Season 1, Episode 5
Date of airing: October 26, 1996 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 12.4 million viewers, 8.4/15 in Households
written by: Bob Brush, Robert Rabinowitz, John Romano
directed by: Susan Seidelman
I have three important things to say about this episode. One, it’s the first of the show with its title being based on a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times, which is fun and something the show should have done more regularly. Two: Gary had a winning lottery ticket and his morale was so much on the right path that he would rather have the ticket be found by a worthy and righteous nun because nuns do know even more what to do with money. It’s probably lucky that Gary managed to find a worthy nun to “give” the ticket to, and not a nun who was thinking about keeping the money for herself. Because really, was there no way for Gary to secretly donate the money to charity? It should be possible to donate millions of dollars anonymously, or is that something the IRS does not like to see in general?
And three, it seemed like there was an entire act missing in the story. Between Gary figuring out that the paper with the Mayor’s autograph and the newspaper had the same lottery numbers, and the moment after Uncle Phil, Gary, and the Mayor had a talk in the mansion, I have no idea how the three figured out that the Mayor’s deputy was engulfed in a conspiracy to fraud the city and why Gary came back into the event of the drawing of the numbers with three cops ready to arrest Flanagan. Between then and now, there had to happen something to make everyone (except Flanagan) realize that a rat was in Denmark (to use the words Phil used), although I don’t even know how Phil even realized it and how he was able to convince the Mayor of this. Technically speaking, none of the characters, except for the Mayor, and he is just a “maybe,” had reason to even think about a conspiracy in this episode. But when Gary woke up the next morning, getting his newspaper, and phoning Chuck to ask him if he wants to buy a lottery ticket, he somehow knew and suddenly the plan was set to have Flanagan run straight to prison by the end of the day. My only question is: How?
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| No lottery numbers for Chuck! |
In hindsight, this episode didn’t make a lot of sense. Flanagan had a piece of paper with the lottery numbers, and then he was frantically searching for it later when there couldn’t have even been a possibility for Flanagan to have the numbers during the day, since he was waiting until the last possible moment to find the numbers that have not been used over the course of the day – doing that in the middle of the day would give someone a few hours to use those exact numbers in the lottery, and Flanagan would have foiled his own plan. Not to mention the fact that the electronic version of a lottery drawing should be illegal from the get-go. Letting a computer draw the numbers? Oh yeah, why don’t you invite manipulation all the way to Australia? So yeah, even the premise of the episode was asking to receive some logic, but none was given to it.
So much for my bitching and moaning about this episode, because it was still something of an entertaining experience, thanks partly to the always wonderful Fyvush Finkel and the writers deciding to focus on the guest character a little bit, and give a backstory to their future paper-related story of the week. That wasn’t much of a success in the previous episode, since the writers neither introduced Meredith properly nor the murder story she was working on, but I got the sense to have known Phil at least a little bit, as well as the troubles the Mayor had while trying to figure out his position in all of this. Phil was introduced with the backstory of his dog, and the Mayor was developed through his inability to perform his job and his aspirations to be a better Mayor. Still, at the end of the day, there wasn’t anything meaningful in the story, thanks to the many plotholes and inconsistencies one can be a bit angry about. One could also be angry about the weirdness that is Chuck, and how he couldn’t hold himself any longer while the jackpot was climbing, and he had a best friend who had the guaranteed winning lottery numbers.
By the way, if Gary would have chosen those numbers earlier in the day, they would have changed later, right? Maybe that was a way he realized that something was going on in Denmark? Although I would still love to know how the three silent heroes of the episode managed to figure out that Flanagan was the villain.
Okay, maybe this episode wasn’t entertaining after all, since I am still making myself go crazy over it. If things don’t make sense and can only be explained by plotholes and inconsistencies, then where is the fun in watching 44 minutes of a family-friendly show I used to love, and maybe still do? Who knows, maybe this episode is just a hiccup, but something has to be said about how convenient it was for the characters to find out about Flanagan’s evil plan and how easy it was for Gary to have him blow up in front of those three very nice policemen, and how Gary didn’t have one ounce of jittery hands giving away the winning lottery tickets. This man must have all the control in the world these days, now that he knows the future a few hours in advance for the past few episodes.
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| Reminiscing about the good-old times with a dog. |
Three more things: Did Phil know that Gary was a prophetic man? His words to Gary that he should keep the lottery ticket imply he knows that Gary had the winning numbers, but neither of the two was very much interested in the fact that they were one step away from $20 million. I would have thought that money would make everyone crazy like this, even if just for a minute. Also, I never really appreciated Fyvush Finkel back in the day, since I was born way past his status as a TV and stage star. I never watched a lot of PICKET FENCES and BOSTON PUBLIC (although I remember bits and pieces of both shows, therefore I remember Finkel), so there was an opportunity for me to meet the actor and witness his talents. He was great in this episode though. Maybe a bit goofy for my taste, but since the story was even goofier than Finkel’s character, I’ll let that slide.
And finally, there was some truth to the Mayor just being a publicity figure for the unknown people who were doing the real politics behind closed doors. It's not like that is not part of any other country's political system. The German president has less legislative power than the country's Chancellor, the Czech president is similar to the Mayor in this fictional television show, and there are a few Republican-run states in the United States who gave the Democratic Governor less power in their position, because ... Republicans, they like to be authoritarian these days.
