Sitcoms are sneaky about embedding emotional grenades in seemingly frivolous plots.
Night Court Season 1 Episode 11 presents as a light-hearted satire of the ridiculousness of the wedding industry, but it knocks us back with a heartbreaking examination of grief.
With her penchant for cheeriness, it’s easy to forget Abby Stone has recently lost a father, still struggles with alcoholism, and is essentially alone in a city far from her hometown and loved ones.
And even surrounded by her co-workers’ good (if slightly selfish) intentions, she can’t shake the feeling her wedding plans are off-key.
As Dan observes, she’s surprisingly neutral about her wedding day, an event most people obsess over.
Weddings make people nuts. It’s a known fact.
Case in point: Olivia.
Our anxiety-ridden district attorney has less than no interest in walking down the aisle. She’s committed to her career and has no interest in hobbling her climb to the top with some deadweight spouse.
Olivia: You know what the craziest thing is about weddings?
Gurgs: The fact that you’re having a fancy meal with two people you know are definitely going to have se later?
However, that doesn’t mean she isn’t fixated on being someone’s maid of honor.
Of course, she wants to be the maid of honor. It’s the position of utmost responsibility and perceived status. Assuming the bride has descended into nuptial madness, the maid of honor must corral them and ensure arrival at the altar.
And I suspect Olivia really would be someone’s ideal maid of honor. She’d have checklists and binders and vision boards. She’d call in every favor she could leverage to guarantee her bride gets exactly what she wants on her wedding day.
Olivia would be a taskmaster/stage manager/maid of honor juggernaut, reigning holy hell down upon anyone stepping out of line and off-script.
Meanwhile, Gurgs would clearly throw the bachelorette party to end all hen-dos.
As someone who has been a maid of honor five times and a Best Gurgs twice, I can tell you the job isn’t about lists and dress line-ups. It’s about having fun. And I’ve already cornered that market. Two words – PENIS. GAVEL.
Gurgs
Her ability to stack the courtroom with strippers is impressive, even in a New York City municipal night court.
Wait, is that what she meant by reinforcements?
All in all, I’d take the hyper-organized control freak over the penis gavel dealer, but maybe that’s just me and my lack of appreciation of unexpected genitalia models appearing in my place of work.
For those keeping score at home, this is the second time the show’s used the pixilated censor visual gag. The first time was for the x-rated pastries on Night Court Season 1 Episode 3, “Just Tuesday.”
The two offerings have a lot of shared plot beats.
Both deal with some heavy Abby baggage. “Just Tuesday” introduces her struggles with addiction. Here, she confronts how her grief has derailed her interest in moving forward with her wedding.
Both frame Neil as a hopeful suitor, although because “Just Tuesday” was moved out of order for airing, we don’t actually realize Neil’s crushing on Abby when he brings her the pastries.
Both lean on the memory of Harry Stone. On “Just Tuesday,” Abby shares how her guilt over losing so much time with her dad to her addiction drove her to apply for his job at the Night Court.
Here, seeing Jessica and her father before the courtroom wedding sends her running for some space to breathe.
Dan: Well, you know, big moments make us really miss those who are gone. It’s inevitable. But you have to live your life. And it’s time you start your life with… Again, Rand? Rand. I mean, it’s almost like a name but not quite.
Abby: Isn’t your real name Reinhold?
Dan: Uh huh, okay. So you know stuff.
I’ll admit that I fell for the bathroom stall crier red herring. I honestly thought Gurgs and Olivia’s odd couple clowning was about to take a turn, and they’d provide the support Abby needed to soldier on.
But no. The established formula is for Dan to fire up his warm, wisdom-laden, proxy dad vibe and provide a safe, sympathetic space wherein Abby can admit her fears and sadness.
It’s a formula that works incredibly well, not merely for the nostalgia of Dan talking about Harry but for the authentic connection between Abby and Dan.
It’s a solid bond we’ve seen grow from the characters’ shared love and personal memories of Harry Stone to a mutual respect and affection.
It’s just a little disappointing that, this far into the season, the other characters can’t be trusted to carry the sentimental football over the line yet.
Thrupples, man. Someone always ends up crying in the bathroom.
Gurgs
Now, knowing that we should never look too closely at the semantics of situational comedies, I have to ask what they’re going to do with the rooftop wedding venue since Rand is not in town anymore.
Was it all set up so Abby could see it as a venue versus a pigeon-infested viewing platform for thrupple activities?
Will it all go into courthouse storage with the Meg Ryan metal detector and Gurgs’s backdrop animated standee?
Also, Abby’s wedding dress is a surprisingly perfect fit for an off-the-rack piece that’s been fought over by two brides, hidden who-knows-where, and absconded with by a stripper cop.
Really? Another disorderly conduct from the New York Wedding Expo? They had Wrestlemania in the same building and somehow it was less violent.
Abby
Ultimately, this romp through matrimonial mayhem delivers a heartfelt message that while we may not get everything we want on our special days, holding the memories close of those we’ve lost can still make them a part of the day.
Abby: Okay, let’s do it. It’ll be fun!
Dan: Weddings aren’t about fun. They’re about ruthlessly getting whatever you want. Which is fun. It is about fun. You said that?
Don’t forget to watch Night Court online, and when you do, consider what other tests of endurance wedding dresses should be subjected to.
Abby demanded the Chicken Dance. I’d expect any dress (and the shoes!) to be able to hold up through at least two plays of the Electric Slide line dance.
What did you think of the rooftop venue? What song will Abby choose for her Bailiff-Bride Dance? Will Gurgs ask Olivia to be her maid of honor for her Guam ceremony? Will it be Olivia vs. The Volcano?
Hit our comments with your craziest wedding imaginings!
Diana Keng is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond ’til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on Twitter.