Who's the Boss?: The Proposal

Who's the Boss?: The Proposal
ABC
February 17, 1987
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Ellen Guylas wrote this story where Angela thinks that Geoffrey is going to propose but he, having counted the 116 days of their relationship, wants them to get a timeshare together.  When he realizes what she expected, he eagerly proposes marriage.  Mona, who says she's been trying to hide her contempt, is not happy about this.

Tony's attitude is harder to read.  It's clear he doesn't want Angela to marry Geoffrey, but he can pretend, even to himself, that it's just that he doesn't think Geoffrey is right for Angela and she doesn't love Geoffrey.  He may on some level see himself as a concerned platonic friend.  But there's a subtext that he's in love with Angela himself.

As for Angela, I've never been able to fully read her attitude towards Geoffrey.  She often seems tense around him, not in a sexual tension sense, but as if she can't relax around him.  She likes him and finds him special, and she perhaps has convinced herself she should marry someone she seemingly has a lot in common with.  But she clearly doesn't love him.  As for her feelings towards Tony, I think on some level she's beginning to suspect she's in love with him, but not that he is with her.  (That will take much longer.)

Jonathan remains neutral about Geoffrey and he understandably sees Tony as the one to do father-son-like activities with.  I think he would've been OK with the marriage but only if Tony didn't go away, as he likely would've.  In the end, with help from Tony, who's nudged by Mona, Angela gently rejects Geoffrey and they agree their relationship is over.  The path might seem clearer for Tony and Angela now, but of course their path never runs smooth.

Who's the Boss?: Tony the Patchmaker

Who's the Boss?: Tony the Patchmaker
ABC
January 27, 1987
Sitcom
DVD
B

Cinnamon & Wengrod wrote this episode whose title puns on the earlier "Tony the Matchmaker."  When an accident totals Geoffrey's Porsche, which Angela is looking after while her boyfriend is in Boston for work, they have a falling out.  Tony, who has shoulder angel and devil, decides to patch things up.  He doesn't like Geoffrey and there are moments where he seems to be jealous, if not fully aware of it, like when he later walks in on Geoffrey telling Angela, "I love you."  But he wants Angela's happiness, and that seems to be Geoffrey.  Mona clearly doesn't want Angela to get back together with Geoffrey, and she's very annoyed with Tony.  The moment when Angela realizes that Tony knows, while Geoff doesn't, that she prefers pink roses to red is an almost-lightbulb moment.  But mostly she and Tony are not examining their own feelings too closely at this point, partly but not entirely because of Geoffrey.

Who's the Boss?: Marie's Secret

Who's the Boss?: Marie's Secret
ABC
January 20, 1987
Sitcom
DVD
B+

This is the only WtB episode written by Lawrence H. Levy, who'd done one for Roseanne.  It's one of the more serious ones in the series, where Tony suspects his late wife of having had an affair but then finds out she took art lessons and couldn't tell him about them because he was dismissive of the idea.  He feels like he didn't know Marie and that he failed her as a husband.  Then the family throws him a surprise party and Angela gives him a portrait of Samantha where she strongly resembles her mother.  Angela and everyone, including still oblivious Geoffrey, is grateful to him for supporting and encouraging Angela's now successful ad agency.  There are some moving moments here, in particular between Tony and Marie and between Tony and Mrs. Rossini, although the latter also have humor in them.  Note that both Mona and Angela wear glamorous dresses from earlier in the season, ones we see in the opening credits.

Who's the Boss?: The Christmas Card

Who's the Boss?: The Christmas Card
ABC
December 16, 1986
Sitcom
DVD
B

Mindy Glazer's first of three WtB stories is, as the title tells you, another Christmas episode, with the family closer than they were two years ago, and yet threatened by the presence of Geoffrey (Robin Thomas).  Tony is planning a big Christmas dinner, but Geoff's mother, "Mother Wells," has invited Angela and her family over.  Mona chooses Tony and makes clear throughout the episode where her loyalties lie, as when she tosses Geoffrey's stocking into the fireplace and is catty about his mother.

Meanwhile, Tony is knitting a scarf for Angela, until he finds out that Geoffrey is getting her diamond earrings.  He wants to give her something special.  Dr. Ferguson (Jim Jansen, although IMDB does not list him elsewhere for this episode), who had wanted Tony's autographed baseball, now wants his baseball card, which Tony claims not to own.  He tells Sam that he's saving it for her children so they'll know what their Grandpa Tony used to do.

Angela goes to a sports memorabilia store and the Dealer (Phil Rubenstein, who would return as "Phil") promises to get it for her for $325.  So he calls up Tony, initialing offering $25 and going all the way up to $250.  Tony at first is reluctant to sell part of his history, but he can't resist the final offer, which he spends on a crystal vase for Angela.  In an O. Henry touch, he gets his card back.

