Season 2 Episode 21: Father Lode

March 13, 1988

Published 03/13/88

Al wins twelve hundred and fifty dollars at the racetrack and resolves to keep it to himself, which is the whole episode: not the winning, but the concealment. Peggy, meanwhile, has started helping herself to money from his wallet, so the two of them spend the half-hour running opposite operations on the same cash without either acknowledging the other.

It is a good illustration of how the Bundy marriage actually functioned in the early seasons. Neither of them is confronting the other, because confrontation would require admitting what they are each doing. The money moves quietly in both directions and the arithmetic is the plot. By the end the winnings have been distributed to the family anyway, which is the only outcome the series would have allowed: Al never gets to keep anything.

The racetrack had been set up a few episodes earlier in “Born to Walk,” when Al lost his licence and had to listen to the race on the radio with Steve instead of attending. This time he gets there and wins, and the show immediately takes it off him by other means.

The episode marks the second of Jade’s four appearances between seasons two and five, the strikingly attractive customer who comes into the shoe store to talk to Al and is played by Teri Weigel. Bud confirms he is still a virgin, invoking the household’s “double for virgins” rule, and announces plans to spend his share of the money on a new skateboard, though he had already been given one a few episodes earlier in “Master the Possibilities,” and it is visible in the house.