Three's Company: Night of the Ropers

Three's Company: Night of the Ropers
ABC
March 17, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B

This George Burditt story brings the Ropers back on their 25th wedding anniversary.  (Which I'm sure doesn't match up to previous episodes with their anniversaries.)  Mrs. Roper is upset that Mr. Roper didn't want to do anything to celebrate, so she wants to stay with the "kids."  Janet advises her to make Mr. Roper jealous, and Helen soon has an opportunity when she stays in Mr. Furley's apartment while he's supposed to be away for the weekend.  He comes back early and of course Mr. Roper finds them innocently in bed together.  Jack tracks Mr. Roper down to the Regal Beagle and convinces him to make up with Mrs. Roper.  But she overhears Stanley saying he expects her to apologize.  So she gets back into bed with Mr. Furley.  And the two landlords end up fighting, which makes her happy.  And then the Ropers go to bed together, which Stanley is ambivalent about.  (He seems to like how she's necking with him, but he resents being tricked.)

Cindy is introduced as Chrissy's cousin but of course the biggest cast change for the purposes of this episode is the addition of Don Knotts, and it's fun to see him play off of Lindley and Fell.  The funniest part is probably Fell's "You know what, you know why, you know why what, you know what why," delivered twice.  I suppose objectively, this is really a B- or C+ episode, but it's so nice to see the Ropers again (in fact, in some ways nicer than it was to see them when they were regulars), that my enjoyment level is B.