Line #34 WMG/EverybodyLovesRaymond


1	[[WMG: Marie vs. Debra]]
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3	* One theory that's been posited online is the idea that the ''real'' reason why Marie and Debra don't get along is because they both want complete control over Ray. This makes their goals mutually exclusive. Thus, Marie sees Debra as a threat to the control she's had over Ray since he was a child (which is why she's always quick to insult Debra), and Debra sees Marie as an obstacle in her own goal of ''gaining'' complete control over Raymond now that they're married.
4	** To take that theory a step further: Ray, Frank, Robert, the kids, and even Amy, are all just pawns in a never-ending chess game for power between Marie and Debra.
5	** Except that it's far more probable that Marie's greatest dislike of Debra comes from the fact she can no longer mother Ray, the properly conceived child, to make up for the void in her life that comes from an emotionally distant husband. In this respect, no woman to marry Raymond would have made her happy. And when she leans on Debra, naturally she pushes back far harder and so that escalates things.
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7	[[WMG: Debra was abused as a child.]]
8	By a man. Because of that, she subconsciously took her rage out on Ray, because he is the closest man in her life, much like the man who abused her was.
9	** [[DoubleStandard:FemaleOnMale That just makes her a ''hypocrite''!]]
10	** Warren doesn't seem like the abusive type to me...
11	** The OP said a man in general, that doesn't necessarily mean her father.
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13	[[WMG:Ray Barone cheated on Debra some time in the past and she uses this fact, along with his desire to keep his family together to torment and generally be as unpleasant as possible in every episode.]]
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15	Think about:Debra goes out of her way to browbeat and humiliate Ray almost every chance she gets. She won't have sex w/ him on numerous occasions and demeans even loving gestures from him towards her.
16	Unless she is just an anti-social personality and in need of serious counseling (which she may well be) the only RATIONAL explanation is that Ray cheated on her in the past and she uses that fact to "punish" him at every opportunity.
17	** Even if he ''did'' cheat, it doesn't justify her ''bullying'' him!
18	** I doubt it. As we've learned, Ray wasn't exactly a womanizer in high school (in fact, he was a geek), and could barely read Debra's signals when they first met. And when they finally slept together, he cried from embarrassment. A guy who is so shy that he basically lucked out in landing Debra at all wouldn't be outgoing enough to dare press his luck with another woman.
19	** Although in a crossover episode with ''Series/TheKingofQueens'' (''Rayging Bulls''), Ray is depicted as somebody who has no objection to going out clubbing with Doug Heffernan while their respective wives are both out of town; the fact they are seen trying to pick up girls to prove they've still got it appears to be a bit out of character for Ray. If Ray has, in fact, been tempted to stray in the past this would explain his conduct better!
20	*** With such an ''evil'' wife, I don't ''blame'' him!
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22	[[WMG: At some point in the future, Ray and Debra will be the "New Frank and Marie."]]
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24	Given the way the characters interact, it's possible. Further supported by the fact that Marie has repeatedly hinted at the fact that her own relationship with Frank's mother was VERY similar to the present-day relationship between Debra and Marie. Then, there's the fact that Ray shares his father's talent for being a DeadpanSnarker, while Debra shares many of Marie's personality traits (desire to control Ray, among other things). Given these facts, it's really not that hard to imagine that a half-century later, Ray and Debra will seem virtually identical to present-day Frank and Marie.
25	** In the episode where Ray and Debra learn that Frank and Marie separated, Younger!Frank and Younger!Marie were played by, who else, Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton.
26	** While an easy WMG, going deeper suggests this seems unlikely when numerous flashbacks show that, Marie's assertions aside, they are still completely different couples. Frank and Marie had a shotgun wedding and Ray and Debra got together because they wanted to, and other episodes show that when confronted by Frank and Marie's problems, Debra and Ray usually make the effort to try to pull back from the brink. That being said, it is entirely conceivable they could evolve into more exaggerated archetypes of themselves with age, but they would never be the same couple as Frank and Marie given the time period and circumstances surrounding the coupling. All that would really change is the snipes.
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28	[[WMG: [[spoiler: Peter and Peggy]] will get married at some point after the finale]]
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30	They got together during one of the last few episodes of the show, so presumably they were still together when the show ended. Plus [[spoiler: Peter]] clearly mentioned during the episode that he certainly ''wants'' to get married at some point. And [[spoiler: Peggy]] was clearly enamored of his personality. So presumably they will get married at some point in the future, which means that [[spoiler: Peggy]] and her daughter Molly, Ally's best friend, will officially be part of the family.
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32	[[WMG: Debra's JerkSue-ness and the problems later in the series are a StealthParody]]
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34	The fact that the main character is so downbeaten compared to a wife who is obviously in the wrong a lot of the time, but is still treated right, it's entirely possible that we're actually ''meant'' to root for Ray and realize that Debra is being extremely unreasonable. The problem? A lot of women in the audience cheered whenever Debra did anything, and sort of ruined the gag.
35	** [[StopBeingStereotypical Because unfortunately some women are dumb enough to only side with other ''women''. My own ''mother's'' one of them!]]
36	** Given that Ray Romano was the driving creative force behind the show and is by no means an idiot this may very well be true. The fans treatment of the Ray/Debra relationship (as well as Peter Boyle's health) however may be one of the reasons he decided not to continue the show despite the fact that it was still very successful. Nobody got the joke anymore.
37	** The show did this from the beginning with Marie, who would always win even when it was obvious to everyone sometimes including herself that she was wrong, they eventually gave the same treatment to Debra and at times even Amy.
