I voted 8. This is a very interesting episode because it delves into problems of competition, ego, security, self-confidence and honesty. There is a lot of role-reversal going on, but not only in the ways you might think. And some good plot twists at the end, rare for a show that didn't always make the case the hardest thing to suss out.
We open with the news Maddie has received an offer to sell the agency to competitor Lou Lasalle Investigations. David is mortified, especially since Maddie tells him she already said yes. Not only did she not check with him, since
his job is at stake, but she acts like it's a simple decision, part of some equation. He believes Maddie is driven purely by money and that she doesn't seem to care all the other people at the office could be displaced. (Anyone who's ever been laid off knows how horrible that is.) Dave thinks she doesn't take into account people's personal attachments to their jobs, not just for money and a place in life, but even for the
enjoyment of it--can you imagine Agnes not answering the phone in poetry? That just
wouldn't be her! The 1980s in the U.S. really did have stretches of nasty economic times, with unemployment reaching two-digit percentages. So the prospect of being bounced out on the street had to be very daunting.
Also note David's line,
"Is that all the last ten months have meant to you?" --I don't think he's just talking about the job, but about the personal undercurrents we all know so well. (Pay special attention to the look on his face.)
Now, to play the other advocate for a second: David, for all that we love him and he may be right, is in his own way refusing to see an equally important dilemma. The agency
is a business, and it
is owned by Maddie, so she does have to make the call in difficult patches. If you can't pay your bills, you can't stay in business, so if a better offer comes along, you may have to sell in order to stay above water. That's just the truth. Management doesn't have that easy of a job to do, either. Maddie had said clients were at a low ebb, so what else could she have done?
Maddie tells Dave, "Forget that neither one of us is a great detective--" and he interrupts,
"Speak for yourself!" He is hurt by what he sees as her belittlement of his work abilities and smarts, of the rest of the agency and even of her own potential. "You're Maddie Hayes," he says, "a far bigger fish than Lasalle will ever be!" Maddie bluntly says this isn't the answer because we are not talking about a modeling agency.
David, by now thoroughly wounded, storms off to drink the problem away.
He meets Phil West, played by Mark Baker. West has his own tale of sorrow: he left an office safe open just once, and that was the time someone would happen to steal a Rolodex of very important names. David convinces the distraught West to go look for the list. He is not just looking to help the man, but to convince Maddie that he and the agency are still worth something after all.
There's that funny scene in the car when they get to the garbage dump and West doesn't want to wade through it. David pesters him and he decides to go after all.
"You're not the only one" who got the rug pulled out from under him, David tells West. "I have to prove something to the lady I work for..."
Being fired or in danger of that, if you've ever been through it, leaves one with the sense of being 'the little guy' who can't win in this crazy world no matter how hard you tried. You gave them serious years out of your life, and they don't need you anymore. You thought you were meaningful, solid, had earned a place in things; and then, the cold world of money answers back,
No. Who are
you? Who
cares? We can just get somebody else!
That
hurts.
Let's note Dave is not just being smart-alecky here: it is a sign that he
doesn't like to be slighted, he really can work hard, he does care about people and isn't just a goofball.
(Sidebar here--although I grew up at the time, I was a touch younger than the characters, but still, I
never until I saw this show again, had heard the term 'boomered' as an expression for getting monumentally drunk. Maybe that was a California word. I'm northeastern. Anyway.)
Cut to Maddie's dinner with Lasalle. Lou is charming and Maddie is obviously flattered. Lou asks if Maddie ever gets tired of the process of being a p.i.; after all, it does involve a lot of potentially depressing situations, chasing adulterers, embezzlers, hitmen and so forth. Lou makes it sound like his takeover bid would take some of the pressure off Maddie and the new firm would work something like a partnership. This appeals to Maddie's sense of potential for going higher in business; after her initial troubles, the prospect of a leap in fortunes must sound very good indeed. Here I at least begin to sniff a little bit of a problem--is he playing with her? What kind of business magnate makes a buyout bid that will give
more advantage to the opposing firm? Hmm...maybe David wasn't so wrong, Maddie does need to think more about this. But she doesn't see it at this point.
Back to the search for the Rolodex. Dave and West are at last successful. They head to the office, and it's chocolate milk to celebrate. ;D West calls David "a
great detective"--something Maddie never does?--and David praises hard-working men who never get enough credit. They call some numbers for fun, and David suddenly starts to wonder why Phil didn't think to keep and use the list for himself. (Hmmm...)
