Hey, this is Zero Finazos to the podcast for fans of everything. Welcome. Today, I'm joined by Megan Dannick to discuss some more Frasier. This week, we are discussing the final six episodes of season two.
After the terrifying loads of our last batch, we are both pleased to have a good six to round out the second season. We talk about Ross becoming a full on member of the core cast, how much cartoonishness we can accept in Frasier, and full on farcical sword fights. It was a fun time. Under the discussion, I'm here once again with Megan Dannick to talk about Frasier.
The Frasier. Frasier. Megan, how are you? I'm well.
How are you doing? I'm great, because it wasn't bad Frasier. Yes, it was good Frasier. Finish out with some good Frasier.
I don't know if I could have taken another run like the last one. No monkey murders in this one. No monkey murders, some wonderful slapstick episodes. A lot of farce.
Yes, good time. Good farce. We are. This is, let's see, we're just talking about the last six episodes of Frasier from season two.
Wrapping up season two. Beginning with someone to watch over me. Back at the CDs. CDs, the second CDs episode.
Are we getting one of these every season? I feel like there's more. I don't remember if it's every season, but I do think that there's more of them. But this one is about a stalker.
And Frasier is worried that his number one fan, Carrie, is coming to get him, so he hires the bodyguard for the CDs. That's right. And the stalker is just a middle-aged lady who's sad. Yeah.
And once again, an overblown reaction to something he does do that one lady, though, which is pretty. Which is really hilarious. I mean, I get it, you know, like I get the trepidation. I get the, it is kind of creepy if someone, you know, knows what you had for breakfast.
And you weren't broadcasting that. There is no Instagram at this point in time. So, you know, it's a little creepy. Yeah, I think that's the, that's, I think this is the, my least favorite of this batch.
It only is bad, but I do think it's a little. Much a little strange. It's a little strange because that they, I mean, I think they have to do it. I mean, they don't have to do anything.
But they make Carrie just a sad, sad middle-aged to older age lady who is lost her husband. And it's just like lonely. I'm like, well, that's fair because it's a sitcom. You know, I guess you don't want to make things too heavy.
But it's sad. It's kind of like, but also it doesn't, it kind of detracts from, it's kind of making light of a situation that many, many people have, you know, it's, you just said there's no Instagram. This is like 25. Nowadays there's more, there are more niche celebrities than there ever have been.
So if you, if you like someone, you can kind of, you know, like from a distance creep on them, in a safe way, in a, in a, you know, middle-aged, you know, old lady who lost her husband kind of way. And on that same note, like there is, I think more prevalence about creepy fans and how, how terrible they are. So it's, it's hard. It used to be a lot more work to be a creepy fan.
Yeah, exactly. No, it's, it's, it's somewhat easier to be a creepy fan. So it's, it, I try and make, yeah, it's 95, it's different. Although I don't care how lonely this lady is.
Sneaking things into people's briefcases. I mean, looking. Is creepy. That's creepy.
I don't, I, I, I don't know. I don't really, it leaves me feeling good. Oh, I was just gonna say, I mean, she wondered if she had like a comment section to work with, if she would have had to go that far, you know, like maybe she, if social media had existed, she could just like, you know, comment on his posts of his, you know, order at Cafe Nervosa and say, oh, that's good. Hope you have a good day.
Here's, you know, a recipe for some something, I don't know. I feel like it was a well meaning taken to the creep level. Yeah, exactly. I, I don't think they, I don't think that they felt much of this.
I think they just went, oh, what's the plot? We have, we have a number one fan and it gets more and more obsessive. And then Fraser gets paranoid and there's lots of women in red dresses. Lots of women and that must have been the color of the season.
I mean, of course, I was just gonna say some nice digs about the fact that his, his bodyguard is also a woman, his driver is also a woman. Yeah, I, I think, I mean, obviously it's just a plot device because they want, they want to make him paranoid. So they have to have every single person. Yeah.
It's around him as a woman. So that he's worried about it. And then they, Martin, of course, was candy busy or, I forget what he says. You know, I, Roz gets a pimple.
Yeah. Roz does indeed get a pimple. Why, why no make up? I don't, I mean, yeah, but that and also, I don't, I mean, Roz is like, probably in her mid 30s, right?
Isn't she like, I don't know. There, I think they're all roughly the same late 30s to mid 40s-ish age. All the manga people except for Martin. She should probably go to a dermatologist because you shouldn't be getting that kind of a thing.
I don't know. You should call Roz. She called Roz in this episode and tell her to go to the doctor. Yes.
Three hours before the CVs. I'm glad that, I'm glad that Roz gets a little bit more like, meaty episodes following this one because, um, yeah. This one's a little bit light. There's not, it's, it's pretty simple.
And like, it also isn't, it doesn't get to the levels of insanity that some of the later, like, this is just kind of a wacky episode, but it also isn't like, like, the craziest thing is, uh, Fraser Judo throwing, uh, some lady who's part of the CB, uh, group organization. I don't know, she gets up on the ground. They still win though. They would both him and Roz after he gets mugged as well.
Why does he get, Seattle? Is really a Seattle parking garage that dangerous? I don't know. It's, it's, he did, he did kind of come out swinging.
