial improvement over season one, it’s this new relationship between ALF and Lynn. It’s so much more real, and, to me at least, it’s become the (all-too-often invisible) heart of the show.

ALF moves all of the furniture out of the way so that Jodie won’t trip on it when she gets here. It’s similar to the scene in “For Your Eyes Only” in which ALF was constantly reminding Jodie of where she was in relation to other things, and this time the similarity might be a conscious one. Here it makes a little more logistical sense, as she wouldn’t be familiar with the Tanner floor plan the way she would be with her own, but it’s still the same kind of well-meaning thing that people do to accommodate the disabled that actually comes across as unwittingly rude.

And that’s nice.

I like that, because that’s a smart observation, and it turns that kind of mindset into the punchline, rather than asking us to laugh at the disability. This episode might be treading similar water to “For Your Eyes Only,” but it’s water worth treading again, because it’s a sticky issue that’s ripe for another examination. The fact that it goes even deeper this time further justifies the retread.

But fuck thinking about this shit JODIE IS BACK YOU GUYS LOOK JODIE IS BACK!!

What a sight for sore eyes. After so much bullshit over the course of the past season and a half, it’s great to be back in the presence of the first assurance we had that ALF didn’t have to be utter garbage.

But, really, why haven’t we seen her since? We’ve had three episodes with Jake in them, for the love of Christ, and we were even privy to every detail of the never-anticipated wedding of Wizard Beaver, but we can’t so much as check in on Jodie? I guess doing so would break the longstanding tradition of ALF entering into lifelong friendships with people he never even thinks about again, but maybe — just maybe… — that would be A Good Thing.

When we met Jodie, she was just a lonely, sightless woman, living alone. ALF entered her life and gave her someone to talk to, which was effective and sweet, and it cast our hero in a new (though admittedly temporary) light. Based on the show’s track record, I wasn’t confident that the writers would handle her blindness anywhere near appropriately, but I was pleasantly surprised; Jodie was a perfectly capable and well-rounded human being. The blindness didn’t have as much to do with her as it did with the way people reacted to it. She was fine, in other words; everybody else was doing the stumbling.

Here we find her much the same as we left her. She doesn’t seem to have changed at all, but that’s what’s unintentionally sad about it. She still has no friends and nobody else to talk to. ALF may well have been the only pleasant relationship she’s had in years…and it only lasted a couple of hours. “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” doesn’t want us to think about that, because if we do we’ll see that it must have been a pretty dark few months for Jodie.

Some people are perfectly fine being left alone. I don’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong with being happy on your own…but Jodie wasn’t. That’s why she and ALF met; neither of them were happy in their loneliness.

ALF’s been doing pretty well since then — getting into scrapes, playing chess, raping stuff — but Jodie’s gone literally nowhere. What’s worse, she met a man she felt she finally connected with. That man was ALF. He blew off their second date and never gave her another thought.

Yeah. I feel pretty bad for ol’ Jodie.

Whatever failed to happen between them, they do slip back into a charming dynamic pretty easily. They play some silly game in the kitchen with Jodie identifying slices of cheese by the smell. When ALF throws her off by poking holes in something that isn’t actually Swiss, she accuses him of cheating. He replies, “All’s fair in love and games of Guess the Cheese.”

On its own that’s not especially funny, but it works because Jodie laughs with him. The point of that line — and this sequence — wasn’t to tell us how wonderful ALF is (are you listening, “ALF’s Special Christmas?”) but to tell us how well these two get along. You know. Characterization.

Jodie legitimately enjoys ALF’s company, and she cares about him. He cares about her too, I think…not consistently, and never when she’s out of sight, but he did invite her over when she was facing homelessness, which is something, and now he’s keeping her spirits up as well.

Interacting with Jodie brings out a gentler kind of ALF in Paul Fusco’s performance. The dynamic, for once, is one in which ALF does not seek to dominate. In just about every other situation, he’s either dominating the scene, the conversation, or another person outright. With Jodie, they’re conversational equals. They’re friends. And it works very well.

Mainly it works because Jodie’s actress is game in ways that, say, Max Wright isn’t. While the ALF / Willie friendship has been toyed with a few times — nearly always to welcome effect — it’s too obvious that Wright doesn’t want to be ALF’s friend. Whatever he may think Willie is, it’s not a guy who gives half a shit about the space alien fucking his daughter. And while Anne Schedeen is absolutely game, the ALF / Kate dynamic is one of comfortable antagonism. Having the two of them bond too deeply just wouldn’t be right for who they are. It’s far better that they continue to push each other’s buttons without ever actually shoving one another over the edge.

