Recap / Cheers S 10 E 14

Episode: Season 10, Episode 14
Title: No Rest for the Woody
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Tracy Newman and Jonathan Stark
Air Date: January 9, 1992
Previous: Don't Shoot... I'm Only the Psychiatrist
Next: My Son, the Father
Guest Starring: Jackie Swanson, Richard Doyle, Celeste Holm, Paul Willson, Bernadette Birkett

"No Rest for the Woody" is the 14th episode of the 10th season of Cheers.

Woody has gotten Kelly an engagement ring. Unfortunately, the poverty-level wages he earns as a bartender aren't enough for an engagement ring with even a tiny diamond. So Woody gets a second job—as a gravedigger. After four days with literally no sleep as he works two jobs, he's hallucinating in the bar. That of course means it's the perfect time for him to go to a party at the Gaines mansion and meet Kelly's grandma (Celeste Holm).

In the B-plot, Rebecca goes crawling into the wall when there's a problem with the furnace...which gives Carla the chance to wall her in. And in the C-plot, Cheers is finally offering health insurance for employees, which is good. But it requires that Carla give a blood sample, which will require Carla get stuck with a needle, which is bad.

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Tropes:

• Afraid of Needles: Mean, vicious Carla turns out to be terrified of needles. Frasier eventually takes advantage of this by describing the process of drawing blood in as graphic a manner as possible, which causes Carla to faint, which finally allows the lab tech to draw her blood.
• And Starring: Celeste Holm, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Gentleman's Agreement and was in All About Eve, gets "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Bad Boss: Played for laughs. Sam tells Carla he's giving her and Woody health insurance, because hey, it's the right thing to do... "also, they passed some kinda law."
• Broken Tears: Woody says that no, it's no big deal that he has gone four days without sleep. Then he burst into tears. Then he wipes his face with his hand and says that doing that helps.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • Another instance of this between Mr. Gaines and Sam. Sam introduces himself, and Mr. Gaines tells him not to introduce himself, and Sam thinks it's because they've met before (they have, in "Golden Boyd"). Mr. Gaines says "No, I just don't care who you are."
  • Kelly's grandma tries to find a polite euphemism for Woody's intelligence, but gives up and says he's dim.
• Cool Old Lady: Kelly's grandmother is a stern, dignified woman who the entire Gaines family are in respect of... she's also not above playing some serious pranks on her granddaughter's prospective husband just to see what he's made of. Fortunately for everyone, she likes Woody, since unlike the rest of the family, he stood up to her.
• Failed a Spot Check: The cold open has Vera sending several increasingly irritated calls to Cheers at 3 a.m. to Norm, demanding he come home. The last is her telling Sam is was a false alarm. Norm was actually right next to her in bed, the one place she'd never think to look.
• Fell Asleep Standing Up: Woody starts falling asleep standing up behind the bar, after four days with no rest.
• Food Slap: Sam suggests Woody give himself some coffee to wake himself up. Woody takes him a little literally, and throws the coffee in his face. On the plus side, Woody's so out of it he barely feels it.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral": Naturally, the night before he's due to meet his fiancée's grandmother, Woody has a particularly difficult burial, where it seemed like the woman they were burying wasn't dead.
• Here We Go Again!: After getting trapped in the vent by Carla already, Rebecca manages to get trapped again.
• Literal Metaphor: Sam wonders what job Woody could possibly be taking after he gets off of work at Cheers at 2:30 am, and Woody says he's working graveyard shift. As in, a shift at a graveyard.
• Oh, Crap!: A really frazzled Woody has a freak out when he sees Kelly's grandmother, who is the spitting image of a woman he just buried the other night, and slightly more importantly, hit with a shovel a few times.
• Prenup Blow Up: Averted. Woody doesn't mind signing a pre-nup before marrying filthy rich Kelly, because he doesn't want her to take half his stuff.
• Series Continuity Error: The vent that Rebecca crawls through was never seen before this episode.
• The Voice: The cold open has Vera Peterson leaving a series of increasingly agitated messages on Sam's answering machine.