I mean, I think he was, you know, a willing target at that point, screaming for a fight. With what he thought was a, you know, woman in a red dress. Yes. But, uh, it's, it's fine.
I think at the end of the day, it's not terrible. It's just, it's, it's all right. It's fine. But then it's followed by one that it's like, oh, yeah, it shows you kind of the, like, the spectrum of, you know, Fraser episode, uh, goodness, because then they go ice fishing.
Yeah, breaking, breaking the ice is the name of the episode where, yeah, the, the boys go ice fishing. They could just call it that. It would, that's literally literally the plot of the episode. It's just like, Martin wants to get his going to go ice fishing, his, his buddy bales out on him.
So, Niles and Fraser go. Yes. And it's, it's funny because it's not going to be both of them at first though. It's only going to be Niles.
That moment when Niles comes to, comes into the apartment, wearing, wearing his get up. Looking like Elmer Fudd. Yes. Uh, skinny Elmer Fudd.
And he talks about his, he has Timberlands on. Yes. That was before that was before they were, they were fashionable. They were, that was when they were just utilitarian boots.
And not fashion boots. Very much enjoying the experience of preparing for the ice fishing trip more than the actual ice fishing trip. It's, it's, it's fun. Like when you're, I'm going on a camping, I'm going camping.
Let's go gear up. What do we need? What do we need? Oh, we need, we need this.
We're going to have a fire. We need a big fork. We need some hot buns. Hey, man, that is, if I was out there on the ice, absolutely, we need some hot buns.
Oh, yeah. I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting from my feet. I'm getting from my hands. I'm getting from a butt.
That's absolutely gotten, I probably would have stocked up on that, like more of them than he even bought. But especially when you see the cabin, which, or the, I guess it's not a cabin. It's like the ice fishing hut shelter or something. It's a, it's a cabin of sorts.
It's a very small, you can call it a cabin. It's just, it is on the ice, literally. And it would not be warm. It would be, it would be cold.
It's, this is really about it. It's like, it's very simple. This is really, really simple at the end of the day, because it's literally just Fraser upset that his dad doesn't, has never said he, I love you to him or has done it very, very. Did they definitively say he's never said it?
I think he does. I think he mentions that he's never said it. And, you know, it's, yeah, it's something that he's, his sole purpose for going, which it didn't seem like that was the case in the beginning. Like to me, I thought it was more like a competitive, again, competitive with Niall's kind of thing.
Like, oh, you're going on this with that. And he's like watching him prep and watching them get all excited. And then he kind of, you know, sort of passive aggressively gets them to say, do you want to come? And he's like, yeah, nag me about it.
I guess I'll just, yeah, sure. And it's like, at first, I thought it was because more of brotherly, you know, competition. But then Niall says that he'd never said that to him either. I think it is a little jealousy at first.
It's just like, oh, he's going, Niall's just going, and I'm not. We hear him pointedly say, I love you to his friend on the phone. And then I love you to the dog to Eddie. Yes.
Now, did you notice I have to point this out? This is unrelated to the emotional beats of the story. Okay. But I have to point out that when they first enter the cabin, Frasier is wearing his patented Frasier sadness jeans.
No, I did not notice that actually. He's wearing the jeans. They have the holes in them. Which, first of all, I'm like, why are you wearing jeans with holes in them onto ice?
Like, aren't you cold? Like, isn't that a bad idea? Which means that these jeans have now, they're not just his sadness jeans, but they're his recreational jeans. And I'm very confused.
I think, well, to be fair, sometimes I'm assuming Frasier does not have many pairs of jeans. This is probably true. And I'm assuming you also as many layers underneath the jeans. You would not.
I've gone out jeans in extraordinarily cold weather. I've also worn multiple pairs of pants underneath them. Yeah. Or like a three pairs of pants underneath my jeans when it was very cold in Edmonton.
So the jeans themselves, even with or without holes, will do nothing. They are very bad. But you know, the multiple layers underneath and still that your legs are hard. Legs are hard.
You can only put on so many pairs of pants. True. And still, they don't thighs. My thighs get very cold in the thighs of the problem.
Maybe it's just more of like a comfort. Like, these are my comfort pants, my emotional, my emotional support pants. These are my Frasier's emotional support jeans. Sure.
I think it's true. I mean, I think it bears out this episode because it is, you know, they get in the cabin. And then they do, we don't see them actually do any fishing. They theoretically by the end of the episode, they have done fishing because they bring fish back.
But there's no fishing done in this. And well, what we see, we just see them get angry at each other and lose the car keys into the hole. And they do a lot of outdoor peeing. They do that.
Well, I mean, it's a fact of life, you know, and it's interesting that they show it because that is, you know, it's famously like, you don't show people go to the bathroom on television or movies. You know, you just skip over it. They're writing their names. That's very true.
It becomes, you know, jokes and also gives Niles a Frasier chance to talk while their dad's busy. And then they go, oh, yeah, he's never said, I love you. And we get, they get Martin being kind of ashamed that he's never said it to them. Yeah, it brings up like, you know, he's like, oh, yeah, your mom said I didn't, you know, express it either.