Jodie, however, does want to be ALF’s friend. Indeed, the ease with which they’ve slipped into that dynamic twice now makes it clear that that’s what they already are.

Or could be…if ALF ever returned her phone calls.

ALF and Jodie are enjoying their delicious beverages: Diet Soda Cola, and Soda Lemon-Lime. Names that would be monumentally stupid even if the actual names of the sodas weren’t peeking out from beneath the half-assed stickers. But Kate pisses all over their carbonated cheese parade by coming over and asking ALF why he threw away this morning’s paper.

It turns out it’s because he didn’t want Jodie to find a new apartment and leave, which is sweet in a childlike way, and extremely creepy through a more adult filter. Due to his relationship with Jodie playing out similarly to a romantic one, this is a big red flag. For once, the episode realizes it, and makes much of this later.

Jodie is embarrassed, and apologizes to Willie and Kate. Having realized that he’s been manipulating the situation to keep her homeless, she starts to visibly tire of ALF’s antics, and this is great.

Really. It is. Like the clever twist of “Working My Way Back to You” (in which ALF on his best behavior is a better homemaker than Kate is, to the gradual irritation of the entire family), this is evidence that somebody on the writing staff took a decent story, and then put forth the effort to make it better.

This episode began with ALF (and Lynn) lobbying for Jodie to stay with them, against the wishes of Willie and Kate. That’s a perfectly fine setup, with two characters looking out for Jodie, and two who don’t seem to care much about her at all. It positions ALF as a nice guy, and he gets his way. Now, however, he’s no longer acting in her best interests…being just as selfish as Willie had been. The roles are reversed. Willie might still want her to leave for his own reasons, but helping her find a place to live also helps Jodie. ALF, on the other hand, is willing to hold her back for the sake of not losing her. I like this.

The Tanners find a nice apartment listing for Jodie, and she goes into the living room to call and see if it’s available. While she’s gone, ALF opens up to Willie and Kate, telling them that he doesn’t want her to leave. They reply, correctly, that she wants to move out, but ALF explains that they don’t understand the plight of the blind. He does, because he locked himself in the closet the other day. “Being blind is very dusty, and smells like boots.”

The upshot of the conversation is that if Jodie leaves, ALF says he’s going with her. This is sweet, and also leads to some more good comedy. Willie raises the perfectly valid point that Jodie would never be able to take care of him the way the Tanners have, but ALF corrects him and says he’ll be taking care of her. “Jodie needs me like a hole in the head!” he says, assuming that that’s something Earthlings see as a positive thing. It’s funny.

Why is ALF able to choose to move in with Jodie before consulting her on it? That gets addressed later, so I’ll save it for that, but while watching this the first time, that felt like a pretty big logical hole…something I mention because I was enjoying it enough that I didn’t actually care. Give me a good scene and I’ll give you all the slack in the world.

The best joke in the episode comes when Jodie announces that the apartment is available, and ALF informs Lucky (off-camera) that he’s moving out. “Gee,” ALF says. “I’ve never seen a cat smile before.”

THE JODIE EPISODES ARE GOOD YOU GUYS

After the commercial Brian warbles a few bars of “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” just to really hammer home the fact that the show has literally given up writing lines for him. Then we cut mercifully to Jodie’s new apartment, where ALF is looking at a book written in braille.

He says, “This book doesn’t have any words.” Then he runs his finger along a page and adds, “It’s got zits.”

Again, it’s funny, but it leads to a kind of dickish moment where he pulls out a pencil and starts treating it like a dot-to-dot. Won’t that fuck up Jodie’s book? Maybe, but, never fear, this is a good episode and the writers are paying attention to what they’re doing.

As evidence of this, Jodie comes home from grocery shopping. With the Tanners, it made sense that ALF couldn’t help with chores like that, because he’s an alien and can’t be seen in public. However Jodie doesn’t know that…so, in her mind, is he just some unemployed schmoe who makes blind people wait on him hand and foot?

Good question, and the episode addresses it immediately. “I don’t understand you,” she says. “You don’t have a job. You never leave the house.” She knows something’s up, but she doesn’t know what it is. ALF explains it away by confessing that he’s a very, very old man. I wish the conversation went a bit further than that, but it’s clever that ALF dodges the question by telling the truth. He is a very, very old man. He’s not a man from Earth, but she doesn’t know that.

Jodie starts preparing dinner, and ALF — to not be a total waste of everything for once — sets the table. It leads to one funny joke when ALF finds out they’re having vegetables (“That’s not food; that’s the stuff food eats.”) and one shitty joke that’s just ALF accidentally smashing her dinnerware all over the floor because, fuck it, he’s a total waste of everything even at his best.

