The Final Episode #95: Caroline in the City (1995 - 1999)

 

So the order of The Final Episode #94-98 has been picked by my pal COUNT CHOCULA. Yes the real Count Chocula. No he's just some person I know from JOBLO MOVIE FORUMS. Yes, this was the one of two forums I would talk in all the time. Well it was more than one forum for the NES Scene but that's what I would do most of the time as a teenager, a very sad nerdy teenager where I talked about horror movies and NES games. I have now talked about every horror movie and every NES game thanks to those two forums. I am one of two people who have seen Spookies before it became some kind of weird cult hit. The other person was Count Chocula. You can thank me for the shows chosen but thank COUNT CHOCULA for the organization. Organization is very important so I'm glad he worked it out for me.

I didn't talk about COUNT CHOCULA in #94 because I wanted to make a dumb joke about why the hell I was watching Suddenly Susan. From the uproarious laughter I got from my FaceBook group it proved that it worked! I know why I watched this show. It's something that's old as time. It's something that happens to let's say 98% of human beings at least one time in their lives. Ladies, men, people of ambiguous gender identity all end up seeing a person and go HOLY HOT HANNA THAT PERSON IS BEAUTIFUL AND I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THEM. the person in this case was Lea Thompson and she is still beautiful. I don't give a dingle darn damn what you think. 

Also Portnoyd commented that Suddenly Susan might be the most forgettable show on the planet but I'm going to go with this one. Despite the fact its even on DVD now. Or was. Or at least one season was. I didn't do much research. I say this is the most forgettable show. I remember Lea Thompson because who doesn't and that she was a cartoonist. That's about it. Not a single memory of any episodes, hell the only thing I remember about this show is that my dad and sister would make fun of me for watching it. They would sing sweet Caroline and then add IN THE CITY. It bothered me. No good hooligans in my family! 

So yeah, I don't think I will be getting as much work out of this show as I did with Suddenly Susan, but like The Flintstones and the Jetsons these two shows are connected in my brain. So to finally slay the demon that is Suddenly Susan, I must also discuss Caroline in the City. I guess like Suddenly Susan I'll talk about several episodes because why not. The first episode I decided to watch was about Caroline hurting her back during a raquet ball match with her boyfriend Del. Her friend Annie gives her pain killers and hilarity insues. This was actually a pretty funny episode watching artsy fartsy Richard and Del try to do the comic strip. She even has a thing against Cathy. It was a lot of fun. It's even got a Fraiser cameo by Niles AND Daphne! That lady in that series was named Daphne right or am I just thinking about Scooby Doo too much?

Anyway we get ourselves another two parter. On the back of a two parter. I'm not reviewing all four of these episodes but after realizing PAT MORITA was in those episodes I really should have. Pat Morita was fucking hilarious. Anyway those two peoples had Richard realizing he LOVES Caroline and has to marry her. So at the end of those episodes he proposes while in some kind of hospital thing. You know the thing you have to be strapped into. A bed like thing. But yes he gives Caroline a handshake because they can't touch each other. A few days later he comes back all healthy and ready to get married right then and there! 

Caroline wants to have some time to have a real wedding. So they set the date for 2 weeks. So Caroline is getting fit for a dress when Richard comes in and says he just got news that he has a son from his ex-wife Julia who now lives in Italy. I'm not buying this, Richard is literally the gayest man on earth. No one could ever reach the height of gayness that Richard has. It's utterly impossible. Seriously watch the show and tell me you can believe that he's not gay. Anyway they decide to get married in Italy. All while this is going on Del is trying to get sexy times with Annie, Caroline's friend. She's like but we're friends! This almost works but Del gets angry when Annie calls him Wide boy. Man Del's a loser.

So they are at a store trying to buy toys for Richards new son. He talks to some guy who at first gives him some help but then it turns out that this guy never sees his son. Richard realizes he's going to turn into his father. He tells Caroline this and says the only way it can work out is if they move it Italy! HOLY MOLY. time for part two!! Part two starts off with Caroline getting off an elevator to a surprise bachelorette party. AND her parents show up! Her dad is played by some schmuck but Edie McClurg plays her mom! That lady is incredibly underrated and should have been given more star time. I will die on this hill and you cannot stop me! 

So yeah Caroline and Richard end up breaking up in the airport because Richard doesn't want kids but Caroline does. At this point I knew they were setting up something which I will bitch about again in another paragraph. So Richard goes to Italy alone and finds that he loves being a father. WOW. WHAT A SHOCKER. While Caroline ends up with Randy. Oh and Del and Annie end up boning each other so that joke wasn't the end. I guess I should watch both parts of the episode before I talk about them but that's no fun. So yeah. Randy was from the other episodes I didn't watch. I really should have. It would have been fun to talk about that sweet beautiful rascal known as Pat Morita. Randy is played by Blossom's dad! Wild! Anyway Richard finds out about the wedding from Charlie, the goofball character of the show.

It's the day of the wedding and everyone's going in and showing up and just as Caroline is about to exchange her vows a baby cries! It's Richard's baby! Can I say that this never works out for me. It's incredibly selfish and wrong to be like OH MAN THIS MAN/WOMAN I LEFT IS GETTING MARRIED NOT ON MY WATCH!!! and show up at the wedding. Jesus. You left her. You don't get to show up at the damn wedding and fuck it up. Yes, that's right this show ends on a Cliffhanger. I don't think ending on a cliffhanger is bad writing like portnoyd does, I DO think it's bad show running NOT TO FIND OUT IF THE PEOPLE WILL EVER SEE THE ENDING. I really don't know what is worse, cliffhangers or clip shows (sans Webster) as a Final Episode. One makes the story incomplete. Reboot, Duckman, Spider-Man 94, Caroline in the City are now incomplete shows. They didn't finish the story. However there at least was a story there and an attempt. Clip shows just show complete laziness. Still would I rather never know how any of these shows end or would I want just lazy garbage. I really don't know.

FINAL VERDICT: One more thing. As I watched the ending I remembered I had seen it before. So I saw this episode first go through. Anyway, it's an incomplete ending because it's a cliffhanger, however this is actually a pretty fun show and had many amusing jokes and moments in it. I still had a good time revisiting this. I do hope we don't see any more cliffhangers before post #100