David goes to Maddie's house to gloat that he really is a good detective, that he's finally proven himself by solving a difficult and potentially lucrative case. Maddie says she sold the agency anyway--got a "good deal." David is crushed--he just can't win, Maddie doesn’t seem to get the point of anything he just did, or anything but the bottom line; so he storms out.
The next day, we see Dave at his desk, horsing around with Godzilla toys. Great! All is well in Dave-land! Happy happy! He's going to stay!
Oh no, he's not.
Seconds later he starts cleaning out his desk. Maddie walks in and asks why--he "has a perfectly good job here," since Lasalle apparently
isn't going to flat out fire everybody, rather shuffle them around. See the look in her eyes? Abuzz with the thought of new success, not to mention cash... Still, David has to be at his wit's end with all the crazy going back and forth. You can't help but see his side of the story.
David has now mined so much information from the Rolodex that he can strike out on his own with "
Addison Investigations"--watch how he crows it with pride! For once,
he's king of the hill, and Maddie is left in
his dust. What a feeling that has to be!
David goes to tell Thornton Wellman the Rolodex was found. Wellman, however, has already learned of this-- by way of a blackmail note from one Phil West.
Uh-oh...
David, terrified, flees as Wellman, who thinks it's a conspiracy, gets the cops.
In one of the funniest side scenes you'll ever catch in the show, there are two people kissing on a couch in the next room. David
steals a kiss from the woman before he runs out! Cheeky monkey!..
Then he hits a guy who has a glass of water--and the guy
still drinks it. He runs by a woman carrying files--she just passes out. That's our Dave, pure chaos wherever he goes.
In the office, Maddie sees not all is as good as she hoped. Agnes is replaced with a dull lady who stares at you and offers no jokes or charm at all. Lasalle says Agnes was moved to another department, but Maddie realizes it's just wrong. Maddie is then run out of her own office by a 'manager' with a vacant look, and some lug of a guy. Everyone new looks like personality-free robots.
Lasalle asks Maddie if she misses her old life of modeling, the high life, and at first she might have said yes, but the agency and its daily work routine really did come to mean something to her after all, and now she's afraid she made a huge mistake.
Back at her house, she finds David there again. He says he may have got in some trouble
(putting it mildly); she pretends everything went fine, but is in reality no longer content with being the object that can be placed on a shelf. Neither one of them liked being cast aside.
They tell each other, "We really make quite a pair--" "I think I made a big mistake--" and she has to ask him to hire her. He laughs and says yes. David could have returned slight for slight, given what she did before, but see how he's actually merciful and friendly.
"Meet you by the couch first thing in the morning!" (Ahem!
) Maddie flashes this smile, then David has to thank her. Blue Moon, without which nothing,
was her agency to give away first, after all.
They go to the warehouse, and who's there but West. Phil reveals that he still feels like the cog in the greater scheme, who was bound to be left behind, and it becomes clear he had indeed decided to exploit the Rolodex for his own. "I felt like a jackass, such a twit, shoveling through
garbage, and what's he trying to do--find my replacement!" His problem mirrors that of the two detectives, who have grappled with the change in roles, the future of the agency and resentment at the strange places to which events have taken them.
David says Wellman already knows the truth. He and Maddie feel a little sorry for West, and they really need to get out, so David tells West to give back the list. Phil doesn't think he can go back to his old life. Maddie offers him a job with the agency. David gives her a look,
What the....?!? Although he is confused as all get out, they have to get out of there, and they do.
On return to the agency, once West has the offer to get another job, Lou Lasalle is the one who his put aback and "offers" to return control of Blue Moon. Knowing Lou can be a bit of a clever snake, Maddie says she wants no part of this, and she had much preferred being able to work with David. ;D
Dave himself, however, steps in to say he's still the boss of
Addison Investigations, and Maddie isn't
allowed to answer!
Well, well, well!
Dave tells West to give back the Rolodex, but insists that West finagle a doubled salary. Lasalle concedes, "We also found a new hero, didn't we?"
So, as usual, all's well that ends well. Once more back at the Blue Moon office. Maddie hands David a box, which was cards from the Rolodex (and which gets thrown in the trash). She does, however, save one--from an agency in Rome, NY, where Dave says his family used to vacation.
"A lady gets in trouble," Maddie says, "she needs to know someone to call."
;D
You just can't help but love them.