Kelly discovers she cannot graduate without completing an internship, which she treats as a catastrophe, and takes a placement at Channel 83. She is put on air as the weather girl almost immediately and then promoted to what she calls the station’s meterlolologist, a word the show lets her keep saying. Al, meanwhile, has spent weeks building up to asking for a raise, and picks this week to do it.
The guessable outcome is the right one. Kelly, with no qualifications and no real idea what she is doing, earns more than her father, and Al has to sit in his own living room and work through what that means about his place in the world.
The scene worth going out of your way for is on the couch, between mother and daughter. Kelly is frightened about graduation, Peg decides the moment has come for a serious talk, and Kelly clings to her and asks to be held. What Peg then advises is entirely about husbands and beer and the virtue of starting young, and Kelly thanks her sincerely for her wisdom. Peg’s explanation for where the wisdom came from is the best line in the episode: you cannot sit on a sofa twenty hours a day and not learn something. The two of them hug. It is a genuinely tender scene built out of completely terrible advice. Taken with the two episodes either side of it, this is the stretch where the show decided what Kelly was going to be. She is not written as stupid here so much as uninterested in anything that does not concern her, and completely unbothered about succeeding at things she never tried to be good at. That combination carried her through seven more seasons.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: April 29, 1990
- Season 4, Episode 21, and the 78th episode of the series
- Written by Kevin Curran
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
Guest Cast
- Ben Lemon as Bill Palomino
- Fran Montano as the station manager
Meterlolologist
The title plays on Rain Man, which had come out a year and a half earlier.
Al and Bud wash windscreens at a freeway off-ramp for extra money in this episode, which is as low as the show had taken Al’s earning power to that point.
Bud tells a tour group that his sister was conceived in Al’s Dodge and born in the garage. The show confirmed the Dodge part years later in season 11’s “Requiem for a Chevyweight.”
The production code shows this was filmed nineteenth for the season but aired twenty-first.
Famous Quotes
- Kelly: “If I don’t do this stupid intern thing, I won’t graduate.” Peg: “Kelly, maybe it’s time we had a little talk.” The setup.
- Kelly: “Hold me, Mom. I’m scared!” The response to being told there will be a talk.
- Kelly: “Thank you, Mom. You’re so wise.” Peg: “You can’t sit on a sofa 20 hours a day and not learn something.” Peg, sourcing her wisdom.
Notes
- Peg mentions that Al has fifty-five dollars of available credit on his card.
- Goof: Marcy says she missed her prom because she had to work, a few episodes after telling Kelly she paid her cousin to take her.
- Goof: the studio lights are visible reflected on Al’s new suit in the final scenes.
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