And so it kind of becomes, you know, kind of a touching moment. You know, he guards his loins and says it. Yes, to both of them separately. Yeah.
And he wants to talk about like his dad. He's like, oh, my dad never said it to me. And you get a little bit, that's a little bit insight in Martin and his life and how that's influenced him. And that makes perfect sense.
I like, I like this episode. It's very good. It's very simple. And I think that's why I like it a lot.
It's like, I think I'm always, my favorite sitcoms and my favorite sitcom episodes are always like, just take a very simple idea and execute on it and just put as much as you can into it. And you know, that's what this is. It's very like, it's full of like, it's full kind of slapstick humor and good character moments. And that has a very sweet, very sweet episode.
It is. It is. Slapsack is just kind of an underlying current for a lot of these episodes. Maybe the last one, like, well, and the, no, I would say even the someone to watch over me, I think, you know, clocking that lady in the elevator is definitely some slapsticky, but like, yeah, but like the next several, I mean, it's very, well, the next one's even called an affair to forget.
So it's, it's got some delightful, delightful, I'm not going to say fighting. I'll say confrontation, maybe. I mean, I'd call it fighting. Yeah.
It's a sword fight. It is a sword fight. Okay, before we move on, breaking ice, very good, very sweet. Also, poor Niles doesn't catch any fish.
Yeah, we wouldn't know what to do with a fish if he did catch one. I mean, they only do just give it to Daphne. They don't, they don't sound like they are, that's not like they, they clean the fish out there on the lake. They just have this dangling fish from their little thing.
I think you just cleaned it out there and give Daphne the, whatever. Yes, the next episode is an affair to forget, which is amazing. Yeah. I love it.
Any, any episode that like involves the Niles Maris estate is just, for some reason, fantastic. Like the little things that make me laugh, just like the isolation, the isolation tank. I don't know why that makes me laugh so much, but it does. Like of course they would have that in their house, of course they would.
It's, it's just, again, this is a very, very simple idea. And it's just, it gets to the, it's so absurd. Everything about it gets to so absurd with, for, and like, they don't draw it out to make the point that, they don't make the point that Fraser knows and Niles does it, the point of the episode. Cause, and they, they have, Niles find out relatively early on while he's just hanging out in the, in the, the sensory deprivation tank and just sitting there.
That's believable because, you know, I, I know that he kind of, Fraser kind of wrestled with, you know, what to do about it. But I feel like he would have, even if that hadn't have been Niles in the tank and he was confronting Maris, like I feel like he would have said something. He said as much. He's like, you know, you have to do this or else I'm going to tell him, like they're, they're close.
You know, they're, he's not going to like not tell him that. So I'm glad they dispensed with that so that we could then get to the meat of the episode where Niles decides to confront Gunther. Is that his name? Gunther, it's Gunnar, Gunnar, Gunnar, I, Gunnar.
I, I, not German is not that great, but, uh, or Bavarian, but it's, it's the layers of the layers they add to this because they, we get introduced to, to, uh, Marta. Oh, Marta. Marta comes back. I assume.
Oh, absolutely. Marta is great. I love Marta. She's amazing.
Her, she, she struggles with her pronouns, which is fair because she speaks multiple languages apparently, um, and we get her, and they introduce her early on, and it's a night with the centred deformation tank. And then we get her again when Niles is confronting the fencing instructor. And he only speaks German and Marta doesn't speak English very well. And, but Marta also speaks German.
It's Spanish. It frays her poorly speaks, speaks Spanish poorly. And so we have Niles to phrase her to Marta to Gunnar and then back again. And it's like the worst game of telephone in the world.
Like it's, it's, it's great. And then sword fighting with, because he's so angry to be accused of stealing Niles's shoes. It's a matter of honor, Megan. It is.
It's a matter of honor. How dare you accuse me of stealing your shoes? And I guess he really is sticking to his principles because, you know, he clearly didn't steal his shoes. He's willing to go to the mattresses and fight that.
But then when finally it gets a little started, it's like, no, no, no. I'm then supposed to not sabotage. And he's crumpled like a tissue like, oh yeah, that happened. It was sad.
She doesn't like me. No, that's, and it's the, and the, and the, that scene that one, the moment after he sits down and Niles, they're the back and forth between all three of them just standing in a row, the translating back and forth. So good. So funny.
So absurd. Farsicle, might say. There's a lot of, there's a lot of like, um, get worthy moments of Niles, um, with the foil. Oh, yes.
On the piano especially. Yes. So good. So good.
So it, it, David, I appears such, such, so good at physical comedy and body language. It's, it's really good because it really, it, you've linked to me that article. With 30s movie heroines that Niles is. And then we watched this episode and it's with a sword fighting.
It's perfect. Yeah. It's an, it's an article by Daniel Orford in his newsletter. You should check it out.
I'll link to it in the show notes. Yeah. We can, people can go find that and look at it. But, because like Niles is such a, he's so, such the, the, like, like sourcing a circle, such the feminine, feminine male of this, because like, to make, they may even, she even talked about how, yeah, Fraser is only masculine because Niles is there, you know, Fraser is only, like, and, and then, you know, you look at Niles and he's like, like the little, the, the little, I don't know, kind of like, David, I appears to say, like a smaller, skinny and he's always afraid of, they're all afraid of confrontation, both for Fraser and Niles, especially, and then Niles is especially afraid of confrontation.
