April Fool’s Day is coming, and Jefferson has a confession. His name is not Jefferson D’Arcy. He worked for the CIA for years before he met Marcy, under a different identity, and a covert operation he ran put a great many people in prison. One of them got away, a man named Walter Traugott, and Traugott is the only person alive who can expose him. Marcy’s reaction to the news is one of the best beats in the episode, because her first guess about what her husband is confessing to is considerably more offensive to her than espionage, and her second reaction, when he confirms a detail she had not asked about, is worse. Al finds out, and Al discovers that there is a fifty thousand dollar reward for information leading to the man behind the identity, which puts him in a genuine moral position for about ninety seconds. He tries to get Jefferson to admit it on the record, and the moment Jefferson does, Al’s hand goes for the telephone. Elsewhere Bud and Kelly want to start a business serving lonely men and need five thousand dollars in capital, and Al’s response is to walk them through the family wall safe, which is the funniest thing in the episode. Peg spends the episode dealing with a broken tooth. It is one of the better Jefferson episodes the series made, because for once the backstory the show had been joking about turns out to be real, and the only person who finds that less interesting than the Cher revelation is Marcy herself. Al’s willingness to sell out his only friend for money takes about a second and a half to establish.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: February 27, 1994
- Season and episode: Season 8, Episode 20
- Overall episode number: 177
- Written by: Ilunga Adell
- Directed by: Gerry Cohen
- Production note: This is the episode that establishes that Jefferson D’Arcy is not his real name and that he worked for the CIA, which the series had hinted at for years without committing to.
- Production note: The closing shot of Jefferson blowing a party whistle was lifted for Ted McGinley’s clip in the season 9 opening credits.
- Title note: A play on The X-Files, then in its first season on the same network.
Guest Cast
- Robert Mandan as Walter Traugott
The Fifty Thousand Dollar Question
Marcy’s response to the confession is the scene that makes the episode. Jefferson sits her down to say he has not been honest about his past, and her first guess is that he is secretly able to work, which she asks with visible hope. When he explains that it is about the CIA instead, she is relieved, because she had assumed he was about to tell her he had dated Cher. He then confirms that he did. His explanation of the circumstances is worse than the fact.
Al’s wall safe routine is a perfect bit of sustained sarcasm, built on walking across the room, warning the children not to look, lifting a painting off a bare wall, announcing that the contents have been stolen, and then returning to the ball game. Kelly’s reaction, that she did not know they had a wall safe, and Bud’s assessment of what was in it, finish it.
Robert Mandan is well cast as Traugott. He had been Chester Tate on Soap, and he plays the old adversary with exactly the right amount of theatrical menace for a plot that resolves the way this one does.
The closing credits on the original broadcast carried a television announcer reading sports results, including one about the Dodgers that the DVD release preserves. The Dodgers had in fact finished last in the NL West in 1992 before recovering the following year, which makes the joke slightly out of date by the time it aired.
A good piece of fan pedantry: one of the photographs Traugott produces shows Jefferson as a member of the Rat Pack, which the show’s own later chronology makes impossible, since Jefferson turns forty in 1997.
Famous Quotes
- Bud: “Kelly and I wanna start up our own business.” Kelly: “So will you loan us $5,000?” Al: “Well, sure! Jody, Buffy, let me truck on over here to the wall safe. Nobody look.”
- Al, lifting the painting off a bare wall: “Well, strike me blind and call me Charlie! It’s been took! Quick! After them! I’ll wait over here by the ball game.”
- Kelly: “I didn’t even know we had a wall safe.” Bud: “Too bad it’s gone. Your brains were in it.”
- Jefferson: “I haven’t been completely honest with you about my past.” Marcy, hopefully: “You mean… you’re not permanently disabled and can work?!”
- Marcy, after the actual explanation: “Well, thank god! I thought you were going to tell me you dated Cher!” Jefferson, after a pause: “Well, I did… But it wasn’t part of the job. It was just… my turn.”
Notes
- Al and Peg reveal that they once forged a love note to their music teacher from the female PE teacher, which cost the woman her teaching licence three days before retirement and ended her marriage.
- During a game of naming presidents, Al keeps returning to Dwight Eisenhower, whose administration he had previously said he would happily live under in “NO MA’AM.”
- Bud mentions In-N-Out Burger, which in 1994 existed only in California, Nevada and Arizona.
- A goof: Traugott’s scream as he falls sounds as though it was recorded next to the microphone rather than at a distance.
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