Ellen: Break Up

Ellen: Break Up
ABC
December 17, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B

While Laurie's behavior annoys me as much as it did almost twenty years ago, it is handled realistically and this is a good episode, the first of three written by Matt Berry, who also wrote three for Roseanne.  Ellen and Laurie are celebrating their one-month anniversary and Laurie is already ready to move herself and Holly (Kayla Murphy again) in.  Then Ellen feels this is rushing things, and can't promise, when Laurie asks, if she'll still be around when 12-year-old Holly goes to college.  While we get some insight here and in the previous episode of why Laurie feels the way she does, it feels unfair for her to pressure Ellen like this, and then break up with her.  But the episode is intelligent and bittersweet, and it does mock ABC at least twice (with a Laverne & Shirley joke and a reference to warnings on TV programs).