It is nice that his well-intentioned behavior works against Jodie, but ALF smacking shit onto the floor isn’t nearly as clever or satisfying as him hiding the newspaper listings earlier, or what we see him doing in a moment.

The next day, Jodie trips over something ALF put in the hallway: a speed bump to prevent her from walking too fast and potentially getting hurt. He also taped cushions to things so she won’t have to worry about bumping into them, and labelled things like the window and the table with raised lettering.

She even finds him putting curb feelers on her shoes.

Does anyone out there actually remember those? I remember when I was learning to drive, and I had trouble parallel parking. My father made some joke about curb feelers, and that was the first time I’d heard of them. I wanted them immediately, so his joke backfired. Little did he know I’d never have any shame about looking like an idiot.

Anyway, ALF’s annoying the everloving shit out of her, but he’s doing it for what he thinks is a good cause. AND FUCKERS I LIKE THAT.

Intention and reality are not matching up for ALF in “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” and that’s interesting. This isn’t just a bunch of jokes that do or don’t work; it’s the examination of a flawed mindset, putting us as viewers in a position where we can be on both ALF’s and Jodie’s sides.

It’s also kind of adorable…at least in terms of intention. The “child’s craftbox” approach to his modifications to Jodie’s apartment add a nice level of unspoken visual comedy. I really need to give more credit to the props department. Or, y’know…give them props.

B-)

Jodie sends ALF off on a wild goose chase to find her keys, and while he’s out of the room she calls the Tanners. This is where we learn that ALF told her he was only going to stay with her until she got settled…but now it’s clear that she’ll never be settled by his standards. I kind of wish this tied into the “break it to you a month at a time” joke from earlier, but, as it is, it’s kind of sad.

In a good way. Not in a Willie-has-to-play-chess-with-a-wise-cracking-puppet way.

Later on, ALF is chiseling the word BEET into a beet, and hits his finger with the hammer. He calls for Willie and Kate, but then catches himself. “What am I doing? They’re not here. I’ll have to kiss it myself.”

Was Jodie’s actress related to one of the writers or something? They really seem to step up their game for her episodes.

The Tanners come over while Jodie is doing laundry, and explain to ALF that she called them to take him away. She wants to live alone, and he’s being overbearing.

He says that that doesn’t sound like Jodie, and was probably a different blind woman who had a wrong number. Again, funny, but he’s clearly grasping at straws, and he knows they’re right. It’s a lovely, sad moment of realization.

Then Jodie comes back in, and ALF immediately shouts, “Jodie! Don’t take off your clothes! We have company!”

That got a legitimate lol out of me.

ALF sits Jodie down…and tells her it’s time for him to go. He promised to stay until she got settled…but now she’s settled, and he will leave.

It’s a little heartbreaking, actually, because it’s clear that he doesn’t want to go. He realizes that he’s not making her happy, though, and her happiness is more important to him.

She thanks him, and tells him that he did help her adjust to her new home, even if he ultimately took it too far. She even gives him a braille book of his own to remember her by…the same one he defaced earlier. And she finished the dot-to-dot for him.

They turned ALF’s idiotic dickishness from earlier and turned it into the legitimate emotional payoff of the entire episode. That’s fucking incredible.

It makes for a really lovely conclusion to an episode that wasn’t nearly as good as “For Your Eyes Only,” but achieved a definite sweetness and a surprising amount of laughs on its own merits. Not one of my favorites…but one I definitely enjoyed.

But we’ve still got a short scene before the credits, so ALF puts on some dark glasses and pretends to be Ray Charles, singing “Georgia on My Mind.” You know. Just one last-minute slap in the nuts for anyone dumb enough to think the blind made it through this episode without being a punchline.

I really hope we get to see Jodie again, but, if we don’t, this at least feels like a good place to leave her.

It’s not the passive “fuck you” that she got at the end of the otherwise excellent “For Your Eyes Only”…it’s a reminder to us — and to ALF, and to herself — that she can be okay on her own.

I’m more comfortable leaving her here, at this point in her life, and though I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing her again, I don’t mind ALF moving on, especially now that Jodie’s had time to see that she didn’t really enjoy having him around anyway. It’s a good time for ALF to let her live her life.

Like he did with that little cancer gir-

…oh.

Oh.

MELMAC FACTS: Melmacians were outgoing by nature; ALF is shy compared to most of them.

—–
* I guess he bailed on their dinner date that was referenced at the end of “For Your Eyes Only.” Stand-up guy, that ALF.

** ha ha