Okay, so the line doesn’t have anything to do with the episode except that, like the famous “WKRP in Cincinnati” show from which it’s taken, they’re both Thanksgiving-themed. (The holiday is also why this blog entry is delayed; Wednesday felt so much like Friday that I totally forgot to watch the show!)
So the townsfolk of Jericho prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, which gives them a perfect opportunity to go on a turkey shoot. Funny how, with all the people getting low on food, no-one’s ever gone hunting before now. Never mind, I’m sure they did, and that they just did it off-camera. Anyway, while in mid-hunt, Jake and Stanley witness a fly-over by a couple of jets…which Jake observes are Russian and of a type that hasn’t been flown in years…that drop shipments of food all over town, along with a generator. That the boxes contain notes from the Chinese that say, “Don’t fight, we’re your friends,” makes it reasonable enough for the natural paranoids in town to be skittish about eating the food, but, hey, people are starving, of course they’re gonna eat the food…and, of course, Gray “The Ass” Anderson is first in line to prove that the Mayor is being foolish by suggesting they hold off. There’s talk of the delayed-by-the-bomb election finally happening soon; I’m laying odds that Anderson wins, he fucks up royally, and then he either has to plead with former Mayor Green for help, or else he gets killed and the town says, “Mayor Green, you know we always believed in you!”
Gracie, we discover, made a deal with the devil – a.k.a. Jonah – to keep her store filled with food…and when she backs out of the arrangement at Mayor Green’s request, she gets stabbed…presumably fatally…for her trouble. Count on sullen teen Dale suddenly returning to the forefront as a character as a result. The aforementioned devil also steals the generator from Stanley’s field…and has Stanley’s ass kicked in the process…but as Jake and Robert Hawkins prepare to steal it back, they discover that Emily – Jonah’s estranged daughter – has done it for them. Nice and ballsy of her. Stanley, meanwhile, is apparently having his wounds licked by the hot DC accountant, and I do mean that literally. It was inevitable, of course…but the idea of him wooing her by making Tang Margaritas was inspired.
Oh, and Eric now knows that April’s pregnant. Had to happen. But at least they’re both reacting in a real way to the situation, rather than getting overly sentimental and getting back together, as I’d feared they might. The only real schmaltz this episode is Robert getting the lights turned on as a gesture to his son, to show him that, for a change, he can actually show what Daddy does when he’s working.
Next week will, of course, show the repercussions of Gracie’s stabbing. It bodes well, methinks, for a consistently dark episode, leading to an inevitable cliffhanger ’til the show’s return in the spring.
