Previously on Archie Bunker's Place, Archie narrowly missed having to invite Barney over for dinner, as the poor slob was still reeling over his divorce from Blanche, but luckily Murray and Harry offered to spend time with him instead. Good thing too, because Archie would already be having company. All the way from California: Mike, Gloria, and Joey the Brat had arrived to spend the holiday. It seems the Stivics can't stay out of trouble when separated from the Bunkers. First they go and get separated, and now Mike lost his job because he was cited for indecent exposure: he protested the opening of a nuclear power plant in the nude. Archie reacts about how you'd expect, hearing that his son in-law was parading around in full "nudal frontity". Edith asks what we're thinking: WHY? The best explanation Mike can give is that he feels nuclear plants are dangerous, as they have accidents and that the air and food can get polluted. By that rationale, why doesn't he protest against oil refineries, or even Monsanto? Remember the incident with them a few years back? I can just imagine a nude 60+ year-old Mike marching in the nude over that... wait, no, I can't. Gross! But yeah, both he and Gloria say it was because they wanted the world to be a safer place for Joey. Doing his part for the greater good. Naturally, the dingbat thinks Mike did the right thing, but Archie decides to leave the house, angry that his one day set aside to celebrate the birth of the pilgrims was "sperled". Late into the night, Mike can't sleep and tries waking Gloria to bellyache over his actions, and what we get is a long, drawn scene of their antics which give us a stiff reminder that these characters have overstayed their welcome. I mean, they are played so over-the-top and childish that they don't even resemble the Mike and Gloria of early All in the Family, who still more or less resembled real people. He blubbers like an infant saying he can't sleep, and he can't watch TV because Joey hid the knobs... then tell him to give them back, you idiot! Am I supposed to feel ANY sympathy for this man? He is such an overgrown child. At least in the early seasons of All in the Family, he could hold a rational conversation and show that at least part of him was down to earth. He was more mature back then than he is now. A 32-year-old family man and a teacher at a respectable institution marches in a nude protest over a nuclear power plant. A hippie til the end... end of the '70s, that is. I guess he wanted to get in one last hurrah before Reagan took over and made everybody grow up.
Down at Archie's saloon, he tells the whole story to Murray, who admits that he thinks what Mike did took a lot of guts: laying your entire career on the line to do your part to try and make the world a better place. You know, Murray definitely has a good point. But at the same time, you've got to pick your battles and decide what's really important. On the other hand, this makes me wonder which one Mike was really protesting: the opening of a nuclear plant, or the closing of a nude beach. Knowing him, it was probably more the beach. So keeping in mind what his partner had said, Archie goes home and tries to enter the kitchen without making a noise, but of course, that's easier said than done. Who says slapstick is dead? So as he sits at the table to have what's left of the turkey, Mike wanders into the room like the food zombie that he is, and the two of them have something resembling a decent conversation. Mike does not regret his actions, but rather how the news effected the family and ruined Thanksgiving. He's got a wife, a kid, and no job, while Archie reminds him that he used to have it just as bad, and he didn't have a father to ask for help, but lets Mike know that he will be there for him. That's very touching, and it shows that Archie Bunker has definitely grown as a character. This isn't quite the same man we saw in All in the Family's first season. Edith and Gloria wake up, so now they can have a makeshift leftover post-Thanksgiving midnight meal. Well, good, glad that all got settled and maybe now everything can calm down and they can salvage what's left of the holiday. Oh, but not before Archie asks Gloria if she knew what Mike was going to do, because he just CAN'T let this go. She responds that she had a full knowledge of her husband's plan, because she didn't want him to march alone. Ah ha ha ha! What a twist. Yeah, that is a twist alright. That's fine, I mean I don't mind picturing Gloria nude, but there's just one little problem here: if she participated in the nude march with Mike, why didn't she say so at dinner? She just let Mike bare the brunt of the humiliation alone?! She never said anything until now? Wow, what a great wife. I REALLY don't like these two.
