A Review of "In Gary We Trust"
(Season 3 Episode 9 November 14, 1998)
by Maire DeBurgo

Eeww, Gary's kissing Erica! Not the way I wanted to start my Saturday
night. He looks as if he's making himself, and she doesn't even look
interested. It's a good thing it turns out to be . . . that's right, it's
just a dream! Clever and original concept, huh? We've never seen that one
before.
Maybe it's just as well. If it weren't so obvious that Erica's been
added to the cast as a love interest for Gary, I'd see the bar as the only
reason why the two of them should connect (although I have observed to my
sorrow that clean-cut preppy guys are often attracted to bimbi). They're
just beginning to have a working relationship, and I might enjoy a sort of
antagonistic thing where he's mysterious about the paper and she keeps
pushing him for explanations, but romance seems premature.
In the next scene, Gary's "groaning" (Marissa's word; as she demonstrates
it, it's more of a gulp and a whimper; very funny) over Erica, who is
prancing around the bar in a dress she wore in kindergarten. Someone should
tell her it no longer fits. Gary gets up the nerve to ask her out, telling
her it's not a date, with much touching of her plump pink arm as he does so.
Erica accepts, calls it a date, and acts so casual it's insulting to our boy.
I don't like the parallel bits where Erica asks her son and Gary asks
Marissa how they look as they prepare for their not-a-date. Both make me
uncomfortable-the conversations are inappropriate, on different grounds, of
course, for both characters. (Note: Gary is wearing a yummy black
turtleneck which he ruins with jeans; Erica has no seams in her bra because
her cheap-looking blouse is so tight we'd be able to tell. This is what
happens when you ask blind women and eight-year-old boys for fashion tips.)
Anyway, Gary has to take care of something from the paper first. He
wants to stop a shooting in a steam room. We listen to the conversation
between two men there. What do you know; they're mobsters! In Chicago!
Gee! And better yet, one corrects the other for using a double negative.
Grammatical mobsters! Now, that's a new one. Apparently, this forestalls
any accusations of stereotyping. So, Gary arrives in time to witnesses a hit
gone awry. He's forced to watch when the Feds show up and tell the mobsters
to drop their towels. He makes the same disgusted face I made when he kissed
Erica. Nobody makes Gary take off anything, even though they don't know who
he is, why he's in the steam room, and, being fully dressed (now isn't that
suspicious in a steam room?), he could easily be carrying a gun. Sloppy
police work, I say. Not to mention a perfect opportunity lost . . .
As things proceed, (well done, by the way, in a series of parallel scenes
of each of the mobsters and Gary being interrogated. The pacing is really
good here.) the mobsters weasel themselves out of being arrested, and Gary's
now the Feds' only witness. They want him in protective custody, but he
makes lunatic excuses and they buy it enough to assign him a bodyguard
instead, in the form of a "major babe" (Patrick's description) in tight red
pants. Who are the costume fitters on this show? The babe-agent is very
tough and I liked her. I think she and Gary somehow had more possible
chemistry than Gary and you-know-who, but this doesn't happen. It's just a
device for making Erica jealous, but it's underused because she buys
Patrick's explanation that the babe-agent is Gary's sick Aunt Edith.
Speaking of devices, the babe-agent spends the night in Gary's loft and
nearly falls out of her towel the next morning after showering. Gary
apparently is so perfect he doesn't need a shower, and this makes him just
about the only character in this episode not to be in a towel.
During the course of their enforced time together, Gary and the
babe-agent have some conversations about Relationships, Careers, and What's
Really Important in Life. He's talking about himself, but his life parallels
hers, so the babe-agent Re-evaluates Her Priorities and turns to mush,
getting official clearance for Gary to have his not-a-date with Erica.
Whoops! Major mistake! (No, not because it's Erica; because the babe-agent
is distracted by a woman who resembles her being passionately kissed on the
street outside the restaurant and is taken hostage by the mob's boys. [Man,
what a run-on sentence that was! I'm rather proud of it, so I'm leaving it
in.] ) Erica turns up, half-heartedly demanding an explanation and seeming
unfazed when she and Gary find themselves in a stand-off between the Feds and
the mob.
Gary is just moving across the table toward Erica (who sits there with
all the emotion you'd show if someone were leaning across a counter at you to
fit your new eyeglasses) when he recalls a parallel moment in his dream. He
interrupts himself to look at the paper just in time to rush out and save
babe-agent. At the end, she's asked out on a not-a-date by a guy she works
with who was in the background, but didn't seem to be connecting with her.
Wow! Another parallel! And you'd be correct if you guessed that the episode
ends with Gary and Erica going off for hot chocolate on their long-thwarted
not-a-date.
What it all boils down to is that this was not a memorable show, but not
a terrible one, either. Most of those parallels actually worked for me.
Another thing that worked was Toni Brigatti, the babe-agent. I knew I knew
her from something, but it took me a while to recognize her from a recent
deservedly short-lived NBC series called Union Square. Her character was
completely different here, and that's why I didn't recognize her. I guess
you call that good acting. On the other hand, Kristy Swanson will always be B
uffy the Vampire Slayer to me. (And I never saw that movie.)

Grade: B-
Recommendation: Don't save the tape.