The calendar says almost eight months have passed since we visited the London flatmates, but in this episode we hear it's been only two weeks. It's enough time for new credits to have been shot. Rather than the scenes of the trio coming home, we now have a delightful outing at the zoo (yes, with a laughtrack). We get Robin imitating a monkey, Chrissy dealing with a drinking fountain, and Jo blowing her nose as an elephant trumpets. Also, the trio play with milk moustaches. I love seeing the three of them interact and have fun, and not just because I was getting tired of seeing the "blind" man ogle poor Jo. 3'sC also later gets "zoo" credits, both opening and closing, but during the Terri years. As for MatH's closing credits, I'll get to those at the end. For now, it's 9 October 1974, Nixon has not only resigned but been pardoned, and it's been a rough two weeks at the flat.
He's got to go: Larry is still in the flat, although now he's sleeping on the couch rather than in Robin's bed. Robin goes in the kitchen and sees Chrissy up and dressed. He panics since he thought it was Saturday. He strips down to his briefs and starts to put on a shirt. She says it is Saturday. This is the only time she can get in the bathroom. Larry's been monopolising it and not cleaning up after himself. He even leaves a ring around the walls.
Robin: I know you don't like Larry, but he is a friend of mine.
Chrissy: He's eaten all your breakfast. There's no bread left.
There's no milk either.
To wake Larry, Robin leans over him and says, "Her husband's coming!" (It works.) Larry smokes as they talk. They're Robin's fags. He's even been smoking in his sleep.
Chrissy: He's got to go! He's got to go! He's got to go!
Larry: What's she trying to say?
Robin asks if Larry would like to hear it straight or diplomatically. Larry chooses diplomatically. So Robin says, "You're a thieving, scrounging pain in the neck, and you're getting on everybody's wick." Larry is glad Robin didn't give it to him straight.
When Robin and Chrissy talk again, she says, "Two days you said we'd have to put him up. He's been here two weeks!" My impression from the last episode was that Robin was going to find a new place for Larry, and I don't see how that could've been done in two days. But obviously these two weeks have felt longer. And then Chrissy says that last night Larry was talking about where to put up the Christmas tree. Now, it wasn't that many episodes ago that Jo's cheeks were frozen. Are we supposed to believe that the second series took place over several months? Or is this still February and Larry is just being particularly premature about December plans?
Jo comes in, on her way to the loo, but Larry takes her towel and goes into the bathroom himself. Jo says, "He's got to go!" Now Robin just doesn't call Larry "a friend of mine" but Larry is his best mate.
30 bob a week: Downstairs at the Ropers', her hair looks softer. (Actually, everyone's hair looks better to me, but then a lot can apparently happen in two weeks.) She's complaining he's not giving enough, in this case her allowance. (But I thought it was his allowance. Why do I try to make sense of sitcoms?) She gets only nine pounds a week. He says that his mum brought up eight kids on 30 bob a week. They had a very happy home, considering they were starving.
We now learn that not only is he a landlord, but he has a part-time job at a betting shop. She thinks he should get a real job. He gets so annoyed with her that he goes upstairs to his refuge in the attic.
Chrissy comes by as he leaves. It turns out Larry borrowed Mrs. Roper's last pint of milk, but the milkman is coming by soon. (In the '70s? Wow!) Mrs. Roper says that her husband has been cleaning out the attic for the past seven years, which tells me that Chrissy has been living there less than seven years, which I figured anyway.
Attic: We see George in the attic, drinking and reading a girlie magazine with a fold-out. No sign of him cleaning.
Dirty, untidy, and vacant: Robin, while smoking (the pack wasn't completely empty), tries to kick Larry out.
Robin: You don't know what I've been getting from those two girls.
Larry: No, but I've got my suspicions, eh?
Robin: Not that, the other.
Larry: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Robin: No, the complaints.
Larry says they've been friends for years. (Even though Robin moved from Southampton just a few months ago? Is Larry from Southampton, too? Or did they meet elsewhere? Or is the chronology just screwy this episode?)
Larry asks for one more week. Robin will give him one more day.
Chrissy comes back with two bottles of milk and the news that "there's an attic upstairs that suits him down to the ground," a great pun that couldn't have translated to American. She tells Robin, "It's dirty, untidy, and vacant. Who does that remind you of?" Robin knows the answer is Larry.
Jo comes in and says that Larry used up the hot water. Chrissy tells her, "With a bit of luck, he'll be going up there." In her sweet voice, Jo says, "Good idea, let's murder him."
In a day: Back in the attic, George is reading about a Swedish seventeen-year-old. When someone knocks, he hides his magazine and bottle. Chrissy and Robin want to look at the attic. When they see the mess, George says cleaning takes time, "Rome wasn't burnt in a day."
Chrissy sees that there's a stove, sink, and bed up there. Robin says they could paint the attic. George doesn't know they're thinking about Larry, so he says he doesn't want to live up there, he just wants to get away from his wife, especially her nagging. She comes in as he's imitating her.
She asks the kids what they think.
Chrissy: I think he'll be very comfortable up here.
Robin: And he'll be out of everybody's way.
George: Here, hang on a minute!
When he finds out they want the attic for Larry, he keeps objecting, but Mildred ignores him till she tells him to shut up. She threatens, "Either you rent out this room, or you go out and get a proper job." So he gives in. Then she tells him, there's just one problem. "Where are you gonna put all your dirty books now?"
Use your imagination: Out on the landing later, Chrissy and Robin tell Larry to look at the possibilities and use his imagination. He comes in and says "Bloody hell!" He calls it a crummy attic. Jo comes in and says, "Bloody hell!"
