Original Airdate: February 2, 1971
Archie, Edith, Michael and Gloria are playing a game of Monopoly, and aside from Archie's rude comments to his wife every now and again (calling the woman he loves a "dingbat" appears to be a hobby of his), all seems to be going well. But then the idea of going to donate blood heats Archie up - he doesn't want his blood to go to any "radicals." Unless he knows who would get his blood, he simply won't do it.
And from here, Archie and Michael argue about donating blood. Michael, with the help of Gloria, try to explain to Archie that "blood is blood." Doesn't matter if a person's black, Chinese, whatever, blood's blood, and as long as the types match, nothing else matters. As you can imagine, Archie takes a different stand. He claims that the idea blood is as interchangeable as it is, regardless of race, is "Commie propaganda." The argument becomes quite heated, but is calmed down as Edith tells them a story about how a blood transfusion she had in the past involving Katharine Hepburn.
Talked into donating blood, Archie goes with Michael to the clinic the next day, surprised to see an Asian man (or "Chink"/"oriental" according to Archie) at a "white man's clinic." When told that people of all races come here, Archie again becomes upset. But before long, Lionel, an African-American friend, pops up, and begins egging Archie on, claiming that he agrees blacks' blood differs from the blood of whites. Archie also ridiculously disagrees with heart transplants. Come the time of the donation, it goes over pretty well, though Archie did pass out at the end of the procedure.
Archie blames this on the doctors, as they "took too much blood" out of his arm. And this is further explained by Edith by the fact that Archie doesn't like doctors. In Archie's eyes, doctors look at people as nothing more than spare parts, and not for the people they are. More so, when they try to prolong life, it goes against God's will, which Michael of course (being the atheist he is) takes issue with. After another, shorter, argument, the episode ends with them all playing another game of Monopoly.
 |
| Lionel, Michael, and Archie |
This episode was a decent one. Like most we've had so far, it's was pretty singularly focused, the title explaining the plot - Archie decides to give blood. While it's a positive thing that Archie did this, he is still unable, it seems, to comprehend the science behind blood. And truth be told, Michael's probably never going to get Archie to admit that he's wrong (and Lionel's egging Archie on only worsens the situation). So Archie's bigotry doesn't go on unchecked, but it will remain unaffected.
Michael's trying the best he can, it seems, but his situation is not an easy one. Talking to someone like Archie about something like the concept that no matter the race, blood is blood, is likely to amount to nothing. Still, he tries, as does Gloria. Maybe sometime in the future, they'll be successful.
The now-dated references to Marcus Welby, M,D, and Mannix (both shows I plan on reviewing) were amusing, but I noticed that no quote or line in this episode really stood out as they had in past episode. Because of that, I can't really provide you with a quote of the episode. Still, this was another pretty solid episode, though I would like to see the introduction of more characters in the future to spice things up a bit.
Rating: Above Average
No comments:
Post a Comment