And so ends another Bunker/Stivic Thanksgiving, and it's the last episode to have the whole family together. It's the last appearance of Rob Reiner as Mike, as he went on to become a successful director, while his character was said to have gone to live in a convent. Be honest, he really went to the loony bin, didn't he? As for Sally Struthers, I believe she appeared one more time on Archie Bunker's Place before she got her very own show, Gloria. Needless to say, it was the least successful of All in the Family's spin-offs, which is funny considering that series had some of the best spin-offs of all time, including Maude and The Jeffersons. Apparently nobody wanted a Gloria spin-off, probably because Struthers couldn't carry a show on her own. Burgess Meredith should have been the star and Gloria would be his sidekick. After that, she went on to do commercials for starving children in third world countries, and while that is a very noble cause, it didn't look right having a morbidly obese woman talking about helping starving children. She became the butt of many, many jokes over the next few years. All that aside, this episode wasn't so bad, it's worth checking out if you want to see the whole family together one last time and get the final realization that things will NOT turn out well for the Stivics. As far as the twist ending, while it was effective, it makes you realize how much of a selfish person Gloria really is. Letting her husband take full blame and be on the receiving end of Archie's criticisms and abuse. I really started to dislike the Stivics way back in post-Season 6 of AITF, because they started acting like hypocritical jerks and grown children. Storylines revolving around them were written poorly and were not funny. Rob's Groucho impressions are worse than Alan Alda's, incidentally, and their performances were so over-the-top and practically forced. So, this Thanksgiving, I would recommend checking out Thanksgiving Reunion: Parts 1 and 2 to see the gang be all in the family one more time.
Down at Archie's saloon, he tells the whole story to Murray, who admits that he thinks what Mike did took a lot of guts: laying your entire career on the line to do your part to try and make the world a better place. You know, Murray definitely has a good point. But at the same time, you've got to pick your battles and decide what's really important. On the other hand, this makes me wonder which one Mike was really protesting: the opening of a nuclear plant, or the closing of a nude beach. Knowing him, it was probably more the beach. So keeping in mind what his partner had said, Archie goes home and tries to enter the kitchen without making a noise, but of course, that's easier said than done. Who says slapstick is dead? So as he sits at the table to have what's left of the turkey, Mike wanders into the room like the food zombie that he is, and the two of them have something resembling a decent conversation. Mike does not regret his actions, but rather how the news effected the family and ruined Thanksgiving. He's got a wife, a kid, and no job, while Archie reminds him that he used to have it just as bad, and he didn't have a father to ask for help, but lets Mike know that he will be there for him. That's very touching, and it shows that Archie Bunker has definitely grown as a character. This isn't quite the same man we saw in All in the Family's first season. Edith and Gloria wake up, so now they can have a makeshift leftover post-Thanksgiving midnight meal. Well, good, glad that all got settled and maybe now everything can calm down and they can salvage what's left of the holiday. Oh, but not before Archie asks Gloria if she knew what Mike was going to do, because he just CAN'T let this go. She responds that she had a full knowledge of her husband's plan, because she didn't want him to march alone. Ah ha ha ha! What a twist. Yeah, that is a twist alright. That's fine, I mean I don't mind picturing Gloria nude, but there's just one little problem here: if she participated in the nude march with Mike, why didn't she say so at dinner? She just let Mike bare the brunt of the humiliation alone?! She never said anything until now? Wow, what a great wife. I REALLY don't like these two.
And so ends another Bunker/Stivic Thanksgiving, and it's the last episode to have the whole family together. It's the last appearance of Rob Reiner as Mike, as he went on to become a successful director, while his character was said to have gone to live in a convent. Be honest, he really went to the loony bin, didn't he? As for Sally Struthers, I believe she appeared one more time on Archie Bunker's Place before she got her very own show, Gloria. Needless to say, it was the least successful of All in the Family's spin-offs, which is funny considering that series had some of the best spin-offs of all time, including Maude and The Jeffersons. Apparently nobody wanted a Gloria spin-off, probably because Struthers couldn't carry a show on her own. Burgess Meredith should have been the star and Gloria would be his sidekick. After that, she went on to do commercials for starving children in third world countries, and while that is a very noble cause, it didn't look right having a morbidly obese woman talking about helping starving children. She became the butt of many, many jokes over the next few years. All that aside, this episode wasn't so bad, it's worth checking out if you want to see the whole family together one last time and get the final realization that things will NOT turn out well for the Stivics. As far as the twist ending, while it was effective, it makes you realize how much of a selfish person Gloria really is. Letting her husband take full blame and be on the receiving end of Archie's criticisms and abuse. I really started to dislike the Stivics way back in post-Season 6 of AITF, because they started acting like hypocritical jerks and grown children. Storylines revolving around them were written poorly and were not funny. Rob's Groucho impressions are worse than Alan Alda's, incidentally, and their performances were so over-the-top and practically forced. So, this Thanksgiving, I would recommend checking out Thanksgiving Reunion: Parts 1 and 2 to see the gang be all in the family one more time.
