Spoilers

“Squatter’s Rights”

This was the second consecutive episode of Picket Fences that I had not seen before. It is strange that there are episodes of a show that I thought I had seen all of them keeps finding episodes that I hadn’t.

In fact, this was the introduction of the potential relationship between John and Maxine. I remember during the original run thinking that the relationship came out of nowhere, but this gives the origin of it.

There were two main stories in this episode, one I liked and one I did not. The one I did not involved the alleged murder of a husband by her grossly overweight wife. The one that I did featured Douglas Wambaugh fighting against being thrown out of his synagogue.

Good first. Wambaugh’s outlandishness finally pushed his rabbi over the edge. The rabbi told Wambaugh that he was expelled from the synagogue. Being Wambaugh, he was going to fight. He insisted on a Beth Din, which is a rabbinical court of Judaism, to state his case.

The whole Beth Din was used as a way to deconstruct the character of Douglas Wambaugh, looking at his behavior and how people react to him. An emotional response from Kimberly and a kind note from Zack saved Wambaugh and gave him a chance to show his softer side.

The second story Dealt with an overweight woman and her dead husband. She confessed to his murder, claiming that she sat on his head and smothered him. There was more to the story than that. I am never a fan of using overweight characters in this manner. It felt disrespectful. The actress was grossly overweight and I kept thinking about how she felt doing this role. They never showed her on her feet and I wondered if she was able to walk. None of this helped entertain me with the story.