I know, I was the only person in America who didn’t watch it (I didn’t see the final “MASH” episode, either.
Can anyone either give me a summary of the final episode or provide a link to a site that provides a good summary of that last episode?
Final “Cheers” episode:
Sam & Diane are at the alter (in the bar of course) when a publisher hurries in to our favorite watering hole so he can sign Diane on to a book deal. For some reason, she has to go out of town to do this, so after much (at least 45 seconds) thought and angst, she leaves with the promise to return to Sam. At the end of the show Sam says to a departing Diane “Have a nice life”
Huh?
Final Cheers Episode
Diane comes back, and pretends she’s in a relationship with a guy. Sam pretends he’s in a relationship with Rebecca. The “fake” relationships fall apart when the guy reveals he’s gay and Rebecca runs off with her twu wuv. Sam and Diane have sex and decide they want to be together again. So they hop on a plane to California. In the meantime, the election is going on, and Woody is winning. He ultimately ends up winning. While on the plane, before lift off, Sam and Diane have their doubts and realize they don’t belong in each other’s lives anymore. Sam returns to the bar. Rebecca leaves for greener pastures, and so does Woody. At the end, Sam is left alone in his bar, having realized that he is never, ever going to escape from the bar. He straighten’s the Geronimo picture (a final tribute to Coach) and then closes the bar, and that’s it.
Don’t forget hoe Norm, Sam, Cliff, Carla, and Fraiser sat around the bar and talked about the meaning of life. Then Sam realizes he will never escape the bar.
The above wasn’t the last episode of the series, just the last Diane episode.
The last episode (to the degree that I remember it):
The gang is sitting in the bar watching a dippy awards show and laughing at Mike Ditka and a supermodel giving usually idiotic exchanges (funny scene). The award they’re giving out is for “Best Writing in a Television Movie” and everybody is stunned when Diane is a nominee. She wins the award and has to be physically removed from the stage after the music plays for several minutes. Meanwhile, Rebecca has fallen in love with a plumber (Tom Berenger) who came to fix a leaky pipe and can’t justify the fact that she’s in love with a blue collar worker.
Sam debates it for a while, but finally calls Diane to congratulate her on the award. (He hasn’t spoken to her in years.) She tells him that she and her husband are flying into Boston and she’d love to see him. He’s devastated to find out she’s married but agrees to meet her- with his wife. He asks Rebecca to pretend they’re married at the meeting.
Meanwhile, the plumber asks Rebecca to marry him and she turns him down because she’s a snob, then she goes on a drinking binge and gets depressed, so by the time she shows up with her “husband” Sam at the lunch with Diane she’s morbidly depressed. Diane’s husband is good looking and sophisticated, which has Sam even more competitive, so he starts bragging about his and Rebecca’s children. Diane asks how old they are and Rebecca, still a little depressed and drunk, says something to the effect of “Sam Jr. is 5, Samantha is 4, Marky is 3, and little 2 year old Chelsea is 1.”
About this time, another good looking guy comes in, stands in front of Diane and her husband, and yells “You two-timing bitch”, at which Diane’s “husband” falls apart and begs his forgiveneness and assures him that he’s just doing a favor for a friend. It turns out that he’s her personal trainer and she somehow convinced him to come to Boston because she didn’t want to admit she’s still unmarried. Sam comes clean about Rebecca, and the two of them have a long conversation alone. They consider getting back together but ultimately go their separate ways.
Sam goes back to the bar and has a nightcap with the regulars after Diane goes home. (Forgot to mention: Diane based her movie-of-the-week script on Carla.) Nothing dramatic happens- the bar doesn’t close, nobody goes away, so it was left wide open if they ever want a reunion. (You also learned Woody’s wife Kelly is pregnant in the episode.)
There were some updates on FRASIER when the originals had guest appearances. Sam was engaged to marry a girl but broke it when he found out she’d slept with both Frasier and Cliff. In another episode Woody shows up and has several children now, tells that Rebecca married the plumber who became rich and divorced her, and that Cliff married a mail-order-bride from Bosnia who went home after one week.
Diane appeared on FRASIER when a play she wrote was being produced in Seattle. (You find out that she was very successful for a while as head writer of DR. QUINN MEDICINE WOMAN but lost her job when she accidentally set Jane Seymour’s hair on fire trying to show her how to cauterize a wound with a branding iron and she ultimately lost everything- in the episode the play she wrote is based on CHEERS except the Diane character is essentially flawless and perfect in all regards while the others are pathetic; Diane’s having an affair with the actor playing the Sam character.) In another episode, Frasier returns to Cliff’s retirement/going away party- Norm’s fatter than ever but nothing else has changed, Carla’s life is about the same except with more kids in jail, and ultimately she tries to kill Frasier when he convinces Cliff not to move to Florida.
Hm. IIRC, Sam took off a hairpiece at one point to reveal a bald spot. Something else happened?
Diane revealed herself to be Rosemary’s baby.
Sorry everyone, I forgot that the series went on after Diane left. We’ll just call that the last episode in bugnortonworld (since Kirstie(y?) Alley(ie?) viewing is very likely to give me exploding head syndrome). Again, sorry.
That’s not a hairpiece; it’s a hair replacement system.
Sam’s revealing of his baldness came, I believe, not in the final episode, but maybe in the penultimate one.
And I have to disagree that Sam “realizes that he will never ** escape ** the bar.” He doesn’t feel stuck; he feels lucky, as shown by his last line (going by memory here), “I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.” He realizes that his life is fine the way it is.
What I remember from the last episode was the whole cast getting stinking drunk on live TV. That was great.
Oh yeah, and Jay Leno barely concealing the fact that he wanted to murder them all with fire from his eyes. (That night’s tonight show was filmed at the Bull & Finch Tavern in Boston [the real CHEERS] and the cast had way too much of a head start before the cameras rolled to remain sober.)
No, that was in the one where Woody was elected to city council, a few eps before the last one. Woody broke down on live TV during the debate with the incumbent, and Kelly came on to comfort him and announced she was pregnant (thus clinching Woody’s win).
I thought she was great as Rebecca.
Wasn’t that the line “I am the luckiest man in the world”? Which is the Lou Gehrig said right before he died? I don’t know that it’s all that happy of a line.
Fenris
Gehrig’s line was “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” and it was delivered the day he played his last game for the Yankees.
Given that a show set in Boston would probably never use a quote from a Yankee to end things with, I’m pretty sure Sam’s line (which wasn’t worded the same anyway), was meant in a good way. He really did think he was the luckiest SOB on earth.
[nitpick] The quote was actually on Lou Gherig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939. His last game with the Yankees was May 2, 1939, eight games into the season. He died June 3, 1941, a couple weeks before his 38th birthday. [/nitpick]
I agree it’s unlikely that a Boston fan would utter a Yankees’ quote, though.
DD
The Cheers finale is often shown on Nick at Nite in half hour blocks that were split for syndication.
Well Mockingbird I guess that’s why she’s a working, successful actor and bugnorton only made lousy, stinking commercials, had bit parts and never made anything over scale.
Nitpick: Wasn’t the last line in the show “Sorry, pal - bar’s closed…”? Sam said this while in the bar alone after everyone had left. An unknown person (in shadow) came down the stairs and opened the door. Sam says his line and the shot fades to black…
IIRC, of course.