Season 1 Episode 7: Married … Without Children

May 17, 1987

Published 05/17/87

Steve and Marcy offer to take Bud and Kelly for a weekend so that Al and Peggy can get away, on the confident assumption that a couple of days of competent adult supervision will do the children good. The episode then cuts between the two experiments: the Rhoades steadily losing control of their own house as Kelly’s social life arrives in it, and the Bundys having what is plainly the best weekend of their marriage in a cheap motel. The contrast is the joke, and it is the first time the series made the case that the Bundys are happier than they look.

The motel material is where the episode’s affection lives. Al and Peggy, removed from the house and the children, are relaxed, pleased with each other and entirely untroubled by the surroundings. Al mentions that they still have the towels they stole from the motel they honeymooned in, and the show thought enough of this one to bring a towel back in the season finale as his favourite.

Several firsts are logged here. It is the first time the inside of the Rhoades’ house is shown, the first time one of Kelly’s boyfriends appears on screen, and, remarkably, seven episodes in, the first time Peggy is seen cleaning anything. Gunther Jenson, who plays Dweep, would return to the series nine years later in season ten’s premiere as one of the movers hauling Bud’s belongings into the street. Noah Blake, Kelly’s boyfriend here, came back in season four as a different boyfriend. By production code this was the ninth episode made for the season.