Season 3 Episode 9: Requiem for a Dead Barber

February 12, 1989

Published 02/12/89

Al’s barber dies, and the loss is genuine, not the man so much as the arrangement, which had been in place for decades and required no conversation. With nowhere else to go, Al ends up in a salon, which the episode treats as a direct threat to his masculinity: appointments, products, a receptionist, and people who want to discuss what he is after.

The half-hour is one of the best-made of the third season and the industry noticed. Editor Larry Harris was nominated for Outstanding Editing for a Series at the 1989 Emmy Awards for his work on it, which is a rare piece of formal recognition for a show that never won one. The direction, by James E. Hornbeck, is also outside the usual rotation.

The title gave the series a construction it reused twice more, “Requiem for a Dead Briard” in season ten and the two-part “Requiem for a Chevyweight” in season eleven, all three built on the same Rod Serling-derived pun, and all three about Al losing something nobody else thinks is important.

It is the second and final appearance of Al’s friend Russ and the only one for Louie, closing out the first-season poker circle. Al mentions tracking down the barber’s father in Cicero, and gets in a complaint about video arcades displacing pinball, a line that reads differently now that Ed O’Neill went on to star in Wreck-It Ralph. The episode is also one of only three in which Peggy turns down sex, the others being “The Great Escape” and “He Thought He Could.”

Episode Facts

Original air date: February 12, 1989
Season 3, Episode 9, and the 44th episode of the series
Written by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt
Directed by James E. Hornbeck
Nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Editing for a Series, Multi-Camera Production