As disembarking passengers enter the terminal at Tom Nevers Field, Helen recognizes one as Edward Tinsdale, the famous conductor of the Minneapolis Philharmonic. At the behest of Joe and Brian, Helen returns Tinsdale’s “lost” luggage to him and asks for an impromptu audition in order to gauge her development as a cellist. Alas, the great man’s cutting feedback is hard for Helen to hear. Distraught, Helen reevaluates her life, wondering if all the years of practice she’s put into her music were worth it.
Meanwhile, Faye is practicing for her turn as “Madame Zorco - Fortune Teller” at the annual V.F.W. carnival. One of Faye’s…er…Madame Zorco’s predictions comes true for Lowell, so naturally Roy wants his fortune read, as well. Alas (there’s a lot of alasing in this episode), the cards determine that Roy’s future isn’t as rosy as Lowell’s.
Will Helen give up the cello? Will Roy’s luck ever turn around? What noise does Poppo the Clown’s stomach make when he gets socked in it?
So many questions!
Edward Tinsdale is played by the one and only David Ogden Stiers. Television fans will recognize him as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III from M*A*S*H. His fussy and stodgey manner was always a nice foil to Hawkeye’s and Hunnicutt’s buffoonery. Fans of 1980s teen comedies may recognize Stiers from his role as John Cusack’s put-upon father in the classic Savage Steve Holland film Better Off Dead (1985). However and wherever you remember seeing him before, Stiers always carried himself and his characters with dignity and aplomb. Stiers was a veteran of the improv group The Committee, whose alumni also includes Howard Hesseman, Rob Reiner, and Peter Bonerz. He also attended Juilliard and was mentored by John Houseman (an actor who could pull off fussy and stodgey with the best of them!). He also was the associate conductor of the Newport (Oregon) Symphony Orchestra and the Ernest Bloch Music Festival, as well as guest conductor of over seventy orchestras from around the world. All that from a guy without any formal musical training!
Stier’s aforementioned fussiness is used well here. Tinsdale is just a guy who wants to enjoy his honeymoon (and seems to be doing just that, if you know what I mean, nudge-nudge, wink-wink). As Helen, Joe, and Brian continually barge in on the happy couple’s connubial bliss, Stiers’s weary, stiff-upper-lipped reactions make for great comedy, as do Mrs. Tinsdale’s (Kelly Miracco) off-camera reactions to the trio’s (coitus) interruptions
Tinsdale: Won’t you play for me again, please?
Helen: Really? Are you sure? Because I think I could play much better than I did yesterday. I was very flustered…well, I wasn’t very flustered, but I was pretty flustered, that’s why I think I’m sure…well, I’m really sure that I think I could play much better because I’m not as flustered—
Mrs. Tinsdale (yells from the bedroom off camera): Play the damn thing!
But Edward Tinsdale isn’t the only celebrity visiting the island. Though the viewer never sees him, it seems that Channel 8-TV’s own Poppo the Clown is in town. Lifelong fans Joe, Brian, and Lowell light up like the cathode ray clown’s pants at the mere mention of his name. Sadly, the scales fall from Lowell’s eyes when he realizes that “Poppo doesn’t really make that funny noise when you sock him in the stomach.” It’s hard meeting your heroes, folks.
While Helen and Lowell have their existential crises, Fay and Roy have a supernatural one. While getting ready for the V.F.W. carnival, Fay, aka Madame Zorco, gives Lowell a card reading that tells him that “a stranger is going to bring him unexpected good fortune.” Sure enough, later in the day, after Lowell returns a lost wallet to its owner, the man gives the mechanic a $20 reward. Naturally, Roy wants a piece of that action and asks Madame Zorco to do a reading for him. Things don’t go quite the way Roy wants. After twice revealing a run of cards, and twice quickly gathering them up, Fay promises to read Roy’s fortune later:
Fay: Roy, I’m not feeling very well. Why don’t we do this tomorrow?
Roy: You saw something, Fay. Now what was it?
Fay: No, no, no, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It wasn’t the death card—
Roy (shocked): It was, too. It was the death card.
