Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Sicily, Alaska, a Northern Exposure podcast.
Speaker: I'm Anne Flynn Terrell. I'm a cabaret performer and MC. don I'm Caleb Cohart. I'm a documentary and commercial filmmaker. I'm Amy Gerlich. I own and run a improv and sketch comedy theater in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker: This is a podcast where we talk about Northern Exposure and how it's affected our lives. And we have some amazing special guests. Here we go. Season six, episode 13, Mommy's Curse.
Speaker: All right. We open with Maggie rushing to clean up her house as her mom bursts through the door, her new boyfriend Leland in tow. Tensions are already beginning to build between Maggie and mom, but fear not, leveland Leland travels with a portable bar and martinis on the ready. My parents used to have one of those little traveling bar sets that would open up and held a bottle and a shaker. they really with yeah They never traveled with it. I think they just got it as a gift because when I was a kid, they didn't drink very much. So I was surprised they had it. I wonder if they still have it because it's pretty cool. You'd love it. I'd give it to you in Austin because that'd be like, i that's fine. There are a lot of those in um vintage shops. Yeah.
Speaker: um All right. Mom inquires about Joel. Turns out Maggie hasn't broken the news about the breakup. So Maggie lies. um She doesn't necessarily lie, but she untruths the fact that she and Joel have broken up.
Speaker: Do you guys ah want to hear about the new actress that plays Maggie's mom? I thought this was new actress. I did not recognize this lady. Yeah, have yeah i do not have much about this episode, but let's talk about Jane O'Connell. So the OG mom of Maggie was Bebe Besh.
Speaker: She died of cancer in September 96. And this episode was shot in February of 96. So people online were saying they think maybe she couldn't shoot the episode because maybe she was too sick.
Speaker: So the new mom is Jane O'Connell. So Jane O'Connell is someone like if you were born ah when I was born, you would remember her better, I think, because she was in like some of those classics. like um bewitched carol burnett show the patty duke show laughing mary hartman mary hartman talk about another person who just died mod all in the family good times mash law and order mame see no evil hear no evil wow uh not as familiar with the majority of those yeah
Speaker: Oh, MASH is my jam. I've binge watched that three times during insomniatic bouts. Oh boy. How many episodes of that are there? Forever many. that I'm asking and interested in like watching anymore. It was 10 years. It was like 10 years with something like 22 to 24 episodes a season.
Speaker: Whoa. I have been devouring like the bear. Lately, we just finished the bear because the episodes are 20 minutes long. And i'm like, oh.
Speaker: but i I love that. Now in comparison, and I do like revisiting some old shows like the X-Files that were nice and long, but Northern Exposure, you have have changed me as a person. This is my first and last recap podcast ever. Full recap podcast. You could do one-off episodes.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, speaking of recaps, Maggie, has earned she has come of age and she has earned her trust fund, so her mom gives it to her. She now realizes that she has a lot of money. and her mom So her mom took over the trust fund after her dad left and she managed to grow it quite significantly. So Maggie's done pretty well. ah mommy Maggie's mom is steamrolling her over ideas of prenups and wedding plans because... You know, she's got a lot of money now and she doesn't want Joel to end up with it.
Speaker: Maggie just can't break it to her that she is broken up with Joel. Next up, Maurice, Holling and Dr. Capra and Hayden are all playing poker at Maurice's house. We find out that Holling is building his own boat and naming it after his kid, the Miranda Bliss.
Speaker: Dr. Capra is impressed. I was pretty, I was sorry, I was grossed out by Capra having a evening Bloody Mary during this poker game. I don't mind an evening Bloody Mary. I think there, so one of my, he was doing a show with Austin. It was Austin's older friends. He said, tequila is the only alcohol that's an upper. And I was like, i don't know if that's true, but he's like, all the of the other alcohols are depressants. So maybe he was just trying to use that as an edge in the game.