And now suddenly he is like, aerofluene all of a sudden, like, whipping the sword around and then you're like, oh, I guess they would have went, I don't know, has Niles talked about taking up fencing before? I think so, but not, you know, like, like back in school and definitely not to the degree that this professional clearly, I mean, the moment, you know, when he stands up from the chair that he's sitting in, it's like, oh, yeah, he's a head teller than me, this is a big mistake. Why am I doing this? You know, the classic moment of I have gotten myself into something I probably should not have, but it's actually, it's pretty, it's good choreography.
He swings on the chandelier and breaks it. Yes. I was, I was fully expecting that. And I think they, they kind of tease it at the end when Fraser picks up the sword off the mantle, I was expecting him to pull sword off the mantle and fight with that, but yeah, it didn't happen.
It's fine. I mean, it's great either way. And also the description of Maris says, not quite human woman. Yes.
We never, you know, it's funny though, we never meet her and just the way she's described though, I kind of feel like she and Niles are almost well matched. I mean, like, you know, for whatever happens later and everything, like, you know, she's like this, like, thin, white, delicate person. And honestly, he's not that far removed from being that same kind of a person, like, you know, wafish. Yes.
Yes. Fussy, you know. Fussy. I definitely describe adult people as Fussy.
Yes. Yes. He's, he's a bit of a, a fuss budget. But yeah, this episode.
Is it, you think, is this like trying to like prep us for future, for future, future Maris, Niles, strife? I mean, I think it might be, I thought it was interesting. I mean, he was devastated when he found out, you know, like, like legit breakdown, like, like very upset and, you know, so relieved when he found out that, you know, no, you know, she didn't, she rebuffed the advances of this guy, you know, this big strapping fencing coach, like, she didn't, you know, she loved Niles. And the way it kind of wraps it up, it's almost like on an island on its own, because I can't even, I mean, maybe I'm just not remembering well, but like, in most episodes, there's these moments of like, with him and Daphne is longing in this, like, you know, I, you can tell there's something there that they're building up, but I don't think in this episode that even happens at all.
No, they don't, they don't really reference the Niles Daphne stuff at all in this. It is all Niles just being devastated that his wife is theoretically having a affair. And like, you know, he walked the first time he walks through the door in the two department and they, and Fraser and Martin were like, we'll just, we'll be brave and we won't say anything and we won't feel sorry for him. And then immediately he's just like, he's just crying in one's hugs.
And I think it is, I mean, like, you know, Martin and Fraser have had similar situations. I think that's why they probably did, you just don't have time to an episode to bring in Daphne and all that complications and stuff like that. I think you have to have like a two part or if you want to do that, frankly. So it's interesting that that part is absent when it's there always and it's like, you would think that this kind of a thing, you know, might be like an out for him in a way, like that would have been the easy thing to do.
But then, you know, yeah, I mean, I think they didn't want to, I imagine they didn't quite know where it would go eventually. And so they didn't want to, they didn't want to invite things they didn't, they weren't like knowledge that they didn't know about what the show would, where the show would go. I don't think they knew, hey, I wasn't eventually gonna have Niles and Daphne. It's, I think they were just like, well, I think they felt confident enough in this.
They just went with, and you know, it keeps it simple. I'm not ever gonna complain too much about that. You know, you don't invite too many complications to do episode and makes it messy. You know, you keep it simple.
And it ends with Niles just passing multiple drinks into the sensory deprivation tank. And then hurting his mouth on a rose, which is just the perfect cap on that. That made me laugh a lot. Sword fighting.
Yes. Anything else? No, I think that's, I think we're good on that one. Okay.
And then enter BB. BB Agents in America, part three is a BB episode. It sure is glorious. She's so terrible.
I love it. I was about to say, I don't, I think this episode is enjoyable and funny. But the takeaway from it is BB is a psychopath. She sure is.
And I kind of love it. I love it because she is a psychopath. And it's like, that's exactly what, what Frasier needs her to be. Yes, as it for her, as, as, as his agent.
She just needs to be crazy and willing to do anything to get him more money. Yep. And apparently, I mean, I like, I, to be fair, it is absolutely crazy to be the twist where you think that she is going to kill herself because she's heartbroken. Over Frasier going, no, we can't be in a relationship.
That's probably not, that's probably not good. And instead it's, oh, it's not because she's heartbroken. It's just, it's a negotiating tactic. And I'm like, well, I guess it's good because I don't like, I don't like the idea of her being so heartbroken over Frasier.
Oh, doesn't it almost make you wonder like how far out she had that blend? Like, did she only seduce him and sleep with him to make him start thinking that way? I think she's capable of it. I think she's capable.
I, I'm, I'm inclined to believe that she just, I have a good time. It's fine. It cares. Yeah.
And then, you know, the contract negotiation, hey, this seems like a good, I could do this. Yeah, Frasier, you know, she is, she's calculating. She knows what she's doing. She's, you know, she is hardened to basically every social situation where she does not concern with anyone and how they react to her.
