Spoilers

“Bad Moons Rising”

This was the ‘menopause-made-me-do-it episode.

I remember this one clearly when the show was first on the air and this might have been the first episode that I really fell in love with the show. The ridiculousness of the court case being argued by Douglas Wambaugh, and yet winning, only to discover that Alice Freeman, who had runover her husband with a steam roller (that image stuck with me), had made up everything as a way to get rid of her husband without a divorce. The last scene of the episode with Carter spying Alice with the doctor who testified against her together in her house was shocking.

Then, as I was watching, the B-story of the episode was fairly shocking in its own right. It was Matthew who was having dreams about sex and having his ‘penis explode.’ That topic has been done before, but what was wild was how the show had Matthew’s dream being Maxine coming to him in a bra and panties (holding chocolate cake and a baseball card). It made me wonder if they shot this regularly or if there was some kind of movie magic involved because it felt a little creepy having Lauren Holly, the actress, approach teenager Justin Shenkarow, barely dressed and, in another moment, undid her top.

Shenkarow had to have been… interested, yes?

It made me wonder how they got away with this.