Ellen: Hello, I Must Be Going

Don't go!!!

Ellen: Hello, I Must Be Going
ABC
October 18, 1995
Sitcom
DVD
B+

This first of four Ellen stories by Lisa DeBenedictis and Daryl Rowland broke my heart then and now.  Adam gets a job as a photographer in London and will be gone for three years.  At first, he won't say goodbye to Ellen.  He does bid farewell to Joe and Paige, and, to my squeal of delight and thumbs up, he tells Spence he never liked him (remember, he's known Ellen for a dozen years and probably met her cousin long ago), because he's "rude, arrogant, pushy, and your hairline's receding faster than the beach at Malibu."  Then, at what he thinks is the last minute, Adam hugs Ellen goodbye and says he's in love with her.  It turns out his departure is delayed, three times, and it's very awkward with Ellen.  (Meanwhile, hilariously, Audrey is cheerfully and methodically dating a series of men to get over Adam.)  Ellen, who would have another important emotional exchange at an airport a year and a half later, goes to see him off and they talk out their feelings, while I awww all over the place.  The episode ends with a montage of them waiting together and then she's alone.

Except she's not of course, because she's still got all her friends and Spence, ugh.  Still, a lovely episode if you can ignore what comes later.  (Not a shark-jump though, because this is a series that kept reinventing itself.)

Noelle Hannibal is again an uncredited Customer.  Jamie Kennedy would return as new neighbor Tad, who here has a great random dance to no music, because why not?