Soap: Episode 73

Contain yourselves!

Soap: Episode 73
ABC
December 3, 1980
Dramedy
DVD
C+

Mary is upset when the blackmail pictures are published in the local newspaper (presumably with black bars), but mostly because Burt didn't tell her about the blackmail earlier.  (Note that she still hasn't told him her worries about their baby.)  Chester is upset about Dutch and Eunice's wedding (I'm not thrilled either), until he meets Eunice's bridesmaid, Annie Selig (Nancy Dolman in the first of eleven episodes).  Soon Annie has moved into the poolhouse with Chester, and Eunice is very upset.  Meanwhile Dr. Hill offscreen advises Jessica to take a relaxing vacation to the tiny island of Malaguay.

On the plane, Jessica meets Carlos Marcello David Escobar Rodriguez Valdez, AKA El Puerco, an anti-Communist revolutionary.  I'll talk more about this thread as it plays out, but I'll say here that my issue with it was never the performance of Gregory Sierra, whom I liked as Chano on Barney Miller.  (And he did a delightful cameo on the under-related early '90s Valerie Harper sitcom City.)  It was more what was done with the character and the impact on the show.  Here at the beginning, with him convincing Jessica to free him and then telling her she's now an accomplice, it's not yet shark-bait.

Macon McCalman plays the Minister, at a time he'd been Mr. Penrose on Three's Company but had not yet played Janet's father.  Jodie is absent.