Square Pegs: A Simple Attachment

Square Pegs: A Simple Attachment
CBS
November 8, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B

I think this is the first episode to not feature any adults and to just focus on the eight main characters.  And it's definitely a shippy episode.  (Except for LaDonna, unless you want to ship her with her bestie Jennifer.)  Marshall tells Johnny that he's in love with Lauren, and he thinks Lauren is in love with him since she's agreed to give him her braces when they come off.  He's sent away for a love-detector machine (from Suburban Housewife magazine), which he wants to enter in the science fair and use to get Lauren to admit her love.  But when he demonstrates the device in the classroom, it reveals that

1. Johnny does not love Miss Piggy, Princess Di, or any other female celebrities that we've heard of (except we know from before that he does think Debbie Harry is sexy);
2. Jennifer loves senior guys that Vinnie is jealous of;
3. Vinnie doesn't love Jennifer;
4. Muffy loves herself.

It all has to be straightened out, and along the way, we get Vinnie and Marshall unexpectedly bonding, and Lauren saying that, no matter what the machine shows, love isn't science, it's magic, moonlight, and "two minds beating as one heart."  Also, while Patty and Lauren, particularly Lauren, see Johnny and Marshall hanging around them as scaring off boys they'd want to date, Patty is grateful for her awkward conversation with Johnny later.  Note that Vinnie owns a van so he's presumably a junior.