Spoilers

“The Lullaby League”

The first season finale of Picket Fences was a memorable episode. Guest star Della Reece appears as one of the great Blues singers known as Naomi Grand. She was performing in Rome and Zach won a contest to play with her.

When the night of the concert came, just after they finished their scat, Naomi collapsed on stage. Jill diagnoses liver failure and claimed she was going to die without a experimental treatment, the use of a pig’s live as a stopgap measure until a human liver could be found.

The surgery was a success, but when Naomi awoke, she was horrified by the idea that a pig organ was inside her body and demanded that they take it out. Of course, Jill refused and that meant that we got to hear those wonderful words… “Douglas Wambaugh for the pig woman!”

Meanwhile, Maxine and Kenny pulled over a speeder who was in labor and ready to give birth. Maxine helped give birth even with the baby being a birch.

Turned out though that the mother was wanted as an accessory to a bank robbery and she took off afterwards. But not before she left the baby with Wambaugh with instructions to give the baby to Maxine.

Maxine wanted no part of the baby at first, but the little girl warmed Maxine’s heart and before long, Maxine was anxiously trying to adopt her.

Sadly, Maxine’s heart was broken as the mother turned herself in and gave testimony against the bank robber so she could keep the baby.

These were two fairly emotional stories contained in a single episode. The pig liver story was more like the weird stories of Rome, whereas the baby was the story to dive into our characters hearts and minds.

It was a strong episode to finish off an exceptional first season. There were no flops during this season, with even the lowest episodes on my list being very enjoyable.