Season 11 Episode 5: Requiem for a Chevyweight (2)

The conclusion opens with a funeral. The Dodge is buried in the back yard, Ike plays “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes, and Griff and another mourner fold a beaded seat cover into a triangle and present it to Al in the manner of a flag at a military service. The eulogies are the best thing in the two-parter: Griff’s fondest memory of the car is the time they tried to run down his ex-wife, Peggy’s contribution is four words, and Al’s own speech starts as a tribute to a young man of endless promise and curdles into a description of his marriage before he catches himself and moves on.

With the car gone, Al leases a replacement, a Testica from Cal Stevens Motors, and the arrangement goes wrong immediately, ending with Al driving it back through the dealership window. Jefferson, meanwhile, has gone to Cuba for the fuel pump, which produces the episode’s most unexpected scene: he drops through Fidel Castro’s roof, holds a knife to his throat, and is greeted as an old friend. The exchange that follows confirms what season eight’s “The D’Arcy Files” had only alleged in photographs: Jefferson worked for the CIA, was assigned to kill Castro, failed, and was fired for it.

Peggy and the children spend the half-hour continuing to shop the Dodge’s parts to an international collector, with Peggy supplying her own version of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” while she digs. Michael Sorich plays Castro, a part he had already played on Seinfeld and would play three more times in films around 2000, and the Kiwi that turns up in the dealership subplot is a real vehicle: a Norwegian electric car called the Kewet El Jet, introduced in 1991.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: Sunday, November 17, 1996 on FOX
• Season 11, Episode 5, part two of two
• Overall episode 243 of the series
• Production code 11.09
• Written by Russell Marcus
• Directed by Amanda Bearse
• The title puns on Requiem for a Heavyweight, from the Rod Serling story
• Al states he bought the Dodge twenty-five years earlier from a used car lot on Route 12

Guest Cast

• Rick Overton as Dr. Fisher
• Michael Sorich as Fidel Castro
• Gary Grubbs as Cal Stevens

Requiem for a Chevyweight (2)

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