Season 1 Episode 2: Thinnergy

Marcy lends Peggy a diet book called Thinnergy, on the understanding that it will improve her sex life, and Peggy’s response is to put the entire household on it. The plot is thin on purpose. What the episode is actually doing, two weeks into the series, is installing the weapon both Bundys would spend eleven seasons pointing at each other: withholding. Peggy controls the food. Al controls everything else he can reach. Neither of them will concede, and the diet becomes a siege.

The episode is an early marker for a surprising number of the show’s fixtures. It is the first time Al’s eventual default posture, alone on the couch, sunk into the cushions, immovable, begins to appear as something more than a man sitting down. It is the first time Peggy makes a joke about her own satisfaction without her husband’s involvement, a register the series would return to for a decade. And it is the first time the audience is shown Al and Peggy’s bedroom, which the show had so far kept offstage.

Steve’s contribution is a nod to the previous week: he reminds Al that he has already got him into trouble with Marcy once, which is the series’ first act of continuity, delivered in episode two. Bud supplies another piece of household history that would be referenced for years, mentioning that Kelly has been held back a grade. The title is a pun doing double duty: the book’s invented brand name, and a play on synergy, which is roughly the opposite of what the Bundy diet produces.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: April 12, 1987
• Season 1, Episode 2, and the 2nd episode of the series
• Written by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye
• Directed by Linda Day

Guest Cast

• Elizabeth Edwards as Sandy
• Ritch Shydner as Luke Ventura
• Gita Isak as Patsy, voice only and uncredited

The First Bundy Stalemate

It is the first time Peg makes a joke about not needing Al, the first time the show puts the two of them in their bedroom, and the first time Al settles into the alone-on-the-couch posture that became the single most recognizable image of the series. For a second episode it does a lot of foundation work.

It is also the first of many episodes where Al blames Steve for something Marcy did, which becomes the standard route by which trouble crosses the street.

Famous Quotes

• Peggy: “You know, if a maniac broke in this house right now and shot me dead, Al wouldn’t even know.” Al: “I’d know.” The shortest summary of this marriage in the first season.
• Al: “Your wife gave my wife a book. Now my life is hell.” Al, to Steve, assigning blame correctly.
• Al: “Just ’cause I don’t go to bed with you, doesn’t mean I don’t love ya!” Al, negotiating.
• Steve: “Well, yes Al, she does.” Steve, confirming that Marcy hates Al that much.

Notes

• The title is the name of the diet book and a blend of “thinness” and “energy.”
• First appearance of Tang on the show, though at this point it carries a parody label reading Tri-C.
• Peg sings her way through the episode: Frances Langford, Bobby Goldsboro, Helen Reddy and The Singing Nun, all deployed at Al.
• Goof: Peg says they have been married sixteen years, but the sixteenth anniversary is still four episodes away in Sixteen Years and What Do You Get.
• Goof: Peg throws one of Al’s socks in the air and it never comes down, most likely over the wall of the set.