Synopsis[]
At Coach's pleading, Diane returns to Cheers to find Sam has resumed drinking. She introduces him to a new "friend" of hers.
Cast[]
- Shelley Long as Diane Chambers
- Ted Danson as Sam Malone
- Nicholas Colasanto as "Coach" Ernie Pantusso
- Rhea Perlman as Carla Tortelli
- John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin
- George Wendt as Norm Peterson
Recurring / Guest Stars:
- Duncan Ross as Boggs
- Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane
- Larry Harpel as Customer #1
- Brian Burt as Customer #2
- Anita Elevi as "Baton Twirler"
Plot Summary[]
Cold open
Cliff returns from a Florida vacation, to a largely indifferent Cheers. Cliff doesn't really notice the indifference; he just goes on jovially chatting about his vacation, hoping someone will engage him in conversation. Larry comes over to greet him, thinking Cliff is someone else, but when Cliff turns around, Larry says, "Oh, it's you. You know, from behind, you look like a friend of mine." Cliff laughs this off.
He takes a seat at the bar and starts talking to Coach, who is working the blender. Coach greets Cliff but doesn't pay much attention to him, paying more attention to the blender. Cliff continues his monologue about how happy he was with his vacation, and doesn't notice at first that Coach isn't listening. But growing frustrated with the blender drowning out his words, he shuts off the blender, snaps off the Coach's tie, balls it up, and shoves it in the blender, then turns it on.
Coach looks disturbed at this. He turns off the blender and fishes out his now-soaked tie, examining it. He then calls out to the bar, "Anybody want a mai-tai?" He starts laughing loudly at his own joke. "Mai-tai, Cliffy, look! You get it? Mai-tai!"
Act 1
Norm comes into the bar. Cliff follows him to his stool and greets him. Cliff mentions his vacation and asks Norm how he and Vera are coming along with their desire to have a child.
Cliff asks Coach how Sam is doing. Coach unhappily says that Sam is doing terrible. Norm starts in with a story about Sam, but is interrupted when Sam himself enters the bar, with a girl on each arm, both dressed as majorettes. Sam looks scruffy, is barefoot, and is stumbling a bit as though he has been drinking. He's also smoking a cigarette. He engages in some chatter with the girls, while Coach turns his head away, disgusted.
Carla corrals Sam at the bar as he reaches behind for a bottle. She is unhappy, and she shows Sam a letter of resignation from a waitress. She complains to Sam that he has lost another waitress becauss she learned she was not the only girl in Sam's life. He is indifferent to Carla's concern. Carla screams at him that she is being serious, that the bar has lost eight waitresses in six months, but Sam shrugs off the worry, leading his two girls into his office.
Coach, Carla, Cliff and Norm discuss Sam's apparant problems once he is gone. Carla and Coach both are concerned that Sam will drink himself senseless. Norm asks, "Wonder what set him off. Suppose maybe it might have been Di...", but Carla does not allow him to finish this sentence, instead grabbing Norm's hair and reminding him of her rule that "that name" should not be spoken at Cheers ever again.
Coach received a call from Vera, instructing Norm to come home, because Vera's cycle is at her peak. Norm leaves, complaining as he exits. Cliff and Carla continue to discuss Sam. Coach resolves to "do something crazy", and abruptly gets his coat and leaves himself.
The scene changes to Diane's apartment, where Diane and her mother's butler Boggs have apparently just arrived. Their discussion reveals that Diane is back from some sort of psychiatric institution, and Boggs has driven her home. Diane complains that her mother didn't visit her, and Boggs responds that Diane's mother is uncomfortable with those places.
Boggs comments that Diane looks happy, and she says she feels good to have started a new life. But a knock on the door startles her. She calls out to see who it is, and Coach responds, asking to talk to her. Diane tells him that while she loves him, she feels she cannot talk to him, because he is from a period of her past that she wants to forget.
Diane asks Coach through the door if he understands, and there is silence. Then we hear the Coach say, "Western Union." Diane relents and opens the door. Coach greets her affectionately and apologizes for "fooling her that way". Coach takes a seat and Boggs leaves.
Diane and Coach make some small talk, which reveals again that Diane has been gone for awhile to a sanitarium due to a nervous breakdown. Coach asks Diane if she ever thinks about coming back, and Diane says no, but she asks if anyone there misses her - obviously thinking of Sam. Coach asks more directly for Diane to come back and have a talk with Sam. Diane responds, but she is unable to even say the name Sam, just getting out the "s".
