Episode 3 of "Rich Man, Poor Man" was something of a reminder episode, a chance to catch up with the characters without too much happening. Peter is still trying to work his way through college, Susan is in NYC trying to become an actress and Nick is trying to make a life with family in California, despite a quick affair with the household maid.
Drunken Nick wants to dance with Talia Shire, out with her rich boyfriend, but the rich kids beat him up badly and toss him into the water. Talia chirps, "I wouldn't go home with him!" as she helps Nick out of the water and to her home since her dad is out of town.
In his little college town, Peter has an appointment with Robert Reed's pal Ray Milland, so important he has pictures of world leaders on his wall. Department store magnate Ray gives him a job, though he's not happy about it because college kids haven't worked out well in the past. "I expect an honest day's work. Do that and you've got a job. Fail and you're gone with the wind," Ray bellows. Not only does he work, but he's on the track team and studies economics with vigor while being harassed by Kim Darby, Ray's daughter who has the hots for him.
During a study break to ski, Peter helps Kim, who fakes an injury to get his attention. "It just kin of throbs all over," she says, trying to be flirtatious when coming off as just annoying. When he takes her home, Ray doesn't recognize him at first, but soon realizes he's the one responsible for the store's wonderful window displays. He's supportive of Peter, especially knowing that his daughter likes him. That does not thrill Peter. "What's wrong with her her?" his roommate asks. "She's a nut, that's what's wrong with her," Peter moans.
Peter and his roommate come up with a business idea to start a ski lodge out of an abandoned building, but need $3000 to get it up and running. Papa Ed Asner is reluctant to give him the seed money, but Mama Dorothy McGuire convinces him by saying, "I feel it. It's our chance to have something. I feel it in my bones."
While in NYC arranging or supplies, Peter decides to go see Susan's play, the one where she has one line, which happens to be the curtain line, delivered in just a slip. "Tell her to bring a friend, a nympho, with money," his roommate tells him before sending him backstage for a long-delayed reunion. She doesn't even notice him, racing into Bill Bixby's arms and then his apartment. They are basically living in sin because his wife won't agree to a divorce.
Nick is arrested for statutory rape of Talia Shire, which brings scowling Ed out to California, with the $3000 it will cost to get him out of the scrape. She's pregnant and claims Nick is the father. Hmmmm, I wonder if that's the same $3000 Peter needed for his ski lodge idea. Nick wonders how Talia knows the kid is his. "Because I know," she says. The charges are dropped if Nick will leave town, much to the delight of his social-climbing family members. "I did it so the one member of the family who is worth a damn won't have to go through life with a jailbird brother around his neck," Ed says, saying the slate is now clear with them, "the last time I ever want to see or hear from you." Nick yells after him that, "I'm gonna pay you back, Pa, every last scent, even if I have to jam it down your throat!"
A letter arrives from dad to Peter without the promised $3000.
Now we're cooking again! After some very slow times, the plot is lurching back, with the brothers pitted against each other by circumstance, not even intentional hatred or disagreement.
How can Peter get the money? He places a call to Kim Darby.
Nick leaves his family and his job, though not before the rich kids come after him again (although the rich kids look even older than Nick playing teenagers--this in the pre-Botox age). When one of them insults Talia, Nick beats the hell out of him.
Not only did Nick and Peter have a need for the money, but so do Ed and Dorothy, as the long-planned supermarket is finally about to open, right next door to the bakery, certainly to finally put them out of business. He comes home to an eviction notice (with two months warning) and Dorothy leaving their bedroom. She's hopping mad that he bailed out Nick (referring to him as "perfect stranger") and wasted the $3000. "I've got my price too. $30 a week, but I want my back pay! It's a bargain rate. $30 a week for 20 years, I've figured it all out, it's $30,000. You put $30,000 on the table and I'll talk to you, not before!" she screams at him. He leaves, with Dorothy shouting at him.
Peter is explaining his business proposal to Ray and Kim when a call comes to Ray's house from his mother. "I don't know where he is. He's been gone all day," she says in a trance. "This time, he's gone for good." Indeed, what is the most notable failed American dream (remember, the big overall theme of "Rich Man, Poor Man) so far has reached its conclusion. On a rainy night, Ed takes his rowboat out one last time. Another one looks to be snuffed out when Talia shows up, in a drenching rain storm, having been tossed out by her father and having lost the baby, to follow Nick out of their small town.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Chapter 3
At the end of Chapter 2, Peter Strauss was joyous as the news that his hard-bitten father was giving him money for college as his wastrel brother Nick Nolte was shipped off to family in California to avoid the rap for a fire he started after seeing his brother's girlfriend, Susan Blakely, in town robber baron Robert Reed's bed.
The story skips to California, 1947. Nick is living with his father's brother, sister-in-law and children, all of them thoroughly bland and ridiculously bourgeois, which means they have a maid they don't need, quiet Irish lass Fionnula Flanagan. Luckily for Nick, the family is going on vacation, leaving him in charge of the house and the gas station they run. It's during down time at the station that Nick learns to box.
