Square Pegs: A Cafeteria Line

United in their incompleteness

Square Pegs: A Cafeteria Line
CBS
October 4, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B

Episode 2 has a sharper script (the first of six by Janis Hirsch), a school musical (including "Ketchup as a Vegetable," then a timely dig at Reagan), and the cast really clicking together.  In fact, I may have revise my Patty/Johnny and Lauren/Marshall shipping into something more complex I wasn't consciously aware of at the time.  Not that P/J and L/M isn't a thing, partly because of height (as with Laverne/Lenny and the less viable Shirley/Squiggy) and partly because of personalities.  But something else is going on here.

Now, please don't string me up over this, but watching this with middle-aged, far less innocent eyes, I think Lauren has lesbian tendencies.  I don't just say this because her wardrobe is kind of mannish, since that may just be a fashion statement.  But she pushes Patty to date popular guys in order to boost their (Patty and Lauren's) popularity, and then she feels abandoned when Patty spends a little time with Vinnie (cast against her romantically in the musical as the drama teacher, written by the drama teacher, so don't tell me this show is completely innocent).

Meanwhile, Johnny really misses Patty, too, and is unusually talkative about it at their hangout, the Grease.  Marshall pats his back and tries to comfort him.  And Marshall says he feels like they're the Three Stooges after Curly died.  Jennifer shows up and Lauren urges her to win Vinnie back, which she does easily.  Patty realizes she's been ignoring her friends, so she apologizes, but Lauren does, too, as if she can't understand her own change in attitude.  Also, watch the adoration Lauren has her on her face when Patty sings on opening night; maybe she's just super proud of her best friend, but maybe not.

The last scene is set at the Grease and Johnny is confused but happy about whose burger is which, with Patty back.  Marshall interrupts him and says, putting one arm on Johnny's back and the other lightly on his arm, "We know, we know, Man.  We love ya."  Now, this may just be aspiring stand-up comic Marshall's show-biz patter (this is the second episode in a row where he imitates a "classic" SNL performer, this time in Rosanne Rosannadanna drag), but it at least shows that Marshall (unlike I'd say 90% of young men in '80s TV and film) isn't afraid of expressing affection towards his male friends.  This is in stark contrast to Jennifer, who can barely show affection towards Vinnie unless she wants something, and who used the word "queer" as an insult in the pilot, and here speculates on the orientation of the drama teacher, despite him being a father of six.

And what is the very next line in the tag?  Lauren's "I'm so happy we're back together, I could eat all your burgers!"  The laugh track does not respond.  And we close the scene on Johnny's friends comforting him for not getting mentioned in the school newspaper's drama review: Marshall rests his head on Johnny's shoulder, and strokes his hair, while Lauren puts one arm around him, squeezes his arm with her other hand, and says, "You were good."  (Patty mostly looks on and grins.)

Then cut to the closing credits, where the four friends make their way down the hallway, Lauren and Marshall putting their arms across each other's shoulders in a chummy way, while Patty borrows Johnny's shades and then Lauren steals them from her.  And, judging from what I know of myself, I was probably smitten with the four of them, maybe just their sis & bromance, but shrug, I don't know.  I was 14 and still pretty innocent and confused myself.  Who knows what this did to me subliminally, but I am bi and sort of poly 34 years later, so this is as good a show to blame as any.

Gary Towles returns as an uncredited Student, while Karen Armstrong makes her first of seven uncredited appearances as Cindy.  Craig Richard Nelson, who played a TV writer on What's Happening!!, would return once more as drama teacher Mr. Spacek.  Note that, much to my relief, the theme song is intact and maybe just wasn't used for the pilot.