She's gonna do her thing regardless. She's a great agent though. I mean, they didn't get caught. So she's great.
She's very competent. I would think you need someone who's very confident in that position. Like the part where, you know, she sets the ultimatum that they have to contact him by midnight, and then she confesses, yeah, there were no other deals, but it's fine. And they're going to call.
And they did. And it's like, you know, she seems to have a nose for these things. I was very impressed to, you know, at the beginning of the whole thing leading up to this, of course, is that we find out Frasier is being vastly underpaid station where he works, which is amazing, but makes sense. Like, you know, he's new to the game.
So Father Tom or whatever the priest is making more money than he is. Yeah, he needed a little bit of a bump. So it's probably good. He has someone as like overzealous as BB in his in his corner.
Well, she even says, you know, aren't you glad I'm on your side? Well, yes, yes, yes. I am. Yes, yes, I am.
Sure for performance by Harriet St. Sam Harris, who plays BB. It's, you know, I think Frasier as a whole is a show where you can over act at times. And it's fine.
It works. It works very well. It's you're supposed to. But BB is like a whole nother level is just scenery chewing on a massive scale.
But it works really well for her character because BB is a psychopath. Yes. I think that's why it's such a delight when she shows up to you. It's like, you know, it's just like a sprinkle of some kind of, you know, spice or something like it's not there all the time.
It's not something you want there all the time. But when she shows up, it's like, yay, it's a crazy ass BB episode. Exciting. Yeah.
And then, you know, there's not much of the B plot is Niles and Maris, I guess, having a wine, a wine club, like koudi-tah or something where they're like plotting to take over the poor, the wine club. Well, which is interesting because the wine thing comes, wait, we didn't already watch it, did we? I don't know what order I'm. I don't think so.
The wine club comes back. I don't think we've watched the wine club. Wine club drama comes back and good. I like that.
Frasiers all up in it too. Okay. Yeah. We've watched, we had them trying to get into a gentleman's club, not a wine club.
Okay, that's right. That's right. Okay. We've not done the wine club episode yet.
I don't know. It's, it's, it's nice little flavor of, of a, a picture of someone serving domestic champagne, not even domestic from Connecticut. Yes. Is that, is that, like, that's, Connecticut champagne, like, is Connecticut's, like, wine or a champagne, like, bad?
I don't even know. I don't, I'm not a wine person. I have no idea. Okay.
I mean, I don't know. Rich people live in Connecticut. I know that's, that's what I mean. Like, it feels like Connecticut is a rich person state, but a rich person state lives in Connecticut.
I think it's mostly just the reputation of like the five rich people that I know that live in Connecticut. It's nothing really the actual state of Connecticut. Yes. Um, I don't know.
Phoebe's great. Yeah. Phoebe's cool. We get Tom back.
The station, get the president guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That guy.
Yeah. He's there. He's like, hey, don't worry, Frasier. You're, we'll definitely get you back here after you saved this woman's life.
You're such a great, great, like, psychiatrist. Talk people down. Being able to talk this woman down. And she really wasn't going to throw herself though.
She's like, catch me. He's like, what are you talking about? No. How high up is that?
I think there's a nine stories. Yes. Yeah. You're not going to look through that.
No. Probably not. She's committed. She is.
She should be committed. She should. Um, how much else? I think these, mostly stuffs are very simple.
You know, there's not necessarily a lot to discuss about them, but I don't, they're, I would prefer that to what we got last time, which is over complicated and offensive at points. Yes. There's, there's very little, that's a terribly offensive either. The next episode is The Inn Keepers, which is, I am, I'm sort of toward on this episode because it is hilarious, simply because of the comedy of errors, because of this slapstick, because of the farce.
But at a certain point, what are the limits to what the, the Korean brothers can do? Well, in their mind, I mean, anyone who thinks that like running a restaurant has to be simple or easy or, you know, oh, we could just, you know, throw enough money at this clearly doesn't know a fraction of what they need to know about the restaurant industry to get, to get into it. And yeah, that's fun. It seems like at first, you know, on the surface, like it's going to be great, but then you, you consider some really poor decisions that like keeping the senile waiter on board to, to be your valet.
That's a great idea. I believe, I believe you mean auto? Yes, auto, which I mean, okay, but like, I mean, if you want to keep someone like that on board who I couldn't even remember which table you were at within an empty restaurant, perhaps you should give him something a little more benign than the keys to like your rich clientele's Mercedes and stuff. My, my limits is more about them in episode where they literally buy a restaurant and then decide to run it.
And then I, it's the point where you're like, is there a limit to how much money they have when we, when the last episode literally is about Alfred's underpaid. And now they are buying our restaurant, I would imagine, is not inexpensive. It is a, you're buying a building. Yeah.
And you're paying, you're paying us, you're paying staff, you have payroll, you have to make. Although not a lot of staff, as we see, I mean, yeah, and it was in pretty, you know, poor shapes. So I guess, you know, we got an discount. They might have like, it seemed like it was, it was kind of like, this is on its last legs, maybe they can get a got a good deal on it.
And, um, you know, can throw money into having this wonderful chef come in who then gets fed up with, uh, their constant meddling. Yes. Now we are serving these two plays in small, big souffles. We want big souffles.