Diane tells Coach she resolved to not return to Cheers. Coach looks at her distraughtly and tells her that Sam is "boozing" again. Diane, upset at this news, sits down by Coach and lays her hand on his arm. The scene ends.
Act 2
Norm returns to the bar. Carla and Coach engage him in some talk about Vera's desire to have a child.
Sam stumbles out of his office, wearing the same clothes he was wearing before, and asking what day it is. When he tries to take off, Coach insists he stay, telling him a friend is coming to see him. As Coach and Sam discuss the "friend", Carla grows suspicious. She walks over and grabs the Coach's tie, pulling it off and throwing it to the floor, and threatens violence if Coach is talking about "the stick".
Sam defends the Coach, saying Diane can't be coming back. He picks up the Coach's tie and puts it back on him. But when Coach confirms it is Diane he was talking about, Sam also grabs the Coach's tie and throws it to the floor. Coach insists that Sam stay to talk to her - in the process grabbing his own tie and throwing it to the floor.
Carla is disgusted at the very idea of Diane returning. When she sees Diane through the window, coming down the stairs, she is so revolted she leaves to the back. Coach is smiling, though, and happily puts his tie back on.
Diane comes in and greets Sam cautiously, saying she just stopped in to see how everyone is doing. The bar has grown quiet, but Cliff blurts out that he just got back from Florida. He is immediately hushed by Norm.
Sam tries to tell Diane he is fine, but Coach complains that Sam has been "boozing with two hands" ever since Diane left. Growing defensive, Sam asserts that he threw Diane out and his drinking has nothing to do with her. He starts to pace, ending up behind the bar. He changes his answer, saying that yes, he did start to drink when Diane left, but asserts that it was in celebration of her exit.
Diane's ego aroused, she asserts that she now celebrates two birthdays, with the other one being the day she left Cheers. Sam and Diane continue to argue, but Diane eventually composes herself and says she did not come to argue, she just wants Sam to see a "friend" of hers that she met on "vacation".
Carla, having returned, interrupts to say she knows Diane was "locked up in a home for the silly" in Connectitut for three months, tracked down by Carla's private investigator cousin. Sam starts to laugh, saying he's never had a girl who went crazy after they broke up. Diane grows defensive again, insisting that her visit to the sanitarium had nothing to do with the break-up.
Diane asks again if Sam will talk to her friend. Sam levels, saying that yes, he's drinking, but he doesn't feel it's the same as before when he was an alcoholic. He says he is having fun and feels in control of it. But when it becomes clear to Sam that not just the Coach, but Carla, Norm, and Cliff all agree with Diane, he gets disgusted and defensive again.
Diane gets up as if to leave, telling Sam she knows why he is drinking even if he does not want to admit it. She tells him he is scared. Relenting, Sam says that if it gets everyone off his back, he will talk to Diane's friend. He asks Diane to send her friend by the bar and Sam would "fit him in". Diane asks Sam to say hello now - and it is revealed that Diane's friend is at the bar right then, sitting beside Cliff. He introduces himself, to a startled Sam, as Dr. Frasier Crane.
Frasier tells Sam he came by early, hearing from Diane that Sam was open-minded enough to accept his presence. Sam feigns surprise at any kind word from Diane, but Frasier assures him that Diane "says a lot of nice things about you." He asks Sam to go somewhere with him for a cup of coffee and a chat. Sam agrees, but says he wants to freshen up first. He sidles over to Diane, quietly telling her that it seems strange to him that she is back after vowing never to return.
Diane doesn't rise to Sam's bait. She composes herself again and tells him she's changed, and that he can change too. Sam interprets Diane's reaction, and her presence, as renewed interest in him. As Diane leaves, Sam pulls Coach aside and tells Coach his suspicion, that Frasier is just a ploy for Diane to return to Cheers and "save face" in doing it. He goes back into his office.
Frasier walks Diane to the door, telling her he is impressed by her desire to help a man that has hurt her. She tells him she feels free of him. As they talk, it's apparent that they have started a romantic relationship. Coach witnesses the exchange as well.
The words "To be continued..." appear on the screen as Coach frowns thoughtfully in Diane and Frasier's direction.
Trivia[]
- Of the two majorettes, Anita Elevi is the shorter brunette, who is on Sam's left arm as they stand at the door. The other girl, uncredited, is April Clawson.
- This is Kelsey Grammer's first appearance on the show as Frasier Crane. He stayed as a cast member until the end of the series in 1993, before going on to star in a Cheers spinoff called Frasier that same year. Grammer would play this role for the next twenty years, appearing in a total of 466 episodes between the two shows.