Speaker: Oh, you think he was having a Bloody Mary with tequila and not vodka? No, I just realized words that said. that's Bloody Maria. That's a Bloody Maria. Exactly. Yeah, that's a Bloody Maria. No, I guess it could If was having a Bloody Maria, then it's a completely different thing and it's appropriate him to having it. Is the tomato that grossed you out?
Speaker: In the evening? I hate tomato juice, so I don't like a Bloody Mary any in evening. Honestly, when I used to drink, I loved – that's what I would have at brunch and on planes. Yeah. Because it would like keep me full. Because the tomato tastes different.
Speaker: Well, what's what's gross about it in the evening? I don't know. It feels like a daytime drink to me. Too savory, too filling. You don't want that many calories right before you go to bed. It's going to really affect your REM.
Speaker: Well, also they say that tomato tastes very different at altitude, and that's why a lot of people like tomato because the salt tastes different. There's ah there's a very different ah element at play when you're at altitude. Like it messes with your taste buds. It messes with light. Yeah, there's a lot of lot stuff. No idea.
Speaker: Walt visits Ruthann at her store. She's closed for inventory. He's gotten back from a month of trapping. ah Walt gets a job at Ruthann's store um because she wants him to retire, but he's not a fan of it. So she offers him a job.
Speaker: So at the brick the next morning, Maurice arrives. He's looking for hauling. Turns out that hauling isn't there. He's with Phil working on the boat with some very old school hand tools while quoting poetry.
Speaker: It's very romantic. ah Maurice shows up, reminding Holling that it's Bunya Day and that they had an appointment to hang out together in Schvitz. Holling forgot and got a little too into his boat building.
Speaker: Holling's going to stand up Maurice in order to hang out with Phil, but they offer to let Maurice stay and play with him if they if he wants to. Maurice is not into it. lot of ping-ponging of scenes here because we're right back to Ruthann's store. It's Walt's first day. She's walking him through the grind and how to shuffle the cans.
Speaker: And back to the brick. Leland is working with Eugene, teaching him how to mix a proper Manhattan. Leland is in the middle of hustling Hayden at a little pool.
Speaker: Maggie and mom are hanging out at a nearby table and a very scruffy mountainous looking Joel walks in. Maggie intercepts him before mom can see and kicks him out of the brick.
Speaker: ah They turn to find Leland has dropped dead on the pool table right as the three bowls of chicken soup they ordered arrive. Dr. Capra, along with the entire town, show up to examine the recently deceased Leland. He's officially pronounced dead at the scene.
Speaker: Unfortunately, they're all out of winter holes, so they're not sure quite what to do with Leland. Maggie's mom realizes there's another doctor. She's very confused, so ah Maggie says that Dr. Capra is the veterinarian.
Speaker: Maurice ends up talking Ed into his schvitz versus hauling. It's very ah masochistic kind of steaming that they're doing. They're literally whipping themselves to get the blood flowing and oversteaming. They do sell those at a lot of banyos.
Speaker: Wow. that did They sell them at ah Lake Steam, but they're expensive. These like the the whipping brushes, the whipping. the It's it's a ah I don't know, as a group of leaves bound together with twine and that yeah, there's some herbal lash themselves going on. Yeah, it's not like um it's not like a eucalyptus, but I wish it was. I love the smell of eucalyptus. Yeah, I thought it was only something that like priests did. But when Zach walked in while I was watching that, he was like, what the hell's going on? It did look like, what do they call it? um nuts um
Speaker: Flagellation. Self-flagellation. Yeah, did like self-flagellation. Mm-hmm. um Well, Maurice is pushing it to the brink. He gets pretty sick in the steam room, kind of passes out.
Speaker: I also see that it the actor that plays that has an enormous and on his back. i don't know if you guys caught that. Yeah. As he kind of like passes out and bends over, you see this massive tattoo. What was it? left shoulder I don't know. it was like a face or something. I didn't stop and zoom in.
Speaker: I just noticed it. I was impressed as a as a man of the ink myself. i was like, all right, way to go, Ed. All right, we're back at the brick and Hauling and Capra are having a little sack lunch.