Who wants a big souffle? Niles. Niles is your, they answer that question. Miles was in the wrong on this one.
I will say, I think it would be kind of gross to like have a, it doesn't make any sense to have a family style dessert in a fine dining restaurant. But they know, they know food, they know wine. Come on. So they said, it's, it's, it's that fact.
And I'm going to ask you what your thoughts are at a single moment in this episode. Okay. The moment when Roz comes back through the, the doors from there, there's an explosion. We hear an explosion.
We don't see it, but we hear it. And then Roz comes back through the doors into the kitchen from the main, the main, all the restaurant and her, she has looney tunes out of her mind. Her hair is standing straight up. She has smeared with smoke and cherries.
Uh, what are your thoughts? I, I was waiting for, waiting, you say, waiting at the restaurant. It's like, you know, they're obviously setting up this, this joke. You know, I was very curious when it would be deployed.
Poor Roz. Like poor Roz who's, who's date, like, who was that the guy from the Drew Carey show? D-Drick Bader, yes. D-Drick Carey show.
Yes, okay. Office space, right? And yes, office space as well. And, and various, many, many, D-Drick Bader does a lot of stuff.
He, he does not stop working. Yeah, good for him. I like him. Um, this episode, it was very interesting how quickly he could turn on a, oh, you're my date.
Oh, you're my waitress. Okay. So from the jump, poor, you know, poor Roz and, um, yeah, it was, that was something. That was, that was something.
I mean, it's just not in addition to that. And then the sprinklers, oh, the eels. I love the eels. Like, I, that's my favorite thing.
Uh, you know, so is, is Daffy. But I, I just, I asked the question because it is like, it's over the top. It is very cartoonish. Yeah.
And it's literally is. It's like text Avery, like you put your head into a, you know, a bag of dynamite, like in a cartoon, like a cartoon character had their head looking inside something and dynamite went off and then they pulled their head out and, you know, Daffy ducks, like beak is on the back of his, his head or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's my, that, that in the various year fact that they just buy it, they make an entire episode, but they bought a restaurant and they're running it and like, oh, they have like hundreds of thousands of dollars just in their pockets ready to go. I guess Niles has theoretically access to Maris's money, but still, it's, it's, I can dismiss that for the most part, but it's just when, you know, it, you look at like the sword fighting and that in the, in the fair to forget episode. And sure, it is ridiculous on a certain level. You're like, we're watching Niles and this random sword, sword, the fencing and structure dancing around the, the room and, and sword fighting literally in front of us in a sitcom.
It's a very, it's a very strange and absurd and ridiculous and funny, but it's not cartoonish. It is, I think it manages to push, push Niles to a physical limit, but it doesn't ever lapse into, oh, this is clearly not real. Yeah. And I think this almost seemed like a dream sequence.
Like, right. And that's the, I, it, you know, at what point do you want to draw the line? Do you want to have a line when you're making a show like this? Do you want to say, no, that doesn't fit what the show is, is it too cartoonish?
And I don't, I don't know if it is too cartoonish or not. It, it, it took me out of the episode a little bit when that, when she walks in, I laughed at it because it's like, it's such a surprise. And it is paying off them. Like, I guess pouring an entire bottle of brand into the, the, the, the cherries.
I kind of wanted like a Mythbusters moment. Like, can we get them to, to recreate that and see how high the flame actually would go? Because I'm very curious, I am curious about that. I don't know.
Maybe, maybe we'd be proven wrong. Maybe, maybe Ross is, you know, I don't know. I have to assume there's maybe one or two, like second degree burns under all of that. So it, but maybe not.
I don't know. Yeah, it's, it makes me go, uh, I go, I laugh and I so grown a little bit. And it's, I think that's what this episode does to me. It's very funny.
And it's very silly and very wacky. Um, and it's kind of a, there's, there's basically no character in it. Like, you think that this is going to be like a, uh, like Martin, like, kind of affirming, like, a lesson to Niles and Frazier by the end of the episode, but it's really not. It's literally just, hey, your restaurant's destroyed.
And that's it. They just like, oh, yeah, there's a car in the restaurant and the sprinklers have gone off and your table full of food critics are all upset and like everyone else is upset and your restaurant. Except for Bulldog. Bulldog is, I mean, Bulldog is pretty agreeable guy for the largest part.
You know, he can roll with the punches. Yes, he can. I think, I think he was fine with the outcome of the situation and his like, basically alcoholic version of a suicide drink. Um, found drink.
Isn't that just a long, isn't that just a long island I see though? It could be. Let me just consolidate these glasses and stick a lily in my pants and go about my business. I mean, we didn't even mention him in the bodyguard.
Yes. Which I really did appreciate. It's just, it's great. Bulldog's the best.
Uh, I, I'm going to, I'm going to start my own fan club for Bulldog. Bulldog fan club. Bulldog Bullpen. Exactly.
Exactly. There's your title. So that's the name of this podcast. I mean, indigenous.
Oh, the series is the Bulldog Bullpen. I didn't realize that's what I was signing up for. Okay. I mean, it wasn't at first, but then you, we watched for the Frasier.
I mean, what else could it be? It has evolved. Yeah. I think this is very funny.
