Season 10 Episode 22: Enemies

April 14, 1996

Published 04/14/96

This one was built to leave. “Enemies” is a backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off that FOX did not pick up, which would have been the third attempted offshoot of the series, and it shows in the structure: the half-hour belongs to a set of young characters orbiting a diner, with the Bundy house reduced to bookends. Tom, a deliveryman, turns up with a package, is on the outs with his girlfriend Shannon, and asks Kelly out for the evening. Shannon’s counter-move is to produce a wealthy older man named Henry, and the four of them converge on George’s Diner to conduct the rest of the evening in front of an audience.

The jealousy contest escalates exactly as designed, scored to a parody of “Tainted Love,” and the diner setting gives the episode its best scene, one that has nothing to do with the main plot. Marcy and Jefferson arrive determined to have an authentic neighbourhood experience and proceed to address the cook, George, in a register neither of them has any business attempting. George’s response is to repeat, with increasing finality, that the establishment serves hamburgers. Phill Lewis plays the whole exchange on a slow burn and wins it without raising his voice.

Tom and Shannon reconcile, which leaves Henry free to take Kelly out, and the episode’s closing joke belongs to Al. He has become a devoted viewer of Friends, the show the title is parodying, on the strength of watching it muted through binoculars, and by the time the credits roll Henry has joined him at the window. The credits roll over that scene rather than the usual freeze frame, and the DVD release preserves the original closing music, which it rarely does.

Episode Facts

Original air date: Sunday, April 14, 1996 on FOX
Season 10, Episode 22
Overall episode 234 of the series
Production code 10.23
Written by Richard Gurman, Stacie Lipp and Russell Marcus
Directed by Gerry Cohen
The title parodies NBC’s Friends
A backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off that was not picked up, the third such attempt from this series
Katey Sagal does not appear; she was on maternity leave