Season 6 Episode 25: England Show (2)

May 10, 1992

Published 05/10/92

Part two spends its first act letting the Bundys loose on London with somebody else’s money. Winston, the Lower Uncton man charged with delivering them, had something considerably more modest in mind than a river suite at the Savoy, and is reduced to explaining what all expenses paid was actually meant to cover while Peg, Bud and Kelly work through room service. Kelly pockets a fork. Al is fitted for a bespoke suit at a real Savile Row tailor, a sequence scored to “I’m Too Sexy,” and then asks Winston where a man can obtain reading material in this country, which produces the single best cultural exchange of the entire arc. The family also takes in the London Dungeon, which is a real attraction and a well-chosen one given where the story is going. Then the Bundys head out to Lower Uncton, minus Kelly, who announces she is a city girl and stays behind. That decision turns out to matter. At a London club Kelly learns that her family is walking into something, and the rest of the episode is her trying to get out of the city and into a village nobody she asks has heard of, a sequence the show scores to the Lassie theme. Meanwhile Marcy and Jefferson are still pursuing their luggage, a chase that takes them somewhere they did not expect. In the village, the gallows is already being built, and Bud starts seeing the ghosts of his ancestors. Part two is the loosest of the three, a travelogue with a noose being measured in the background, and it is the funniest of the arc for exactly that reason.

Episode Facts

Original air date: May 10, 1992
Season and episode: Season 6, Episode 25
Overall episode number: 130
Written by: Stacie Lipp
Directed by: Gerry Cohen
Taped: March 30 to April 17, 1992
Production note: The working title was “England Show II: Wastin’ The Company’s Money.”
Production note: A scene in which Peg instructs the family to loot the hotel room for souvenirs was cut from the original broadcast because of the Los Angeles riots, and restored in syndication.