Recap / Cheers S1E5: "Coach's Daughter"

Episode: Season 1, Episode 5
Title:"Coach's Daughter"
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Ken Estin
Air Date: October 28, 1982
Previous: Sam At Eleven
Next: Any Friend of Diane's
Guest Starring: John Ratzenberger, Allyce Beasley, Phillip Charles Mackenzie

"Coach's Daughter" is the fifth episode of the first season of Cheers.

Coach's daughter Lisa (Allyce Beasley, Moonlighting) comes to visit the bar, bringing along her fiancé Roy (Phillip Charles Mackenzie). Unfortunately Roy quickly reveals himself to be an obnoxious braying jerkass. Worse, it's soon clear that he only asked Lisa to marry him because she's his boss and he wants a promotion. Coach immediately diagnoses Roy as a "pig", but wonders how much to push against the man his daughter loves.

In the B-plot, Diane gets an idea to be the resident caricaturist at Cheers.

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Tropes:

• Brain Bleach: Diane's reaction to Coach's daughter's obnoxious fiance's ideal sport ("full-contact female karate"):
  Diane: Excuse me. I have to go jump-start my brain...
• Giftedly Bad: Diane thinks she can be the bar caricaturist. She can't.
• Hate Sink: Roy is unbelievably obnoxious. Even a sweet natured guy like Coach almost immediately hates his guts.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Roy also sells cheap suits as a side hustle, which he's wearing one of them. It's biggest selling feature is that it's fireproof. Sam calls that a drawback.
• Jabba Table Manners: Not seen, as Cheers was a Bottle Series this whole first season, but Coach is appalled after going upstairs to Melville's and watching Roy eat. Roy is later thrown out of Melville's for his conduct around the dessert cart.
  Coach: He's even more disgusting when he's around food!
• Jerkass: Roy really is a pig, making crude sexual comments about Diane, making Lisa pay for dinner, running down his fiancée in front of her father.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Lisa tells Coach to look at her as if she were a stranger. Coach says he never noticed how much Lisa looks like her late mother. Lisa almost says something uncomplimentary about her mother's appearance, before she sees how sincerely Coach felt about her mom.
  Lisa: And mom was not...comfortable about her beauty.
• Nausea Fuel: Everyone's reaction to Coach's daughter Lisa's fiancee. invoked
  Coach: (after Lisa and Roy leave) Hmm. Hey Sam can you cover me for a few minutes?
  Sam: Sure Coach, where you going?
  Coach: (blandly) To toss my lunch.
• Rousseau Was Right: Diane thinks Roy is just masking inner vulnerability. Roy immediately proves her wrong.
  Diane: You know, an aggressive personality is often a mask for a very shy and sensitive soul, and I'm willing to gamble that you are just such a person.
  Roy: You're not wearing a bra, are you?
  (Diane strolls over to Coach.)
  Diane: (to Coach) The man is pond scum. Coach, stop her! Lock her in the car if you have to, but stop her!
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: It's revealed that Roy asked Lisa to marry him so he could get a promotion at work. Lisa is fully aware of this but she feels Roy is the best she can ever do.
• Terrible Artist: Diane proves to be an abysmal sketch artist. When she attempts to draw one bar patron on a horse, the lady asks "Why am I riding a lizard?"

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