Speaker: Wait, what? No, all right. We're not at the brick. We're back at the workshop. It jumps around so much. I got lost in this episode. This episode gave me whiplash as well, so you're not alone. Yeah.
Speaker: right, we're back at the garage. Holling and Capra working on the boat, but they've taken a little sack lunch break here at the workshop. um They're just about to tuck into a pickle, peanut butter, and Miracle Whip sandwich, a favorite of Holling's.
Speaker: As a bunch of people show up with a dead body on a lawn chair, they're going to store Leland in the barn until they can figure out what to do with him. This is when the cat's out of the bag because Maggie's mom says that Capra's just been a competent,
Speaker: Jesus. All right. Basically, Maggie's like, no, no. Dr. Capra is as competent as a real doctor, even though he's a veterinarian. So Maggie's mom figures out, wait, what's going on here?
Speaker: um Maggie tells him that Joel's not there. Phil's the little doctor. Okay, having confused myself, we're back at Ruthann's. Walt's gonna take a little lunch break, but Ruthann notices that he has stocked the Denti Moore all wrong. He's created a point of view display for better marketing visibility as opposed to putting the cans on the shelf the way Ruthann likes. Ruthann's micromanaging is getting in the way of their relationship.
Speaker: That's why you should never hire your boyfriend to help you run your store, everybody. I i mean love Dintingmore. but Dintymore?
Speaker: Dintymore. Dinty? D-I-N-T-Y? D-I-N-T-Y. i loved it when I was growing up. i Loved it. um I was going to say denity more much it's hard to work with your spouse or partner. Like you really have to um you really have to like set boundaries like Zach and I had to go through several phases of like how do we. Like, what are keywords? How do we communicate? um When the very beginning, when he started working at the theater, like when he had percentages of the theater, um I would have to sometimes be like wife hat, boss hat, like actually say these things. Yeah.
Speaker: Because also, i knew his pattern of behavior in other jobs and with his bosses, but, like, I was always privy to just his side of the story. So getting to be his kind of boss, I was like, there would be moments where I'm like, hmm...
Speaker: okay, now I see why things went the way they did with certain bosses because i see how he's behaving to me when I ask him to do something or when I would like critique something he had done or when he would huff and puff about doing something that was part of his job. And so it was like really hard for me because I was like, I want to do this.
Speaker: I don't want to be your boss, you know? um but over time it got much better because I was like, we have to keep like communicating and like talking about how to do this. Otherwise our marriage would have broken up, you know?
Speaker: Yeah. I found this out too. Just even like when you have employees, like my first employee ever, we became really good friends. Um, basically the same age, same in shared interests. And I was his buddy. And boy, that backfired because there were several times when it would get like a project wouldn't get done or I'd have to ask him to do something that just, he would like throw the friendship back in your face. So ever since then, I've i've made it a point to never, ever become like good friends with anybody that
Speaker: works for me or that like I coach or anything. So yeah, I like, even like the troops that I'll coach, they'll all be like, Hey, let's hang out. Let's go get a drink. And I'm like, no, I'm good.
Speaker: Yeah. Now gotta have those like boundaries. It's very healthy to set those boundaries and, to keep them is the hardest because it just takes one little toe over the edge and you see it go sideways time and time again. It's kind of why you don't like buy anything of a high value from a friend either. Like my sister bought a car from her friend and the car turned out to be an absolute lemon, like from the day she bought it. And of course he wouldn't take it back. And it just led to their absolute,
Speaker: like friendship falling apart. I don't think that they ever talked after that. It's yeah, you gotta, gotta have those boundaries. It seems like such a good idea. I'll be friends with everybody or I'll get this car for my friend. It'll be great. Nope.
Speaker: No, it will not. No, it will not. That's a great segue in friends falling apart because we're back at the brick and Holling and Capra are chumming it up. Maurice shows up.