Things going on at or just below the surface here, other than Mona's dislike of Geoffrey and preference for Tony:

• Sam seems to dislike Geoffrey, too, whether on his own terms or because she ships her dad with Angela.
• Jonathan seems unaware of the undercurrents and gets along OK with Geoffrey, if not as well as he did with his new stepmother.
• Angela wants to give Tony something to show how she feels about him but she can't articulate it to her mother or herself.
• Tony doesn't understand that Angela would've loved the scarf just as much if not more.  He thinks that her relationship with Geoffrey, who casually refers to caterers as "the help," has made her more materialistic than she is.
• Tony and Angela share an awkward kiss under the mistletoe after exchanging gifts, awkward both because their gifts have touched each other (it's not the money but the sacrifice that Angela appreciates, while he's moved that she understands how important his past is to him), and because they're in front of the family and her boyfriend.
• Geoffrey seems oblivious here and elsewhere to what's between Tony and Angela, even as friends.
• We get a quick glimpse of the baseball card, and the title of the episode is a multiple pun, if you throw in that Tony was a Card (Cardinal).

Who's the Boss?: Semi-Private Lives

Who's the Boss?: Semi-Private Lives
ABC
November 25, 1986
Sitcom
DVD
B

Wengrod & Cinnamon wrote this story where Angela has been dating Geoffrey (Robin Thomas, with shorter hair than he had at the wedding) for a few weeks.*  He's invited her to spend the weekend in Maine and it's implied, during her conversation with her mother, that this will be the first time for sex.  The kids spend the weekend in Washington, DC, on a Y trip.  Tony expects to have the house to himself, so he invites over his high school girlfriend, Tanya Stromball.  But he's distracted by a photo of Angela and Jonathan, like they're his wife and son.

Then Angela and Geoffrey return, having gotten lost on the way to Maine.  It's very awkward, and Mona is amused but doesn't linger.  (In a similar situation four seasons later, she'll have a bit more to say.)  Tony and Tanya head to Brooklyn, leaving Angela alone with Geoffrey, but she gets distracted by the vacuum, which reminds her of Tony.  Both couples end up at the Fairfield Inn, although they don't realize it at first.  In fact, I don't think Geoffrey and Tanya ever find out, but Angela and Tony talk on the balconies.

The tag has the kids return, with Sam annoyed with Jonathan.  And Jonathan says he put a glass to the wall to eavesdrop, and it's implied that Tony did this to Angela's room.

A few of the things going on at or slightly below the surface:

• Angela and Tony are jealous, although they can't come right around and say this.  Angela is catty about Tanya, and Tony, whether or not he eavesdropped, says that Geoffrey isn't fun.
• They feel guilty about being with other people, like they're cheating on each other.
• They are co-parents when the kids call, sharing the receiver and the love.
• Sam increasingly sees Jonathan as an annoying little brother, although they still get along better than they will when they're both adolescents.
• Angela seems a little uncomfortable with Geoffrey, especially his flattery.
• Mona doesn't really like Geoffrey, although she's not saying much so far.
• I've never seen it, but the Noel Coward play Private Lives, according to Wikipedia, "concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel."  This has a direct bearing on the episode, as we're to assume that both couples will have sex and are aware that they will have sex.  (However, we never hear from or of Tanya again.)

*We don't know what month the wedding was, or if Jonathan's six weeks in a cast came between the wedding episode and this one, but it is snowing now, and Christmas hasn't come yet.

Who's the Boss?: Wedding Bells?

Who's the Boss?: Wedding Bells?
ABC
November 11, 1986
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Ellen Guylas wrote this episode, which is another of the pivotal ones for the series, and particularly for the season.  Doctors Paul Ferguson* (Jim Jansen) and Isabel Schaeffer (Fern Fitzgerald) are engaged and she wants Angela as her matron of honor, although she hasn't known Angela as long as their mutual friend Wendy Wittener (Dori Brenner).  Dr. Ferguson wants Tony to be his best man.  The couple met through a dinner party at Angela's, which Tony cooked for.  We also find out that Isabel is divorced and has two children, but I don't know if Marci's mother is dead or divorced.

At the wedding, both Tony and Angela imagine getting married to each other, a tease of the audience, in light of the fact that almost six more years would go by and they'd never get beyond an engagement.  And yet, the episode itself shows why their journey would be so long and frustrating.  An older couple, ironically named Fred and Ginger, find the idea of Angela marrying her housekeeper ridiculous, and Tony takes this a lot more personally than Angela does.  He has his pride and he now sees that a big success like her would be mocked for "marrying beneath her."  Then Isabel throws the bouquet across the room and to Angela's table.

They started as friends.

Enter bachelor Geoffrey Wells (Robin Thomas in his first of six appearances).  He tells Tony he's looking for the perfect woman and then later asks Angela to dance.  Angela hesitates but Tony encourages her.  Geoffrey says he owes Tony a finder's fee.  Mona, who had used her catty wit against Fred and Ginger, comes over to check on Tony.  He dances with her but his eyes are on Angela.

In the tag, Tony gives Angela a foot rub, a sign of their closeness, and yet he encourages her to date Geoffrey.  She reacts to the massage sensuously, so he stops.  There's a lot of conflicted feelings in this episode, especially for Tony.  He will end up regretting her relationship with Geoffrey, but at this point I think he's too scared to pursue anything with Angela and he's happy to have an excuse not to.

This is the last appearance of Marci (Nicole Eggert), as well as of Isabel.  (Dr. Ferguson would impact the plot of this season's Christmas episode.)  Tony Danza's brother Matty plays a Waiter here and would later be Marty at Marty's Melody Room.


*IMDB has him listed as "Doyle Ferguson," which might've been his name at his first appearance.  Generally he's referred to as "Dr. Ferguson" or "Marci's dad."  But he is clearly addressed as Paul more than once by Isabel, who should know.