I, them cooking their terrible, very badly cooking, ros, and, and, and, and, and, and all of them being recruited just randomly. Hey, you're now, you work for us. And after a simple, you know, like, who doesn't know the way doors work? Like you go in, they knock out all of the wait staff because obviously they've never worked in a restaurant before.
And, uh, you know, passing on the right is apparently something that's a foreign concept. So, but there's only like what three waiters in the first place. Oh, I guess the rest of them run out the door when he mentions that the, uh, immigration, that's actually the most accurate thing that's, yeah. Uh, that's the most accurate part of this episode.
Honestly, if you want to be realistic, uh, I'm Daphne killing you. Oh, yeah. The best. Yes.
I, I, I did laugh quite a bit. And I was just taking the, uh, the cleaver and just splashing it in the tank. Like that's going to accomplish anything. That was pretty good.
Hey, you want to kill an eel? Splash the cleaver at it. That's all it takes. It'll die for right.
Yeah. Like what is happening? Just float to the top. My question.
My real question is what happens after this episode with the restaurant? I know. I, I, I would think that that one night would put them in a considerable amount of debt. Like I think a lot of a, I mean, just the building damage alone.
Hopefully they had good insurance. Um, so the, I assume they read, they sell it again. They sell with the building and then to some other sucker who also thinks they can make a restaurant out of it. Uh, probably just became a parking garage or something office building.
It's the oldest, it's the oldest restaurant in Seattle. I'm sure Seattle is just gearing up to, to gentrify even more. Oh, God. I'm sure that, you know, it became like a shopping center or something.
Condos, you know, that's sad. It is, but it was the happy brothers. I know, I know. Well, it's a true dark victory, which is the name of our final episode.
This is the season finale. The season finale. We get a Ross episode. Is that what this is?
I think, I think so. I think it's focusing more on her, you know, like the focus is trying to like make her feel better in a way. I felt like this was actually, I mean, sorry, I think like she dominates the first half of it. Yeah.
And then after that, it kind of segues into kind of a round out the ensemble cast for the series, for the season, kind of. Yeah, I could, I could see that. It's kind of like a coming together. Everybody's there, you know, and Fraser goes through every single person.
All the members of the main cast aren't him, basically. And even he gets a moment at the end. And it's like, here's where the characters are at the end of the season. It definitely is very different from the season finale of season one.
Yes. The season one felt like, I don't know, we don't know what we're doing. So we don't know what was happening after the season. So here's a wrap up.
Yeah, it was almost more like, I don't know, like, wistful or something. And then this one's more like celebratory. Yes, victory is in the title. Yeah.
Yes. And then it's like, I think it is, it works in this, I think it works in a similar way in that it is kind of giving viewers kind of a, I don't know, a synopsis on this season, kind of a little bit of like, here, here's where all these characters are, as the season ends, just give you an idea of general idea of how they are doing. They're all angry. Yeah.
They're all angry, except Fraser's there. Yeah, they have some stuff to work through. It's interesting because, you know, yeah, we talked about how the first season the end seemed kind of like, well, it's gonna happen with this. And then, of course, obviously, it went on to, you know, critical and popular acclaim when the Emmy, I'm looking at the list of Emmy Awards, Emmy Award winners for comedy.
It won again this year, 1995. Like, it basically dominated for four years in a row, five years in a row until Ally McBeal unseated it in 1999. Ally McBeal. Although it was nominated that year as well, and in subsequent years.
But like, you know, I think, I think it was probably more of a sure thing that like, all right, we're back, you know, and we're here to stay. And, you know, we can end things on kind of a fun note. We can kind of, like, hint that there are, there's still more to talk about with all these characters, you know, because we know that we'll get a chance to do that. Right.
And I think it is, it is a good, I think it's, I like the, it's apparently, this was a crossover, sort of for that night of television on NBC or CBS or ABC, NBC, NBC, NBC. Yeah, because every, all four television shows, all, it was a nationwide blackout. All four television shows, episodes were about the blackout happening. Interesting.
I was not aware of that. I mean, I wasn't until I read through a couple of years of this episode. So apparently every show that night on NBC was like, oh, there's a blackout and they deal with it in their own ways. And I think, I, you know, it's a neat, I'm calling, I guess, a gimmick.
It's neat. And it, it's a good way to, kind of force tension on, on the, on the group. And they're already, they're already having some conflicts. And then there's tension there.
And then Fraser is the one that fixes everything. And you know, it's kind of an upside that reminds you like, hey, Fraser is kind of the, the, the glue, that holds this group together. He is, and like the, the show oftentimes kind of makes fracture the fool. You know, he's the one who makes mistakes and does a dumb thing without knowing something.
And then he's, and he's the reason and everything falls apart. Or he, you know, he has a bodyguard and thinks for some reason, the bodyguard is his soccer. Yeah, he's, he's susceptible to all of the foolishness that any, anyone is. But at the end of the day, he's still a smart, you know, smart guy, smart guy.
And he wants, he wants his friends to be happy. You know, he, he goes to bras and, you know, ask, ask her, why did you really stay? Why did you really not go to your family party and goes to, goes to Daphne and Martin and makes them feel, makes them, you know, kind of men there. Yeah.