A bunch of rich teenagers come to get gas one day and Nick meets flirty Talia Shire. The rest of the kids are obnoxious, so Nick lets the air out of a tire just to spite them. Not only has he made a date with Talia, but Fionnula is hot after him, showing it first by making him a world-class meal, then showing up naked to share a bath with him. One hell of a leap, no? When the appointed hour to meet Talia arrives, Nick is hooked in Fionnula's arms, she being the one who talks about St. Sebastian, sending Nick to the encyclopedia to figure out that reference.
The ever-egalitarian Nick doesn't understand why Fionnula would want to be a maid, and "wait on my fat uncle," but she likes her life. Things get more than a bit gooey with these two, who go riding on horseback to shoot bunnies and pick flowers, not to mention rehash the stories of their lives (well, mostly his). She stops him from the former, saying, "you're bigger than he is and he can't fight back." Another miniseries rule can be seen a mile away: when things are too good to be true, watch out!
Back in upstate New York, things are pretty much the same. Peter is still playing delivery boy for his father while being worshipped by his mother. Dorothy is full of complaints about her life and Ed growls with the same arguments.
Peter goes fishing on Robert Reed's land and is invited to lunch. As always, Robert likes playing savior, getting Peter a job to help pay for college, and mentioning his new boss has some "nubile young daughters." That brings the conversation around to Susan, though Robert doesn't reveal too much
Speaking of Susan, she's moved to New York City to become an actress. Waiting in agent Steve Allen's office, she is introduced to colossal blowhard Bill Bixby. But, before she can get to know him, she's called into Steve's office to read for a one-line part. She is told to return later "with a bathing suit." Bill is waiting to take her out to lunch, where he delights her with pompous stories. A day of binge drinking by both is interrupted by Susan's line reading in the suit, which apparently gets her the part. Champagne loosens her lips about her past, and Bill, claiming to be falling in love with her but acting as gay as all get out, delights in the details. "I think I'm falling in love with you," he keeps saying.
Nick and Fionnula have continued their affair even with the return of Nick's family, though they are very quiet and careful about it. However, his uncle is suspicious, grilling Nick with the threatening calm of an SS Agent, finally revealing that he heard the sounds coming from Fionnula's room. "I want you to say you are sorry for the filthy thing that has taken place under my roof," his uncle rages. The uncle threatens to have her deported, so "she will promise me anything I want," he says triumphantly. The next morning, not only does Fionnula tell Nick "we are over," but also that she's going to finally give in and let her boss have his way with her. Nick runs from the house in horror.
The story skips to California, 1947. Nick is living with his father's brother, sister-in-law and children, all of them thoroughly bland and ridiculously bourgeois, which means they have a maid they don't need, quiet Irish lass Fionnula Flanagan. Luckily for Nick, the family is going on vacation, leaving him in charge of the house and the gas station they run. It's during down time at the station that Nick learns to box.
A bunch of rich teenagers come to get gas one day and Nick meets flirty Talia Shire. The rest of the kids are obnoxious, so Nick lets the air out of a tire just to spite them. Not only has he made a date with Talia, but Fionnula is hot after him, showing it first by making him a world-class meal, then showing up naked to share a bath with him. One hell of a leap, no? When the appointed hour to meet Talia arrives, Nick is hooked in Fionnula's arms, she being the one who talks about St. Sebastian, sending Nick to the encyclopedia to figure out that reference.
The ever-egalitarian Nick doesn't understand why Fionnula would want to be a maid, and "wait on my fat uncle," but she likes her life. Things get more than a bit gooey with these two, who go riding on horseback to shoot bunnies and pick flowers, not to mention rehash the stories of their lives (well, mostly his). She stops him from the former, saying, "you're bigger than he is and he can't fight back." Another miniseries rule can be seen a mile away: when things are too good to be true, watch out!
Back in upstate New York, things are pretty much the same. Peter is still playing delivery boy for his father while being worshipped by his mother. Dorothy is full of complaints about her life and Ed growls with the same arguments.
Peter goes fishing on Robert Reed's land and is invited to lunch. As always, Robert likes playing savior, getting Peter a job to help pay for college, and mentioning his new boss has some "nubile young daughters." That brings the conversation around to Susan, though Robert doesn't reveal too much
Speaking of Susan, she's moved to New York City to become an actress. Waiting in agent Steve Allen's office, she is introduced to colossal blowhard Bill Bixby. But, before she can get to know him, she's called into Steve's office to read for a one-line part. She is told to return later "with a bathing suit." Bill is waiting to take her out to lunch, where he delights her with pompous stories. A day of binge drinking by both is interrupted by Susan's line reading in the suit, which apparently gets her the part. Champagne loosens her lips about her past, and Bill, claiming to be falling in love with her but acting as gay as all get out, delights in the details. "I think I'm falling in love with you," he keeps saying.
Nick and Fionnula have continued their affair even with the return of Nick's family, though they are very quiet and careful about it. However, his uncle is suspicious, grilling Nick with the threatening calm of an SS Agent, finally revealing that he heard the sounds coming from Fionnula's room. "I want you to say you are sorry for the filthy thing that has taken place under my roof," his uncle rages. The uncle threatens to have her deported, so "she will promise me anything I want," he says triumphantly. The next morning, not only does Fionnula tell Nick "we are over," but also that she's going to finally give in and let her boss have his way with her. Nick runs from the house in horror.
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