Season 4 Episode 6: Fair Exchange

Al agrees to host a foreign exchange student, and he is completely upfront about why: the placement pays five hundred dollars a month and that money is going on groceries. Yvette arrives from France, fits into the household faster than anyone expected, and then starts doing something the Bundys were not prepared for, which is succeeding. She becomes more popular than Kelly at school, and Kelly has no framework for being the second most interesting girl in a room.

What makes the episode work is that it does not let Kelly be the butt of it. She is genuinely wounded, she sits at the desk and sulks about it, and the house actually convenes to deal with her. Peg sends the Rhoades in to talk to her, which is how the best scene in the episode happens: Marcy explaining, with total sincerity, that she was not popular at school either, and that she could not get a date with a cool guy no matter what she was prepared to do. Steve, sitting right there, laughs at the nerd she ended up dating for several seconds before the realisation lands on his face.

There is also a detail at the top that tells you everything about this family’s finances. Al mentions it is the day after Thanksgiving, and the Bundys are eating pizza, because they ate the toppings and the cheese on the day itself and saved the crusts for leftovers. The episode aired in October, which makes the Thanksgiving reference one of the odder scheduling artefacts in season 4.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: October 29, 1989
• Season 4, Episode 6, and the 63rd episode of the series
• Written by Al Aidekman
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Milla Jovovich as Yvette
• Richard Israel as Myron
• Gregg Thomsen as Hank
• Douglas Bryant Johnson as Bob

Milla Jovovich, Aged Thirteen

Yvette is played by Milla Jovovich, several years before The Fifth Element and a long way before the Resident Evil films. She was just short of fourteen when this aired. Christina Applegate was about a month short of eighteen, which is a four year gap between two characters written as the same age.

The casting has a real-life footnote: the two of them went to the same high school. Jovovich also genuinely speaks French, so the accent is not a performance.

Richard Israel, who plays Kelly’s nerdy date Myron, came back in season 11 as the court jester who argues with Princess Kelly about purple M&Ms.

Famous Quotes

• Marcy: “You may find this hard to believe, but I myself wasn’t popular in school.” Kelly: “The Hell you say.” Kelly, unconvinced.
• Marcy: “I couldn’t get a date with a cool guy no matter how much I put out. I mean, tried.” Marcy, correcting herself on noticing her husband.
• Steve: “You dated a nerd?!” … “Wait a second. I took you to the homecoming dance.” The penny dropping.

Notes

• Al dates the opening to the day after Thanksgiving, though the episode aired in late October.
• Goof: the exchange programme would not hand cash to a host family, and would have arranged transport from the airport rather than leaving it to the Bundys.