Then the arguments where Daphne is pulling his, his cane from him, throwing in his walker and throwing it away. And, and goes to Niles and, and men's that their argument, where he, where Fraser accidentally tells one of, one of Niles's patients to stop seeing him. Yeah. But he is the only men's, all these things.
He brings them all back together as a group. And you know, it's, it's, it's a testament to, hey, Fraser is good at his job. But also, Fraser cares about all these, these friends and his family. He wants them all to be, he wants them all to be happy.
And I think that is the one thing I think I take from this episode more than anything is this, it makes Ross an official member of the extended family. I agree with that. I think it kind of cements, you know, bringing her like, like, having her interacting more with, with his family to, you know, kind of, it sets the tone for, you know, again, more to come because you're, you're setting up other relationships and things like that. Right.
And I think that's if anything, like if the episode accomplishes anything, I think it's sad, it's very much like, no, Ross is officially, you know, Daphne was kind of already there for the most part, like, like very early in basically season one, we're like, yeah, Daphne is basically a member of the family now for some strange way. And now Ross is officially a part of that too. I think it's like, I think it's just telling the audience that officially, like, no, Ross is more than just a producer at the radio station. You're going to, we're going to make her a bigger part of the show.
And we're going to make it very clear here. She's with the family. She's hanging out with them. She's doing fun stuff with them.
She's having problems with them, you know, just like the rest of the cast. Yeah, which honestly, I mean, I think it's kind of necessary to do because like Daphne being the only like female main character, you know, in season one, she's the butt of and season one, obviously, is like a set-up season, but it's like, you know, she's the cookie British lady who's, you know, maybe psychic and had a weird upbringing and blah, blah, blah, you know, like, you need something to balance it out. It's a little bit more like, okay, you know, Ross, of course, has her comic, you know, like aspects, but she's just more of a normal person in the same way that, you know, the other characters are normal people. I mean, I think it has, I think they have, I don't know if any of it was all purposeful, but I think the way, you know, Ross basically rounds out the main five of the cast members, and they all have interesting parallels with each other in different ways.
Like, you know, Martin and Daphne are kind of like, they, they, they parallel because they're both like kind of blue collar, you know, kind of everyday people, you know, not elevated sophisticated, like, Fraser and Niles, and Ross is closer to them in that regard, you know, she has, you know, you know, lowbrow tastes or whatever, but she's also a woman. So her and Daphne aligned there while Martin and Niles and Fraser obviously are all men, but they don't necessarily align on the same kind of, you know, scale of masculinity, where you know, Martin is a typical man's man, and Niles and Fraser are not, and you like, there's a nice array between all these characters, between what they, you know, how they were raised, how they feel about different things, who are, who's conservative, who's not, and you can, it gives the show basically a lot of ways to play with that. You can have a lot of episodes where, you know, episodes where you can have an episode where you put these two characters together, either as friends or against each other for some reason, and you know, can create interesting interplay relationships because of the fact there's such a range of characters, you know, Daphne is, you know, sometimes psychic, Ross is not, you know, and you get, because there's that clear difference between the two, you can shift the tones of an episode pretty widely, which I think is, I don't know if, I don't know if it's purposeful, but it is smart in the way they lay out the show. Like, I think that's one of the reasons to show one on for so long is because you have these core cast of characters that are really, really strong and have a wide range of potential.
The Frasier verse is expanding, so to speak, and it's good to have, you know, having Ross be more a part of things, balance things out a little bit more, like you said, I think it brings much needed, well, again, much needed a female character who's not a love interest, you know? Or a psychopath? Or yeah, or just kind of, you know, a comp, like, I don't know, sometimes Daphne, she, I mean, obviously she becomes more involved too and gets more of her own storylines, but like, you know, that almost seems like the core, the core of the show is the three, you know, Niles and Frasier and Ken Martin. And so it's just kind of like commenting on that.
And now it's like, we kind of know the beats of those relationships, so there needs to be more to, you know, for them to interact with, because otherwise it's just going to be the same show over and over and over again. Right, and I think it's, it's not, and it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel, um, sort of looking for, um, sudden, it's not like, oh, what? Ross is here, and suddenly she's a big part of the show, it's very, like, Ross has been there for, for, for long to, for the whole show, she's just kind of in smaller parts. And then suddenly you're like, you just make her a bigger, bigger part of the show over and throughout the episodes.
And suddenly she's just like, hey, she's a regular cast member. And they, I think they, because they have such a wide array of like supporting characters that appear, you know, the radio people, all the, the, the random, the, the random friends that pop in from time to time, which, you know, they usually disappear, but it is a chance for you to, you know, remind people like, hey, this, this is a real world. This is a populated world. This is a real, this is a real, yes, obviously they go, they only have like three sets for the most part.
But this is real, Frasier is a real place, Seattle's real. All this, all the Frasier is, is a real populated universe. And when you make, you bring in characters that were like smaller characters, and you make them as central parts of the show, you remind people to make them feel attached to not just the characters, but to the show, to the place, to the setting. And it's like, in the real essence of the word, you know, setting does not necessarily mean it's just the place where the thing happens, you know, setting us also like, it feels real.