Northern Exposure S2, E1: Goodbye to All That

[Cue moose strutting to funky jazz music]

We begin Season 2 with a voiceover by Chris “in the Morning” Stevens. The Alaskan landscape looks, well, probably like what you’d expect the Alaskan landscape to look like. Gone are the wildflower-filled meadows and 16-hour days. Things are now snow-covered and skies are grey. There are sled dogs and everything.

Chris explains that Dr. Fleischman is taking a vacation to go back home to NYC and visit with his fiancé, Elaine. Back at his office, Joel’s trying to winterize the rickety old building and (of course) bickering with Maggie when the mail comes in. Along with Publisher’s Clearinghouse and a 3-month-old magazine, there’s a Dear John letter from Elaine. She’s met someone else–an older man. A judge. Joel imagines himself (or at least the show portrays him) as a WWI soldier in the trenches as he reads it. It’s an interesting and darkly humorous choice. A stunned Joel wanders out into the snow.

(Rick is back with Maggie, by the way.)

Back at his cabin, Joel tries to put on a tough face to Ed as he stress scrubs his kitchen. He’s got nothing to worry about. He’s young and straight and educated. He’ll have to fight the women off. “What women?” Ed asks.

Meanwhile, Holling gets a satellite dish for Shelly. It’s comically large and garishly colored, but I remember the old days of rural homes having satellite dishes in the back yard. This one’s not that far from the real thing for its time. The people of Cicely gather ’round to watch the most random stuff from all over the globe. To them it seems an interesting novelty, but it quickly becomes Shelly’s whole world.

Chris plays some blues on the radio and quotes Jung: “Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow.” Joel’s soul has some growing to do, as he tries to convince himself he’s fine. He comes by the station and asks Chris to set him up with one of the women he’s always bumping into in the wilderness. As luck would have it, a friend of a girlfriend is coming into town soon–an anthropology student from Brown.

Shelly starts to exhibit the behaviors of an addict. Not sleeping. Feeling miserable. Looking pale and terrible. But constantly needing her fix. Her tastes are eclectic: Italian documentaries. Puerto Rican soap operas. The Japanese national anthem. She just needs TV.

Chris and Joel have a double date with the grad students while this fun song choice plays:

Having listened to the lyrics… it’s kinda fitting too.

Joel hits it off with his date. She finds him clever and funny and charming. He regales her with his wit and humor. And if they were back in the city, she’d be happy to go out with him. But she didn’t travel 5,000 miles to the rugged Northwest to “get sweaty with” a guy just like one she could meet back at her Ivy League school. Joel’s catch-22: Any woman suitable for Joel is not out there looking for a guy like Joel.

Desperate for distraction, Joel spends the rest of the evening at the lame little local theater. After the movies stop, he sits alone and dreams/hallucinates. An ex-girlfriend scolds him for his philandering ways (in, uh, middle school). And then a younger version of himself confronts him over the heart of the issue–his constant need for external affirmation and his predilection for melting down when things don’t go his way.

Shelly’s behavior becomes increasingly worrisome as her life revolves more and more around TV. She shirks her work duties and neglects her personal health to dress like Vanna White and watch Wheel of Fortune. She dances on the table to mediocre rap videos at 2:28 AM. She spends her and Holling’s non-honeymoon money on home shopping crap.

Joel has a delightfully bizarre dream about Elaine. It’s The Graduate, as a silent film, with touches of Alaska thrown in. (How perfect that his ex’s name is Elaine.) Joel wakes to Chris dedicating “Love is Pain Day” on KBHR when Ed walks in and sees how distraught the bed-ridden doctor is. Joel yammers on about a memorable date with Elaine. Something about an outdoor cafe, ice cappuccinos, a black dress and pearls–the kind of little details of memory one fixates on just after a breakup. He tells Ed the worst part is he never got a sense of closure. Ed doesn’t quite understand, but he wants to help.

Maggie tries to give him some tough love, but it doesn’t stick. Holling confronts Shelly about her addiction, but it’s about as effective. Shelly ends up going to see Chris, a “man of the cloth” and “the closest thing to God Cicely’s got.” They sit in a closet while she gives confession between flannel shirts and skis. She admits her dependence on TV and comes to understand how much it’s harming her life and relationship with Holling and the people around her.

Ed enlists the help of Holling to set up a little cafe outside The Brick, and a confused Joel sits out among dirty lumps of snow and sips a makeshift ice coffee. (Holling couldn’t steam milk, but he had some whipped cream.) To complete the recreation of Joel and Elaine’s date, Maggie goes out into the bitter cold in a little black dress and pearls and demands Joel get his closure before she freezes. Joel, talking to Maggie-as-Elaine, admits he was never all that attracted to Elaine and that the sex was passionless.

Joel doesn’t really get any closure from Ed’s well-meaning little stunt… but he’s reminded he has friends in Cicely. And that makes him feel better.

Shelly and Holling reconcile, and together they turn off the TV.

Miscellaneous notes, quotes, and anecdotes:

Chris is homeless after the tree fell on his trailer. But don’t worry. Maurice is letting him stay at the station for only a small cut from his paycheck.

A grief-stunned Joel handing Maggie’s urine to a random passer-by is funny.

Ed: “Marilyn said when you left the office you wore the expression of the old ones who walk out onto the ice and never come back.” Jesus.

I’ve stopped commenting on the clothing repeats because they’re so commonplace on this show. I’ve lost count of how many times Fleischman wears his Columbia sweatshirt or Ed wears a yellow tee with a fish on it. Again, I love this kind of thing. It’s so real. Also I love Shelly’s hula girl earrings.

I know Chris is self-educated and had a rough upbringing, but him thinking Brown was “one of them colored schools” feels like a cheap joke at the expense of a character who deserves better.

In kind of an underdeveloped C plot, Maurice, apparently formerly the owner of the only satellite dish around, is a little jealous of Holling’s bigger dish with more channels. Chris and Ed both snub him in favor of TV at The Brick.

Joel gives his date a pretty astute assessment of Margaret Mead and the backlash her work received from other anthropologists.

Young Joel says this is the third time Joel has “fallen apart.” The first was when he didn’t get into Harvard. I’m guessing the second was when he got sent to Cicely.

Throughout the episode, just about everybody in town expresses their condolences to Joel after Marilyn read the letter and spilled the beans. As kind as it is, the small town news network must drive a “mind your business” New Yorker nuts.

Shelly watches this cartoon:

Holy racist caricatures, Batman!

lol at Maggie getting flustered listening to Joel talk about sex.