Season 10 Episode 9: The Two That Got Away

November 19, 1995

Published 11/19/95

Al and Jefferson arrive at the Elk Head Lodge for a fishing weekend and find that their reservation has been handed to Shannon Tweed, who is appearing as herself. The greeting party consists of two Swedish masseuses, which briefly convinces both men that they have landed somewhere better than they deserve, and the weekend goes downhill from the moment Tweed dismisses Jefferson as an aging pretty boy. He takes it personally enough to start plotting, and because he has been photographing everything since they pulled up, the plot writes itself: somewhere on that roll of film is Tweed in a hot tub with Randolph, the innkeeper.

What follows is the episode’s centrepiece, an auction held in the Bundy living room with tabloid representatives bidding against each other for the photograph. Al runs it from behind a podium with a gavel, and he warms the room up with a supporting lot, a genuine photograph of the Loch Ness monster, which is actually Peg’s mother in the bath. The tabloid men do not care what it is a picture of so long as they can attach a celebrity’s head to it, which is the sharpest thing the episode has to say and it says it in about four lines.

Bud and Kelly’s half of the half-hour has them trying to get Lucky cast in a dog food commercial, with Bud acting as agent again and Leland Orser returning as the same weary director who had handled Kelly’s weight-loss shake spot in season nine. The episode also quietly sets a record for the series: three Playboy Playmates appear in it, the third consecutive season ten episode to feature one, which says something about how the show was casting by this point in its run.