Speaker: Holling apologizes to Maurice for forgetting about Banya Day. Well, Maurice turns out to be a little bit of a butthead, and he starts asking Holling to return his color TV that he lent them. um He needs to put it in his guest room that he never goes in. Maurice turns out to be a petty, petty man.
Speaker: Shocker this late into the show that we find that out. That was sarcasm for the listeners. Right. When um when he ripped Holling's hat, though, that oh I've never seen such great shame face on an actor. Like, you saw four different...
Speaker: things happen with Maurice's face in one shot. And I was like, oh. yeah That's acting. yeah i wonder if he accidentally ripped it or if he like, it's just that good of an actor. I think he's that good of an actor. don't know. That could have actually been an accidental rip now that you say it. Cause that was very, it was a very fun moment. Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe they just worked it into the rest of the show.
Speaker: It could have been, it could have maybe been like a pull away and like, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um Well, back at Ruthann's house, she's making a little dinner for her and Walt, and the tension between them is palpable. They start to argue over Walt's initiative to create a little marketing display at the store with the Denty Moore. When Ruthann realizes that they shouldn't be arguing over canned stew, her solution is to keep work at work.
Speaker: ah Very similar to wife hat, boss hat that Amy brought up. right, we're back at the barn again, our 257th scene change in this episode.
Speaker: Maggie's mom is visiting the dead body of Leland. It's her first opportunity to really talk to him and give him some details about her life. Turns out Maggie's mom didn't even really know the guy. They just kind of hooked up on a cruise and they were having some fun together.
Speaker: Maggie arrives and overhears her mom talking with Leland. And it's interesting um to leave the bar. Oh, you know, I had this thought while they're doing this. Leland is dead.
Speaker: He's on a lawn chair in this barn. This barn has no doors. They don't close it up. There are wild animals in Alaska. Wolves. I mean, the bears are probably hibernating at this point, but...
Speaker: I'm just amazed they leave this dude laying out. And nobody watches him. And and like what was it, like the second season or third season? They all yeah took turns watching on the table? It might have even been first season. yeah and it was in the winter time. so it's like spring, there's probably definitely bears coming in.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. So they're just like, well, this dude's a stranger. Yeah, he was great, but he hustled me at pool. So stick him in the barn, leave the door open. That'll take care of our problem. My God, you guys, can I tell you something really stupid about bears yeah from 4th of July? So I get to my parents' house and my parents are like... Yeah, we've been having so many bears lately come up to the house because they used to have like every once in a while a bear would come and they're eating dinner and a bear would just be like this. Because my parents have seven hummingbird feeders where I'm like, this is why they're coming. But anyways, yeah so my parents go, yeah there's been so many more bears. And i was like, yeah, I did something outside to kind of...
Speaker: detract from them and that's where i go to smoke so i like went out to smoke and all of a sudden this hawk sound so caleb like what you and margie got for your the home the unhoused people hawk sound and then gunshots and i was like and it just kept going and my dad comes out he's like that's what i got was like it's nice they got an alarm like That's where do i go and I waited for you to discover it on your own, too. Yes, it was calculated. Sorry. And but what were you going to say? no I was I really there's nothing to say about um the the wonders of humanity and nature. i mean, nature is wild on its own, but you add humanity into the mix and it's a mess.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, yeah. ah Well, ma ah Maggie's mom hints at the fact that all of the men that she's been with, she kills them or they all run off. So we're starting to see that there might be a little bit of a family curse. It's not just Maggie in this. um And this is the moment we realize that women are a little more like their moms than they're willing to admit. And that might be the cause of some tensions here.
Speaker: Absolutely, absolutely. um Anyway, Maggie's mom refuses to believe that they're similar, that they either kill the men or drive them away because Joel is the evidence. And this is when Maggie finally has to come clean and admit that she drove Joel away.
Speaker: Did Joel ever hide a breakup of a relationship from your family?
