Run to another country and hide under the bed?

[Mulberry]

This is one of my favourite episodes, and I think it's one of the first ones where they try to delve deeper into the feelings and thoughts of Maddie and David.

I can certainly understand the feeling Maddie has when she agrees with the DJ about going to another country and hiding under the bed.

Do you think that this sense of restlessness she's feeling is Maddie not understanding her feelings for David? The next time she feels hemmed in and restless, she says to David that she wants to go out and be wild etc, then she meets Sam (season 3). Do you think this is the same feeling?

I'd like to hear your thoughts!

Mul

[gypsygem81]

Maddie:'You make me stiff and tense!!'

oooh, perfect timing Mul, I was just thinking about this epsiode and was going to post something along exactly the same lines. Mediocre minds think alike!

I was drawing the same comparison between this epsode and Blonde on Blonde. I definately think she's feeling the same. I got the sense a bit of a Bridget Jones moment when you see her at home eating, feeding her fish then going to bed by 9.30. I think Maddie's really quite sad and lonely in this episode. She has a rare moment when she opens up to David, asking 'why is it that the people who have someone always want someone else, and the people who have no one just get left?'. But she quickly brushes it off saying that she was just thinking aloud. David picks up on it, but he thinks she fancies Paul McCain.

I think she's definately confused about her feelings for David. When they are in the car after going to his house, she accuses him of being jealous of Paul McCain, and I think that up until then she has always felt that she has had the upper hand in her relationship with David and looked down on him a bit - she's the one who was famous, she's the boss, and David clearly lusts after her. I think she's quite hurt when David gets upset and says to her 'for me to be jealous of him he'd have to have something that I want, which he doesn't'. I don't think this came out quite as he meant it. I think that they both interpret the 'thing that David wants' as two different things. I think David means it to refer to Maddie (McCain doesn't have her - he's dead, but David does want her), and Maddie believes that he is talking about her feelings for Paul.

And Maddie really takes to heart some of Paul McCain's advice that she hears on his radio show, like 'and then one day you wake up and realise that you had a crack at some really great people, but you were too busy worrying about what you were missing to notice'. At this point she's about to pick up the phone and then David comes in. She won't face him and she's wiping tears from her eyes.

Now that I come to think of it, I really like this episode a lot more than I thought. It has everything a classic Moonlighting episode should have: drama, comedy, romance and jealousy, conflicting emotions and a total misunderstanding of how the characters really feel for each other. I think if there's a line in this episode that really sums it up it's this one:

David: Me? Interested? Nothing on my mind except for you. And this luxuriously thick head of hair.

It's so typical of David to make a telling comment like that only to cover it up as a joke.

Great episode, and great thread!

Love Gem

[Mulberry]

Yep, I think this is a classic example of Moonlighting. Lots of misunderstanding about their feelings - Maddie just knows that David makes her stiff and tense and thinks it's just him letching at her as he would any gorgeous woman. David (when drunk at least) feels that if she should be with someone she should be with him. When sober he uses humour to cover it up. I love that comment about the luxuriously thick head of hair... :-)

I always use this episode as an example to prove that David fell for her when he first met her, he just didn't know it yet!

Mul

[lori]

Can someone tell me if Laura Boyd was also having an affair with Sonny the station manager? Sonny seemed to want her all to himself and she acted upset when he fell to his death at the end. So was this woman three timing everybody?

[Mulberry]

Good question Lori... I never quite worked otu whether Sonny had fallen for Laura and she was just using him, or whether as you say, she was 3 timing peeps!

Laura! Paul! Laura! Paul! Laura! Paul!

Mul

[gypsygem81]

I don't think that Sonny and Laura were having an affair, but he was interested in her, which is why he killed her husband. He thought that with him and Paul out of the way (he didn't know that Paul had faked his own death), he would have a chance with her. But she wasn't interested in him and didn't find out until the showdown at the station that it was Sonny who had killed her husband. So he really did do her a big favour by getting rid of hubby so that she and Paul could be together. Things didn't exactly turn out to his advantage though.

Love Gem

[bluemoongirl]

I love all your comments. Very inciteful into the characters. I really have nothing to add except in watching the episode on dvd and then watching my old tapes - at the end of A Trip to the Moon when Maddie is "running away" from David and goes to airport to leave for Chicago. She walks up to the ticket counter, the person asks what shes needs, and the first thing she says is, "Yes, I'd like to run away to a foreign country - hid under a bed". It just struck me that they would have her say those exact lines that Paul said - two years later - when she is clearly so desperate to escape her life. I'm sure they just liked the line so they had her say it. But it's telling to refer back to this episode - the effect Paul had on her. And that she would use something he said to show how she feels.
Maybe I'm way off base - but seeing the eps so close together made me think of it....

~blue moon girl

[honeyblondenoggin]

Bluemoongirl,

I know you wrote this post over 2.5 years ago, but I'm just getting to it and you are so right. It IS strange that they would recycle that very same line. I wondered if the same writer wrote both episodes, but I don't think so. And it is telling, that Maddie feels in S4 that same desperation, to want to escape from it all, to disappear, the way Paul did.

Also, on a different note, I think Maddie's interest in Paul is just displaced affection. She is starting to fall for David, but either doesn't recognize it or won't admit it to herself, but she has this pent-up emotion, and gets all romantic and emotional about Paul says on the radio, and projects those feelings onto Paul. When she first has these feelings, Paul's about as safe as an NSM (Nice Safe Man--from "Funeral for a Door Nail" I believe) can get. So she can be a little more emotional than her usual, without the consequences of a relationship, especially a relationship with David! But note at the end, when Sonny gets a little "extra crispy" after smacking the neon sign with a metal pole, the way Maddie clutches on to David. Like that could have been him and she is holding on to him for dear life. They are very much in the background, so you might not notice at first view.

Also love that David asks her out (see Season 4 Maddie, you DO have a relationship that started slow! I bet you guys even went out for cheeseburgers at some point!!!) and that the end the episode with them walking arm-in-arm.

*sigh* And this was season 1!