Another Growing Pains wedding! Can it top Irma and Wally’s cruise ship wedding? Only time will tell. The good news is that in the sitcom world, “time” equates to about 22 minutes.
In this episode, we find Mike gearing up for his big day. He’s about to send the invitations! That’s when it gets real, y’all.
Mike should be a bundle of giddy excitement, right? Buuuuut, there’s this little (big) burning question that he just can’t shake. It turns out Mike might just be sitting with some doubts that he needs to quell, and quickly. Especially if he’s already mailed those invites! This is how this episode turns into Mike’s treasure hunt for the answer to the age-old question: How do you know?
Jason’s up first, and does a valiant job quoting the Shoop, Shoop song, but a less than valiant job providing Mike with any clarity.
Left to his own devices, Mike’s strategy is to double down on declaring his certainty. In my experience, the more adamant someone is about their certainty, the more likely they are secretly paralyzed by crippling doubt.
Don’t worry, Mike will probably figure that out for himself.
But not before he pops by Julie’s place to confidently announces he’s “never been more certain of anything in his life”. Oh Mike, can’t you see the doubt in Julie’s eyes? If you can’t see it in your eyes, can’t you tell by her words? Was there ever a more obvious foreshadowing of her doubt than her asking for “one last kiss” before you go?
Maybe doubt clouds our perception? Are doubt goggles a thing? Not for Mike, it seems. Nope, he’s onto the next string of folks who might be able to tell him how he’ll know he’s ready to get married.
Let’s start with the tailor–who, by the way, is a recurring character who’s also played a janitor and ferry booth agent. Such range. Is there anything this man can’t do? The answer is yes, because he cannot answer Mike’s question.
Mike then moves on to good old Coach Lubbock? Remember him? He left the series to get his own sitcom—Just the 10 of Us—which I’m guessing needed a bit of a ratings boost at this point. Unfortunately, even good old Coach Lubbock is tapped out on wisdom. The guy’s got 8 kids, and he’s supporting them on a teacher’s salary. Can you blame him?
So it’s onto Wally and Grandma Irma.
As things get really dire, he even resorts to a gaggle of random dudes at a diner.
Come on, Mike.
You could’ve saved yourself that last stop. Irma had all the wisdom you needed: “When you love somebody and know it, what else can you need?”
Say it with me: grandma always knows best.
Lucky for us (and Mike), his quest for answers comes to an end when he goes to meet Julie and the minister at the church. It’s in this most sacred of spaces where Mike is put of his proverbial misery by “the letter”.
The “Mike, I’m-not-sure-about-you-so-I’m-not-going-to-marry-you” letter.
The “Now-you-don’t-have-to-worry-about-whether-you’re-sure” letter.
And this letter is extra special because Julie’s departure from the show is somewhat infamous in behind-the-scenes 80s lore.
Because our dear Julie wasn’t just written out of the show, but fired, and supposedly suddenly (as in she showed up on day and got a new script writing her off the show). Dropped like a hot potato. Ouch. And all, allegedly, because born-again Kirk Cameron vehemently refused to work with her after she posed for Playboy. Kirk Cameron denies this, of course.
But alas, for the purpose of this episode, all we need to know is that Mike is unceremoniously dumped by Julie, AT THE CHURCH via a letter.
Although, if we were to find silver linings here, they might be twofold:
- At least he wasn’t dumped at the altar during the ceremony
- It wasn’t via a cryptic post-it (that one’s for any SATC fans)
Still, let us take a brief moment to feel for Mike…you know, before we transition into sharply judging his (allegedly) having a fellow actor fired merely for taking her clothes off in a magazine. Only in the 80s.
But back to the episode.
We end our Mike & Julie wedding storyline with some sitcom magic: a 4-month flash forward.
Here, we find Mike and Eddy attempting to load an impossibly large moose head into an impossibly small VW bug, when…
…there she is: Julie. Just walking down the street as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t stomped all over Mike’s heart, because life goes on, ya know?
And Mike is frozen for a moment, but just a moment, because Eddy can’t carry that moose all by himself, ya know?
Eddie: “Yo, Mikey, you alive or what?”
Mike: “Alive and kicking.”
Right on Mike, because you never wanted to marry her anyway, ya know?