Season 5 Episode 12: Married … with Who

Marcy wakes up after a banking convention married to a man she does not know. His name is Jefferson D’Arcy, he has a past he is vague about, and he has no apparent intention of working. Al’s response is to offer to arrange the wedding, properly, with a guest list he controls, which is how the Bundys end up profiting from the neighbour’s second marriage.

This is the episode that introduces Jefferson, and it was not a settled appointment. Ted McGinley had appeared once before, in season four’s “It’s a Bundyful Life,” as Norman Jablonski, and when he joined here the producers were uncertain enough about whether the character would last that his billing was held in the closing credits as a recurring player for the remainder of the season. He stayed for seven years.

Al’s financial interest in the wedding has a payoff the series had been setting up since season one. He pays off Lake Chicamocomico with the proceeds, the retirement property he first mentioned in “Nightmare on Al’s Street“, and the episode shows the place for the first and only time at the end. It is not what he described.

The half-hour also gives both Bundys a fantasy about the other’s death: Peggy imagines Al falling into a volcano in Hawaii, Al imagines Peggy going head first into the quarry at Lake Chicamocomico. Peggy’s assessment is that the average relationship contains at most three weeks of happiness. Al’s edits to the guest list remove Marcy’s mother, her sister, her Aunt Mary and Reverend Applebee. Bud’s soccer team, the Reepers, appears for the first time, in uniform at the wedding.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: January 6, 1991
• Season 5, Episode 12, and the 92nd episode of the series
• Written by Ellen L. Fogle
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Ted McGinley as Jefferson D’Arcy, his first appearance in the role

Enter Jefferson D’Arcy

Marcy comes back from a banker’s convention married to a man she cannot remember meeting. Peg organizes a proper ceremony in the Bundy backyard while Al digs into the new husband’s past and turns up a gigolo and con artist. This is where Jefferson D’Arcy enters the series, and Ted McGinley stayed for the next six seasons.

McGinley had already been on the show once, as Norman Jablonsky in It’s a Bundyful Life. For all of season 5 he was billed in the closing credits only, because nobody had decided yet whether Jefferson would last. He moved up to the opening titles in season 6.

Al puts his share of the wedding money into lakefront property at Lake Chicamocomico, not realizing it is the toxic site Jefferson had been using in his schemes. This is the only time the lake actually appears on screen. Al had been talking about that retirement property, and admitting it was a dump, as far back as season 1’s Nightmare on Al’s Street. The tag shows Al and Bud fishing there as mutants.

Famous Quotes

• Bud & Kelly: “Money! Money! Money! Money!” The children’s position, stated plainly, while Al gazes into the middle distance.
• Kelly: “Mom, daddy’s gone away again.” / Peg: “He’s just visiting his retirement property.” / Kelly: “Well, how are we supposed to know? He’s always a veg!”
• Marcy: “All I know is I woke up this morning with a man in my bed. I don’t even know who he is!” / Al: “Well, that’s easy. He slept with you, he’s the stupidest man on Earth.” / Peg: “Al, we’re talking about sex. Leave it to those who do it!”
• Jefferson: “I just stopped by to thank you for utterly betraying my trust. It was malicious and foul, but I think it’s going to turn out to be a blessing.” His introduction to the Bundy living room.
• Marcy (offscreen): “JEFFERSON D’ARCY! GET YOUR LYING ASS OVER HERE NOW!” / Jefferson: “In prison, I could have had her silenced for three cigarettes.”

Notes

• Bud’s soccer team, the Reepers, appears for the first time.
• The closing black-and-white segment parodies the opening of The Andy Griffith Show, and “The Fishing Hole” plays both in Al’s fantasy and as he and Bud walk to the lake.
• Peggy delivers the line that the average relationship between a man and a woman holds a maximum of three weeks of happiness.
• Al’s “Run silent, run deep” is the 1958 Clark Gable film.
• Goof: Ed O’Neill’s fake arm is visible as Al walks to Lake Chicamocomico.
• Goof: Marcy’s flower veil arrangement disappears and reappears between shots.