Who's the Boss?: In Your Dreams

Who's the Boss?: In Your Dreams
ABC
October 3, 1989
Sitcom
DVD
B

Daniel Palladino wrote this episode where Tony apartment- and cat-sits for Mrs. Rossini in Brooklyn.  Angela pays a surprise visit but ends up staying behind while he goes bowling with his old friends.  She's supposed to be waiting for the cat to come back, but she falls asleep and dreams of married life with Tony in Brooklyn.  Much of her real life is inverted, like Mona hating sex, and Sam and Jonathan getting along.  More importantly, she's heavily pregnant with her fifth child (there are twins offstage) but wants a career in advertising.  Tony is a loving husband-- Light and Danza are physical together in a way never seen on other episodes-- but his role as provider is too important to him to give up.

When she wakes up, they talk and she's relieved that, although he misses Brooklyn, he's grown beyond its old-fashioned values.  Still, I think part of her envies that life, or at least being able to have marriage and family with Tony.  We couldn't have known it at the time, but four seasons would pass and she'd never get that, although she and Tony do have a family of a different kind, and a relationship that is stronger than many marriages.