Season 3 Episode 15: The Harder They Fall

Peggy, in the car with Steve on the way to the video store, makes an obscene gesture at another driver, and Steve is the one the other driver gets a good look at. With a man now looking for him, Steve invites the Bundys to stay at his house for protection, which is the worst decision he makes in four seasons. The Bundys move in, and the episode becomes an inventory of what they take.

The structure is a small masterpiece of escalation. Steve wants protection; the Bundys want a better house; and the longer they stay the more the arrangement tilts. When Steve finally turns them out so he can have an evening alone with his wife, Al steals their VCR on the way through the door, and the episode keeps going after the writing and directing credits have rolled, with the family still carrying things out of the Rhoades’ living room. The series almost never ran a scene past the credits, and both times it did in this season it was for a joke worth the extra seconds.

It is also an early statement of a dynamic the show would use for years: the Bundys are not malicious toward the Rhoades so much as opportunistic, and Steve’s decency is a resource they treat as renewable.

Small geography: Al says he sent Peggy to Bob’s Betas and Bell Bottoms in Milwaukee and that Steve drove her up Interstate 94, which does in fact connect Chicago to Milwaukee. Peggy mentions the family has gone through at least two parakeets. Daniel Frishman, who plays Mr. Williams, had appeared on The Jeffersons, produced by this show’s own creators.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: March 26, 1989
• Season 3, Episode 15, and the 50th episode of the series
• Written by Robert Ulin and Gabrielle Topping
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Daniel Frishman as Mr. Williams

Steve Waits for the Knock

Peg’s road rage, delivered from the passenger seat of a car Steve is driving, puts Steve in the crosshairs of another driver, who follows them home. Steve invites the Bundys over for safety, and they spend the evening stripping his hospitality down to the studs while he waits in terror for the confrontation.

Al talks him into standing his ground, and when the knock finally comes Steve decks the man on the doorstep, who turns out to be a dwarf, and who had come to apologize. It is a cruel punchline that works because the whole episode has been building Steve’s imagined attacker in his own head.

The Bundys then steal the Rhoades’ VCR on the way out, in a final scene that runs after the credits. Season 5 does a mirror image of this plot in “Kids! Wadaya Gonna Do?“, where Al invites himself over to the D’Arcy house and returns the VCR.

Famous Quotes

• Steve: “Oh my God! It could be him! Look at the size of him! This guy is fresh out of the asylum!” Steve, describing a man he has not seen clearly.
• Marcy: “I noticed your car smelled like chicken. But when I looked closer I found six pigeons roasting on your radiator.” Marcy on the state of the car after Peg’s drive.
• Steve: “No, I couldn’t decide which color wine goes with slop.” Steve on hosting the Bundys.
• Peggy: “You know, I feel the same way about that Pippi Longstocking girl. God, I hate her!” Peg, finding common ground.

Notes

• The title references the 1956 Humphrey Bogart boxing film The Harder They Fall.
• Daniel Frishman had previously appeared on The Jeffersons, co-created by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye.
• Mr. Williams mentions he served time for torching Mercedes-Benz cars.
• The plot turns on the Betamax versus VHS format war, which dates the episode precisely.
• Peg’s Pippi Longstocking hatred landed the same year The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking flopped in theaters.
• The episode establishes that Peggy had owned at least two parakeets.
• Goof: Al disconnects the VCR but leaves the video cable in the television, which he would need for it to work.