Speaker: No, I didn't have that many. don't think so. Not significant ones. Yes, I did. My college boyfriend, when we moved from the East Coast to the West Coast to go to a different school, I broke up with him like immediately. And I don't think I told my parents because I think my parents were both like, this is a bad idea. and they were right. ah Got it.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Why did you, Ann? nope I also did not have ah many relationships. I'm trying to think if there was even like maybe a friendship that I was like, oh yeah, I'm still friends with her, but would never talk to her again. i don't even think there was much of that.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I just find that very interesting that people would lie about that. Well, it's consistent. A lot pressure. Well, we know that Maggie's had a lot of pressure from her parents to live up to their image of her.
Speaker: Yes, but then at the end of every episode, she gets the, you know what? I'm just going to be who I'm going to be. And then at the beginning of every episode with her parents, she falls right back into it. And this is, you know, the sixth season. So there's been at least six of these episodes. Yeah. And we also get to the point where, like, we find out from her parents that they're like, look, dude, we don't care. Like, be you.
Speaker: Especially after their divorce. They're kind of like, yeah embrace who you are. Yeah. and But we keep repeating to this theme. um Well, guess what, guys? Another scene change. We're back at Ruthann's shop. It's the next morning. Walt is taking over register duty, and Ruthann doesn't like the way he's small-talking with the customers, so Ruthann kicks him out from behind the register.
Speaker: He's not a great, he's not doing a great job. No, he's he's not good. He's beyond frustrating. There's a reason he belongs in the woods trapping. Yeah. oh Oh, yeah. I'm very happy that there are people in the world for all types of jobs.
Speaker: yeah And I used to work in a grocery store and man, there were some people who fucking killed it at working at a grocery store. Like people who work in dairy, that first in first out. Yeah.
Speaker: who could handle the cold people, of people who could live in the tundra. Uh, yeah, I have great appreciation for people who can work in hospitality their entire life and who can work in like grocery stores their whole life. It's incredible. Amen. Yeah. That's a special kind of person. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, all right. Phil Capra and Holling are walking down the street, chit-chatting, new bosom buddies, talking about what they're going to do after the boat is complete. They run into Maurice and discover that Maurice has bought up all of the cyber fiber seal plus that they need to finish the boat.
Speaker: So Maurice is continuing to sabotage the boat project by being a petty butthead. The whole spectacle escalates to Maurice tearing Holling's hat that he's had for six seasons Maurice exclaims, I'll kill you.
Speaker: Embarrassed, Maurice gets in his pickup and drives off. Back at ruth's st Ruth Ann's. We're down in the basement where they apparently store all of the heavy stuff. I do kind of agree with Walt and Ed in this, that Ruth Ann's organization is a bit nuts because she stores all the heavy stuff downstairs and moves it all back upstairs. Anyway, they're they're criticizing Ruth Ann's inventory philosophies. Walt and Ed are sharing a little bit of fudge, fudge that Walt stole from the store. Ruth Ann calls Walt into her office
Speaker: This can't end well. It's also the first time we've ever seen Ruthann's office. Why didn't her and the tax lady do the tax stuff back there? Exactly. That was the exact thought I had. i was like, what is this? because Her office is as big as the showroom of the store. And there's storage back there. She has items. This is the season in of rooms and buildings that have never been seen before. this is the epi This is the season where they turned a key on season six and they unlocked half of the town. It's David Chase. He's trying to confuse people. it's a whole Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker: Well, anyway, Ruthann fires Walt. We're back at the brick. Maggie's commiserating her newfound hereditary disorder with Eugene. She realizes that she spent her entire life trying to be different from her mom, and yet she's exactly her mom.
Speaker: Walt arrives, notice Ruth Ann sitting by herself, but he decides to sit at the bar next to Maggie. Up in Holling and Shelly's apartment, Holling is trying to sew his hat back together.
Speaker: He can't let go of that hat and Shelly doesn't understand it. I understand it, hat's a very special thing. Holling tells Shelly that he should have eviscerated Maurice, which gets Shelly a little bit hot. Not as hot as dinosaur water, but hot.