Then we cut to the four of them on the landing outside the flat. Mr. Roper asks what Larry thinks of it. Chrissy answers for Larry that he loves it.
The four young people go in the flat and Chrissy says she wouldn't mind living in the attic herself. There'd be no one to pinch (in the sense of steal) her make-up or tights. Jo denies that she does. Robin queenily says he does.
Chrissy also says there'd be no more arguments about snoring.
Jo: I don't snore.
Chrissy: No, but I do, and I'm fed up feeling guilty about it.
She points out that it'd be seven pounds a week, less than she's paying to share. Then Jo says she wouldn't mind living up there. Robin says he doesn't want them falling out. He'll take the attic. He can bring a girl up there any time he likes. Now Larry says it's his room.
Mr. Morris: We switch back to the attic, where a Mr. Morris comes by to see what he sarcastically calls the "treasure house." He finally says ten quid for the lot. When George refuses this, he says, "Please yourself, but no one else will shift this lot for less than ten quid."
Fair: Larry says he has first refusal. On the other hand, he doesn't want to live up there with them resenting it. Chrissy says he's lived down here with them resenting it. When Larry's briefly out of the room, Jo says Larry only wants the attic because they do. Chrissy compliments Robin's reverse psychology. Robin smiles and smokes.
Larry comes back in with slips of paper. To be fair, he's going to write everyone's name on slips of paper. He even double-checks on the spelling. When Mrs. Roper lets herself in, he has her draw a name. She reads it, Larry. Everyone's happy. After Larry leaves the room again, she tells the trio that all the papers say Larry. Robin rather thought they would.
Dearest Mil: The girls and Larry clear out the attic, while Robin cleans a violin. He uncovers the name, Stradwick. So close.
While Larry's gone, the trio find and read old love letters that say things like, "Dearest Mil, all my love, Georgy." They feel a little guilty reading something so private, but not enough to stop.
Robin reads, "I pant for your caresses. For you, My Precious Flower, I could climb the highest mountain and ford the deepest river." Chrissy says now Mr. Roper won't even bring in the coal for his wife.
Jo reads, "I shall never forget last night. Your tiny hand in mine. The butterfly touch of your hair against my cheek. I hope my console (?) didn't put you off."
When it's Chrissy's turn, she reads, "We wandered by the daffodils/ Beside the railway line/ A train ran past/ You didn't hear when I said, 'Please be mine.' "
George is in the doorway when Robin reads again. It's very awkward. He takes the letters and the trio apologise. Robin says it wasn't so much the words as the way Mr. Roper spelled them. George says he never claimed to be an educated man. "I know these letters are silly. Well, you write things like that, when you're younger, and still got hope." It's a surprisingly poignant moment.
He tells them to throw the letters out with the rest of the junk.He says he was a bit oversentimental and romantic in those days. "Perhaps I still am." Then Mildred accidentally bumps the door as she's bringing in tea. He scolds, "Watch what you're doing, you silly cow!"
It turns out that he told Mildred that he was only going to charge Larry five quid. They start bickering. She says that for twenty years, she's put up with his sneaking, penny-pinching ways. He insults her back.
Then Chrissy gives Mildred the stack of love letters, asking her to read them and remember how she felt. Mildred says he's never written her a love letter. The recipient turns out to have been Millicent Briggs, Mildred's maid of honour. (Then how did they end up in the attic?) Mrs. Roper calls her husband "you dirty little devil!"
Closing credits: The end credits have gotten racier. For instance, when we learn that Mr. Morris was played Norman Chappell, the background picture is of various celebrities (Gable, Bogart, Flynn) and some topless woman. And the very last picture is of something that I saw someone online refer to awhile back and has been puzzling me ever since, not because the meaning isn't clear but because it was absent during the show's first two series: there's a rooster between two cats. (Think about it.)
Commentary: In an episode that's supposed to be about Larry, it's surprising that we learn so much about George. Not only do we find out that he works in a betting shop, but we learn about his past. He's one of eight kids who grew up in poverty. (Earlier we'd found out he never saw an orange till he was 25.) And he was in love with Mildred's maid of honour. Somehow the show plays that for both laughs and tears. There's the farcical side of him writing soppy love letters to another woman, but it's sad, too, that he cared for Millicent as he's never cared for his wife. (And she meanwhile was probably pining for the American buck sergeant.) On the other hand, he is still a mingy little ferret.
When Amer-Larry first shows up on "No Children, No Dogs," he probably doesn't live in the apartment building, but he does later. I like the set-up here, how Larry doesn't just suddenly appear in the building, that we get the story of how he moves in. Obviously, having him continue living with the trio wouldn't work, particularly since the girls can't stand him. Also, they'd have to change the name of the show to Men About the House. By now, I get the impression that there are only two flats in the building, the Ropers' and the trio's, very different than the set-up on 3'sC. So adding Larry to the building is going to be enough of a change in itself. Presumably he'll be able to drop by more now, and we'll get to see how he fixes up the attic.
I notice in this episode that Brit-Chrissy and Jo argue more than Amer-Chrissy and Janet do, even with Robin again trying to make peace by queenily claiming he's the one who borrows clothes and make-up. When the American girls fight, it's a big deal, while the British girls are more like sisters. I also note that Brit-Chrissy snores and I wonder if Robin will ever hear it. I like how the writers are starting to play more off Jo's innocent persona, like making her say, "Bloody hell," and talk about killing Larry. (There's also a weird moment in the attic where she sees a teddy bear and says it reminds her of her childhood teddy that she told all her secrets to, until she had to drown him for knowing too much.)
Perhaps because their living situation has been disrupted, we don't get any RCST this episode, even when Robin strips in the kitchen. But looking at the synopses for the rest of the third series, the tension will be back....
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