All in the Family (TV Series) Two's a Crowd (1978) User Reviews

Archie talks about his "Old Man" and he and meathead share a moment.

[drice-63755 · 8/10 · 8 November 2019]

With all due respect to the previous reviewed, I found this episode to be quite affecting. It's true though that the plot line is derivative - in "Archie In The Cellar" he even gets drunk and falls asleep, as he does here. Nonetheless, I found the interaction between Archie and Mike to be sweet and genuine. It's interesting how much of this Season (8) is about the relationship between these two men, and how they are not as different as they seem. This theme reaches its peak in a last episode, "The Stivics Go West", where Mike promises Archie to take care of Gloria and their son. It is too bad that the producers chose to ruin that in the spin-off "Gloria" and have Mike leave his family!

Archie and Mlke talk it out

[gcanfield-29727 · 10/10 · 7 September 2020]

Carroll O'Connor and Rob Reiner carry the whole episode. A testament to their great talents. While locked in the storage room, these two men discuss all the things they've always disagreed on. There is a great moment, where Mike tries to show Archie the error in his thinking. Archie makes a bigoted remark about Jews. Mike asks Archie: "Why is it so important to you, for everybody to be the same?" Good question. As the conversation goes on, other aspects of Archie's prejudice are brought to light. Archie defends his thoughts, on the premise that most people thought the same way "back in those days." This was essentially true. Archie didn't invent prejudice and bigotry. Overall, this episode is a great character study. It's also close to the point where Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers (unfortunately) exited the series.

One of the Best Episodes

[ericapolitica · 10/10 · 22 September 2021]

I would not call myself an AITF fan, but this is one of the best episodes! Carroll O'Connor shows here that he is a dramatic actor par excellence. We finally understand where Archie is coming from. His background doesn't excuse his thoughts and behavior about things, but he really was a product of his time. Additionally, having others to look down on is par for the course when your father is abusive and you come from nothing. However, a few joke-hungry audience members, unaware that this was supposed to be a serious moment, ruined it with their giggles. It's a shame that sitcoms had to be one-dimensional back then. To squeeze in a few PSA-type episodes was the best they could do, but even those were awkward at best. But as for serious character study moments, audiences had no idea how to react to those and kept waiting for the next joke, unaware of the deeper realism they are being handed. But maybe they did not want that. Maybe real life was too depressing. They all knew about life and watched TV to escape. Or maybe the giggles were out of nervousness because they came from similar backgrounds and finally see that they aren't so different from the usually-offensive Archie Bunker like they thought, a knee-jerk response to too much realism. Either way, great episode!

Archie and Mike locked in a room

[Jimmy_the_Gent4 · 24 April 2018]

Mike is helping Archie close up the bar for the night and accidentally locks them in a back room.

This is a plot used in many sitcoms of the time in which characters are locked together in a room, it happened in The Odd Couple, Maude, Bob Newhart Show and some others. A previous episode "Archie In The Cellar" had Archie all alone and it was much funnier than this one. It starts with some bickering between the two characters, Reiner overacts a bit and O'Connor is strangely sedate. Then it attempts to be an Arthur Miller type play as Archie recalls his relationship with his father and how he became prejudiced, the writing is not up to par though. The audience is even giggling at this supposedly great dramatic moment.