Fay: No, it was the, uh, cheese card.
Roy (incredulous): The cheese card?
Fay: The cheese card. It means you’re going to buy more airplanes and become an even bigger cheese around here.
I wouldn’t mind getting the cheese card if it just meant I was gonna eat some yummy cheese. Sometimes a Camembert is just a Camembert, after all.
Later, after being critiqued by Tinsdale the second time, the gang is worried about how Helen is taking it:
Brian: Then, she finished playing, and he just stared at her, kinda like the way you stare at a bug after it splattered on your windshield. And then he told her: she played better the first time.
Fay: Poor Helen.
Joe: I’m worried about her. She must be totally devastated.
Helen (cheerfully enters the terminal and walks behind the counter): Good morning! Isn’t it a beautiful day?
Lowell: God, it kills me to see her like this.
What follows is an interesting scene, one whose premise I’ve thought often about. Helen goes on to tell everyone that Tinsdale’s brutally honest criticism of her playing has made her reevaluate her life. Instead of waking up and practicing for two hours, this morning she watched the sunrise, went for a walk, and took a bubble bath. After all that she still had time to enjoy the morning paper over breakfast.
Helen: I figured it out. Practicing two hours a day, I have put over 10,000 hours of my life into that cello. Do you realize how many hours that is?
Lowell: Unless this is a trick question, I’d say…10,000?
Through Tinsdale’s assessment, Helen makes peace with the fact that she will never be part of an orchestra, never be a professional musician, and so, need never center her life around the cello. She can finally just enjoy life. Later, as he and his wife are preparing to board their plane, Tinsdale apologizes for his critique:
Tinsdale: I may have left you the other evening with the impression that your musical ability is non-existent. That is not quite true. I believe that you possess a glimmer of talent.
Helen: A glimmer?
Tinsdale: Yes. The tiniest of glimmers, but it is there.
Helen: No. You cannot be saying this because, see, I just got my life back—
Tinsdale: Of course, it means that you’ll have to practice four, maybe five, hours a day religiously, but I believe that there’s a chance over the next few years—
Helen: You told me I stink.
Tinsdale: Oh, but you don’t.
Helen: Oh, yes, I do. Completely and totally. Pee-yew! You said no self-respecting orchestra would have me.
Tinsdale: I exaggerated. I apologize.
Helen: No, you can’t be saying this. You said that I didn’t have a chance.
Tinsdale: But you do.
Helen (grabs Tinsdale by the lapels): Take it back! You can’t give me hope! What kind of monster are you?
As someone who grew up being told I had loads of “potential” that I wasn’t living up to, I feel for Helen, I really do. I’m not sure which is worse: losing out on the fulfillment of a dream due to a lack of talent or having just enough talent to keep you chasing after that dream, but never reaching it. I love writing. I think, like Helen, I’ve the tiniest glimmer of talent at it. Will I ever have any success with it? Probably not. Are there days when I wonder what the use of it is? You betcha. Do I still do it? Yep. Why? I don’t know. I like the doing, I guess. I like sitting at a desk and pushing words around a page. I hope Helen likes the doing, although the end of the episode paints a rather shockingly downbeat and pessimistic picture:
Helen: What am I going to do? I’m cursed with a glimmer of talent. I’m going to be chained to that instrument for the rest of my life. Good-bye, walks on the beach. Good-bye, fingernails. Good-bye, life.
(Helen exits.)
Joe (to Brian): Think she’s going to be alright?
Brian: She’ll be fine.
Joe: I don’t know. I’ve never seen her like this before.
Brian: You don’t think she’s going to do anything desperate?
(Off-screen sound of scales being played on a cello.)
On that note, folks, if you look out the cabin windows, you’ll see that we are beginning our final descent. Please help our crew tidy up and make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright positions. Place your carry-on luggage beneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins, then securely fasten your seat belts. And please don’t sock Poppo in the belly. We’ve run out of airsickness bags.
Our next flight is Episode Four of Season Two, “Sports and Leisure.” See you then…
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