Season 5 Episode 13: The Godfather
February 3, 1991
Kelly starts dating a city councilman, and the influence flows uphill. Al discovers that having a daughter attached to someone with municipal authority makes him, by extension, a man who can get things done, and he takes to the role with complete conviction, running the neighbourhood as a fixer for as long as the arrangement lasts.
The episode is one of the better uses of a premise the series liked: give Al a small amount of real power and watch what he does with it. He does not use it to improve his own circumstances in any lasting way. He uses it to settle scores, grant favours and be addressed with respect, which is the thing he has always actually wanted, the same motivation that drove him to hire an impersonator of his own boss in season one.
Peggy’s interest is purely financial, and the episode gives her one of her most direct lines on the subject: she reports having experienced her first real orgasm on being told Al would be collecting a cheque for twenty thousand dollars.
There is a long-running set-design oddity visible here. The Bundy house number appears as 9674 in earlier episodes and 9764 in later ones, with no explanation, most likely an error by the set builders, and this episode sits in the transition. The series never addressed it, and both numbers appear in the run.
The councilman himself is a good piece of casting for what the series needed: plausible enough that the influence reads as real, and uninterested enough in Kelly that the arrangement is clearly temporary. Al’s authority lasts exactly as long as his daughter’s attention does, and the episode is honest about the fact that nothing he gains from it will survive the relationship ending.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: February 3, 1991
- Season 5, Episode 13, and the 93rd episode of the series
- Written by Ralph R. Farquhar
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
Guest Cast
- Lane Davies as Harry Ashland
- Scott Ferguson as the paperboy
- Angel Broadhurst as Salt Water
Al Bundy, Briefly Connected
Kelly starts dating Harry Ashland, a city alderman being talked about as Chicago’s next mayor, and he immediately fixes the pothole and the streetlight that Al has been failing to get fixed for years. Suddenly the whole street owes the Bundys a favor, and Al takes to it instantly: he dresses like Don Corleone, receives neighbors in his living room, accepts tributes of food, and parlays the connection into a contract for ten thousand pairs of meter maid shoes.
Bud, cut out of all of it, sells what he knows to the papers. The story that runs reveals Harry is married, which ends Kelly’s romance, the shoe contract and Al’s short reign in one move. Bud says out loud that he feels like Fredo, which is the correct reference and the correct outcome.
Ed O’Neill picked this episode to break down with the Bundy Club, and the Zoom is linked at the top of this page.
Famous Quotes
- Harry Ashland: “I’m an alderman.” Kelly: “That’s a priest.” Kelly, on civics.
- Peg: “Oh we’re proud of you, uh, uh, help me out here.” Bud: “Bud.” The Bundy parenting model in one exchange.
Notes
- The title and the whole performance reference The Godfather. The Godfather Part III had opened a month before this aired.
- “Sicilian Pastorale” plays as Al comes down the staircase, and the scene with Marcy and Jefferson asking a favor mirrors Bonasera’s opening plea to the Don.
- The Bundy street number changes in this episode from 9674 to 9764, and stays 9764 for the rest of the series. Harry calls the repairs in to 9764 Jeopardy Lane.
- Al’s “bigger than U.S. Steel” is Hyman Roth’s line from Part II.
- Season 6’s Psychic Avengers spoofs the five families meeting with five psychic families.
- Al confuses the Mayor of Chicago with Mayor McCheese, a joke the show reuses in season 8’s How Green Was My Apple.
- Goof: a boom microphone is visible by the staircase wall as Bud comes down.
