Spoilers

“Atomic Shakespeare”

One of my favorite hours of television of all-time is next up for Moonlighting. It is the iconic “Atomic Shakespeare” episode that saw David and Maddie taking the place of Petruchio and Katharina, respectfully. It was a show that understood that it did not matter the setting or the format of the show as long as there was David and Maddie.

The show was written in iambic pentameter, honoring the Shakespeare play of The Taming of the Shrew, in which it was based. 

The episode went full throttle into the Shakespeare of it all in dialogue, costuming and sets. Yet, it maintained the certain flair that made this Moonlighting.

Bruce Willis performed “Good Lovin'” after his “wedding” to a bound and gagged Katharina as the entire church sang along. The wedding itself is hilarious, especially the grunts of Cybill Shepherd at the antics of he soon-to-be husband. 

Petruchio, for his part, wore his Rayban sunglasses (so did his horse, btw) and showed himself to be the one man that could handle his Kate. The ending in the town square when Petruchio speaks about how he and Kate were partners and how much better it was than keeping her under his thumb was a fantastic end to the show. It was a great message and gave Kate some strength after being forced to marry him.

This was clever, funny as can be, and still gave us the flavor of David and Maddie, advancing their characters, without even having it be their characters. 

This is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever, right up there with “The Constant” of LOST and the pilot of Twin Peaks. The risks the show took with this episode were great, but this provided a remarkable result.

And Cybill Shepherd was meant for this time, because she absolutely rocked those dresses. They could not have been comfortable, but she was unbelievably gorgeous in them.

I did not want to put it at the top of my Moonlighting episode list until I saw it again, to see if it held up. After finishing the episode, I can safely say that this is the best episode of Moonlighting ever made and that it holds up beautifully.