38	** Studio audience reactions for sitcoms aren't a spontaneous thing. Audiences are basically required to laugh (loudly) at most anything, over multiple takes. This is not a good indicator that the audience "didn't get the joke".
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40	[[WMG: Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond and Series/TheKingOfQueens occur in the same universe.]]
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42	There are a few episodes in each series that contain crossovers between characters.
43	** In ''The King Of Queens'', we have an episode where Ray comes over to Doug and Carrie's house to hang out for the weekend, and another episode where nearly the entire main cast (Ray, Deborah, Frank, Marie) of ''Everybody Loves Raymond'' appears in character.
44	** In ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', Doug once appears delivering a package to Ray's house.
45	** Kevin James, though, appeared most often in early episodes of ELR as Ray's friend Kevin - at least four times. He was evidently RetConned to explain their first meeting in the driving test centre doing the written test for the driving licence. (His early appearances as Kevin being long before the conception of KOQ?)
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47	[[WMG: The male Barones are shapeshifters.]]
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49	* In one episode Garvin and Stan are debating if frank is a witch or a warlock, not whether or not he is supernatural but rather what kind they then settle on the devil, incarnate of the beast, Beelzebub.
50	* In an earlier episode Robert dresses as Santa, and Ally sees right through the disguise and says its uncle Robert, which leads to the infamous line, "no no little one, I've only assumed the body of a life form you would accept" before shifting his eyes nervously.
51	* The episode "Raybert" was at first glance to be Robert stealing Raymond's life story to pick up women but it was actually Robert and Raymond swapping forms so Raymond could escape his crumbling marriage for some fun and Robert could live out his fantasies of having it all, kids, a nice house, making love to Debra in the process fixing Raymond's marriage for him.
52	* It seems to be a male Barone trait which is why we never have evidence of Marie shifting, though we hear of her mystical powers from time to time. More on that later.
53	* Debra is an outsider looking in but after marriage was trapped into it, as the Barones now have her scent.
54	* Raymond was ecstatic to learn he was having a boy after having only a daughter in order for him to pass his trait along, and realizing he was having twins made it all the more better.
55	* Jeffrey takes after Frank and Raymond much more, whereas Michael is more human so has more trouble with the shifting, causing him to have problems in school as well.
56	* Robert was always the black-sheep of the family because he did not transition as easily as Raymond did; Raymond since birth could shift almost fluidly so Robert allowed his shifting to lay dormant. It comes in handy, as he's a cop.
57	* They watch sports often, as they wish to analyze the structure of the players in order to accurately shift into their form.
58	* Frank's father beat him because he took in the natural shifter form, a reptilian humanoid. He felt human-shifter hybrids were inferior and wished to beat the human out of his boy and although Frank clearly felt the same prejudice, the human love of his sons overcame his animalistic shifter ideals.
59	* Marie is obsessed with Robert giving her grandchildren, a grandson mostly, because she is a succubus who gains power from her surroundings. The more powerful those she is connected to are, the more powerful she ultimately is which is why her and Debra always butt heads; Debra is a mere human and gave her human-shifter grandchildren, making ally a complete waste in her eyes and Michael and Jeffrey only 1/2 as powerful as they should be. she takes a liking to Amy because she has a dormant succubus trait, meaning if she and Robert have kids it will be 1/2 succubus or 1/2 shifter.
60	* And when Robert believes he might be gay, Marie is on board because he could mate with another shifter creating another pureblood, possibly a rare female shifter.
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62	[[WMG: Russell and Peter are two different people.]]
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64	It's often said that Peter was a {{Retcon}} of Russell, after the creators didn't feel comfortable using Paul Reubens again after his legal troubles. Nonsense! Peter is merely Amy's second brother. Oddly enough, both Russell and Peter own comic book stores. But they have to be different people, because think about it: Russell's comic book store is in Hoboken, New Jersey, while Peter's is (presumably) in Pennsylvania, since he still lives with his parents. So why was Russell never mentioned after his appearance in the "Hackidu" episode? Numerous possibilities: One, Russell passed away sometime after "Hackidu". Two, Russell was disowned by his parents so he wasn't welcome at home (and this includes Amy's wedding). Three, Russell got a job overseas and couldn't return home very easily. Four, [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd it's just a TV show so who gives a shit.]]
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66	[[WMG: "The Home" was originally written to be the series finale.]]
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68	It is well documented that the show was supposed to end after eight seasons, and the episode seemed to wrap the series up by making everybody happy...Marie and Frank have their dream condo, Ray and Debra finally get peace in their home, and Robert and Amy finally get a house of their own. When they decided to do a ninth season, they reformatted the storyline into a two-part episode with Marie and Frank moving back into the house with Robert and Amy. It is also possible that they intended to end the series with both episodes, subverting the HappyEnding and closing the series on a StatusQuoIsGod note.
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70	[[WMG:Robert developed a gambling problem in Season 7 that led to his financial woes in "Robert Needs Money."]]
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72	The idea that Robert would be plunged into poverty due to a temporary pay cut simply doesn't track with Robert's character and the rest of the series. He was always portrayed as being very financially responsible and it is hinted that he was able to build a small fortune by living with his parents (remember he was able to lend Ray $3,000 without a second thought). NYPD lieutenants are paid VERY handsomely, and Robert lived in a modest apartment with no wife or kids. I just don't see Robert suddenly going broke, even taking the pay cut into account.
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Context WMG / EverybodyLovesRaymond