Season 6 Episode 17: The Egg and I
February 16, 1992
Steve Rhoades comes back. He returns to reclaim his wife and discovers that Marcy has remarried, which puts him in a living room with Jefferson D’Arcy, the first and one of the very few times the series had both of Marcy’s husbands on screen together. He is also on the run from the police, which gives the Bundys a question to argue about: whether friendship matters more than the reward money.
David Garrison had left during the fourth season to return to musical theatre, and his reappearance here is handled without sentimentality. The episode does not reinstate him; it uses him to show how completely the household next door has moved on. Marcy is not conflicted for long, and Jefferson is not threatened at all, which is the funniest possible response.
The Bundys’ deliberation over whether to turn him in is the episode’s spine and it goes the way it must. Al’s position, “We’re Bundys. We hate cops”, is one of the character’s clearest statements of principle, and it is worth setting against season eleven’s “Kelly’s Gotta Habit,” where he declares that being on COPS is his life’s ambition and dresses as a police officer to achieve it. There is an irony in the casting too: the FBI agent pursuing Steve is played by Dan Tullis Jr., who went on to play Officer Dan, Al’s partner, in exactly that later episode.
Small notes: Kelly reveals she holds keys to three neighbours’ houses, Al tries to lead a variation on the “Whoa, Bundy!” cheer, and Buck closes the episode with a public service announcement delivered against the same Chicago skyline backdrop Al used in “Al Bundy, Shoe Dick.”
Episode Facts
- Original air date: February 16, 1992
- Season 6, Episode 17, and the 122nd episode of the series
- Written by Ellen L. Fogle
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
Guest Cast
- David Garrison as Steve Rhoades, returning as a guest after leaving the regular cast in season 4
- Dan Tullis Jr. as the FBI man, Agent Mahoney
- Larry McKay as the news anchor, voice only
- Kevin Curran as the voice of Buck, uncredited
Steve Comes Back
Steve Rhoades turns up in Chicago to win Marcy back, lets himself into his old bedroom, and finds out from her in there that she has remarried. The fight that follows is a three-way, and the Bundys watch it from their window with popcorn and a camcorder, which is the single most Bundy response available.
Steve is also a fugitive. As a park ranger he stole a hawk egg, and the FBI has him and the egg on the local news with a ten thousand dollar reward attached. The Bundys hide him in the basement and then argue about whether friendship outranks the money. Everyone eventually incriminates themselves and gets hauled in alongside him. The tipster was Buck, who collects.
This is the first time Steve and Jefferson are on screen together, and it is the only real payoff the show ever gave that pairing. Steve came back once more, as Rubio the Cruel in Peggy and the Pirates.
Famous Quotes
- Al: “We’re Bundys. We hate cops.” Al, declining to cooperate.
- Al: “You getting all this, Bud?” Al, directing the camcorder.
- Marcy: “Despite what you think, you are not God’s gift to women!” Marcy to Steve.
- Marcy: “So drool on, dream on, move on.” The rest of that speech.
- Jefferson: “He touched my hair! This is an outrage!” Jefferson, from offscreen, mid-brawl.
Notes
- One of only two episodes in which Steve has a beard, both grown away from Marcy in the woods. The other is season 2’s The Razor’s Edge.
- Dan Tullis Jr. plays the FBI agent here and later became Al’s friend Officer Dan, which sits oddly next to Al’s “we hate cops” line in this episode.
- The FOX promo included a scene cut from both the broadcast and the DVD, in which Bud asks whether they should have told Steve about Marcy, and Peg says “Aww did we forget to tell him that?!”
- Buck’s closing piece to camera uses the same skyline backdrop and the same hat Al wore in Al Bundy, Shoe Dick.
- Al’s earlier tax trouble was season 4’s A Taxing Problem.
- Goof: Agent Mahoney holds the photo of the egg sideways, and only cuffs one of Steve’s wrists, deliberately, so Garrison had a hand free for his exit curse.
