MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: "BREAKING UP IS EASY TO DO" (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

The oddest thing about this three-part episode BREAKING (etc.) appears in the opening scene of the third section-- but first, a little backstory. In the previous two episodes, Al and Peg quarrel, and Al takes up separate residence, thinking that he's now going to score with hot young women. (This runs totally counter to his general tendency to avoid cheating on Peg, not out of devotion but out of a perverse sense of being doomed to be "married with children," as seen in this early episode). 

OK, back to the odd thing. Griff and Jefferson visit Al at his new digs, and observe that Al now sports a black eye. Now the viewer knows from the previous episode that Al got a visit from a hot young babe, but not for a reason he would've liked. She just wanted him to fix her shoe heel, him being a shoe-man and all. Al does so, but then  receives another knock at the door, following by a punch in the face from the girl's apish boyfriend. The girl of course does not apologize for her BF's action, but just blandly thanks Al for fixing her shoe.

The viewer knows all this, but before Al can make any explanations, Jefferson says, "Marcy predicted that some woman would beat holy hell out of you." Now, much though Marcy hates Al, and celebrates the possibility of his being permanently kicked out by Peg, this is a weird statement. Al's a big man; why would any average sized woman be able to beat him up? Of course Marcy has seen years' worth of evidence that Peg has verbally emasculated Al-- he even makes a "nutcracker" remark about Peg in this storyline-- but that's not quite the same as physical assault. Al does suffer such indignities at the hands of Peg and other females-- indeed, in this three-parter there's a flashback-montage in which Peg kicks Al off a bunkbed so that he crashes through the floor-- but it's not the sort of thing one sees every episode. My armchair-analysis is that the writers were having fun conflating Al's general humiliation with the idea of physical abuse, even though the viewer has clearly seen that Al did not, in this case, get beat up even by some giant-economy-size female (though this also happened a few times).

The actual plot of BREAKING doesn't merit much discussion, since this is probably the weakest episode of the eleventh and final season. The viewer knows that Al and Peg will get back together, and the script doesn't really come up with any good takes on their ongoing war of the sexes, except in one minor respect. While Al can't score to save his life, Peg puts herself out there and almost immediately snaps up rich suitor Bruce (Alan Thicke). Peg is at least ambivalent: she likes the idea of being a rich man's wife but regrets that Bruce does not have Al's "animal magnetism." Kelly and Bud retaliate for Al's years of indifferent neglect by being largely indifferent to his absence, and of course they pin their hopes on a wealthy daddy who's certainly not a shoe salesman. Bruce, though, makes it easy for Peg and the kids to dump him. Not only does he expect that if he marries Peg she'll have to learn to cook and clean, he also wants the kids to leave and make their own way. So, exit Bruce, leading to the reconciliation of Peg and Al.

Though Al doesn't take any lumps from the gentler sex this time, Jefferson and Bud do. Jefferson again lies to Marcy, leading her to both deck him and drag him home by his leg. As for Bud, once again he gets in trouble functioning as an agent to Kelly's acting career. The two siblings encounter Heather, another blonde bimbo who frequently steals Kelly's acting roles. The two young ladies decide to have it out in the boxing ring, and Bud gets caught in the middle, though he does endeavor to take advantage of Kelly as well. When Kelly trains for her bout by jumping rope, Bud sells tickets to young boys so they can watch her bouncing up and down. But when Bud tries to help Kelly train for her fight, she ends up punching him out twice. On top of that, during the boxing match between Kelly and Heather, Heather swings at Kelly but takes no small pleasure in having hit Bud instead. This leads to one of the few good lines of the story, from Kelly: "Hey! Nobody hits my brother! At least not without dating him first!"

So does that mean that all of the times Kelly has hit Bud-- not only with her fists, but with such things as a jukebox, an electrical barrage, and an arrow aimed at his skull (technically a miss)-- she has felt justified to do so because-- they're "dating?"