Speaker: When Shelly explains that Maurice is just jealous of Holling and Doc Capra, Holling never realized it before. The next morning, Walt is sitting by himself on a bench as Ruthann approaches.
Speaker: Instead of breaking up, Ruthann says that she wants Walt to move in with her, and she apologizes for the store. Walt is a little trepidatious about this move, but he decides to go for it. Yeah, it's like deciding to have a kid.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. It'll fix the problem. Don't worry about it. Out at the airport, Maggie and her mom are talking about the curse, but her mom's able to help her gain a little bit of perspective on correlation versus causation of the dead men. her mom basically says, it's always the men, dude. They have no fortitude. They're always dying or skedaddling at the first sign of trouble. If they can't blame themselves for this, you've got to blame the men because we are truly the weaker sex, not you women.
Speaker: So now Maggie realizes that she's actually strong and it's their fault. She realizes both she and her mom are strong.
Speaker: That's your synopsis. Yep. That's my synopsis. And I were both sitting here like, I don't like this way. this Don't like this. Don't like this. No, you didn't like this. now it's time ah It's your perspective, right?
Speaker: I, Did you guys realize how much rhyming was going on in this episode? It was not just. no So it was not just the poetry between Capra and Holling.
Speaker: Shelley, almost everything Shelley said in this episode rhymed. um And then there's a couple of other characters who tried to make it not so obvious, I think. So I think people were upset that the writers kept making rhymes. And then so I like looked it up because I was looking up stuff for Jane O'Connell and B.B. Besh. Apparently, a like a poet laureate wrote this episode.
Speaker: Really? Yeah. So, or help to write the episode. So there's like almost if, I mean, obviously don't go back and watch it, but there is um almost the entire episode is like poems and rhyming.
Speaker: who Cause I was like, am I going crazy? i feel like I'm going crazy. Like all of Shelly's lines are rhyming right now. And then I was looked it up and was like, well, okay, this is stupid. Yeah.
Speaker: I had a feeling that this episode was all about reconciliation. Um, and then this next scene, we're out at the dump. um Maurice is chicken is trash and hauling shows up with the bricks garbage. So I was curious to see if the reconciliation trend continues and, uh,
Speaker: they They both realize that old friends and old hats are with you to the end, even with a couple of tears in the brim, like hauling a sewn-us hat back together. yeah like that.
Speaker: Yeah. I love a good patch and repair. Yeah, good patch and repair. Instead of a plot synopsis, this is actually one observation I wrote. ah Women tend to criticize men for not being able to speak emotionally, but I actually think that men speak very well to each other through metaphor.
Speaker: And I think Hollingham Maurice did it very well with the hat in this one. They're just a couple of old hats that fit just right. I like that. I really liked... ahead, Anne.
Speaker: I'll just say that I feel like we're we're at a point where therapy has become much more normalized in America, at least. And people are beginning to be able to express themselves pretty rationally to each other. And I think the ninety s and 80s and 70s were peak must-use euphemism times for things. And this was...
Speaker: And just a perfect example of that. And i think a lot of people could benefit from therapy. But the other thing is that unless everybody's going to therapy and everybody speaks that same language, it's not going to hit the same way. So they were speaking each other's language.
Speaker: Yeah. I don't know who said it. It most likely was Maurice, but I loved what he said. Son of a bloodhound. And i yeah yeah I think that would be a great name for an improv team. Son of a bloodhound.
Speaker: Yeah. That would be good. Well, Maggie's taking a little advice from her mom on how she should spend her money, probably through a real estate investment, particularly commercial real estate. So we wrap up with Maggie standing outside of the movie theater, which is closed.
Speaker: And Maggie's thinking about buying it. Yeah. Our final shot is of... Yeah. Our final shot is of Walt walking down the street with his suitcase moving to Ruthann's.
Speaker: That's it. That's all he's got. And he left his dog behind, apparently. Left his dog, left his computer that we know that he trades and writes his own programs on. Leaves it all.
Speaker: Just suitcase and a man. Yeah, that was weird.
