Episode: Season 2, Episode 20
Title: Norman's Conquest
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Lissa Levin
Air Date: February 23, 1984
Previous: Coach Buries a Grudge
Next: I'll Be Seeing You, Part 1
Guest Starring: Anne Schedeen
Title: Norman's Conquest
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Lissa Levin
Air Date: February 23, 1984
Previous: Coach Buries a Grudge
Next: I'll Be Seeing You, Part 1
Guest Starring: Anne Schedeen
"Norman's Conquest" is the 20th episode of the second season of Cheers.
After a long period of unemployment Norm is struggling to rebuild an accounting practice. He brings his newest client, an attractive restaurant owner named Emily (Anne Schedeen of ALF fame), into Cheers. The other denizens of the bar immediately pick up on Emily's obvious attraction to Norm, and start browbeating him into having an affair with her. Norm winds up torn, unable to decide between being faithful to his wife (just a few episodes after they got back together following a long separation), or living up to the expectation of his awful friends.
In an amusing irony, Max Wright, who also co-starred on ALF as Schedeen's on-screen husband, later guest starred in the season 4 three-part episode, "Strange Bedfellows", as Jim Fleener, a city council candidate endorsed by Diane and Frasier.
Tropes:
- Acoustic License: Throughout this episode, Norm can carry on conversations with people on the other end of the bar, conversations which Emily somehow cannot hear despite sitting directly behind him. This is most glaringly obvious when Carla is telling Norm "She's hot for your bod!" when Emily is no more than five feet away.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Cliff suggests that they ask Cheers' resident expert on women. Sam leans in to speak, but Coach interrupts by saying he'll try.
- Diane tells Norm not to cheat because it'll hurt the one closest to him. Cliff speaks up by saying he'll get over it.
- Warning Norm, Diane tells him that if he were a woman selling his virtue for a beer, they'd have a name for him. Coach chimes in with what he thinks would be a good name for Norm-as-a-woman.
- Exact Words: Emily asks Norm if he comes to Cheers often. He asks how often she considers "often" and she replies two or three times a week. Norm honestly answers that no, he doesn't go to Cheers that often.
- Foreshadowing: The opening features Sam and Diane having a nasty fight, as the bar patrons chatter about how long it has lasted. This continues the arc of Sam and Diane's relationship breaking down, which started in episode 2-17 ("Fortune and Men's Weight") and was resolved in the two episodes right after this one, two-part season finale "I'll Be Seeing You".
- Happily Married: Norm admits to Sam that he loves Vera, that he's happily married, and the constant jokes he makes about her is really Norm just trying to amuse his bar buddies.
- How Much Did You Hear?: On finding Diane has, unsurprisingly, been snooping on their conversation, Norm asks this. It's all of it.
- Hypocritical Humor: Asked his opinion on Norm going for it with Emily, Sam says "I think it's stupid to jump into bed with somebody you're working with." After Diane coughs, he frantically backtracks.
- Ignored Epiphany: Norm tells Sam that he loves his wife, he's always loved her, and all the mean jokes he tells about Vera are just jokes to make his buddies laugh. Norm resolves to stop pretending and tell the others that he's Happily Married. He charges out of the pool room into the bar and...starts making mean jokes about Vera again.Norm: I not gonna throw away 11 years of marriage! I'm looking for someone to haul it away! Let me tell you about my honeymoon suite, or as I call it, The Dead Zone.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Cliff insists that man is designed by nature to be polyamorous.
- A Man Is Always Eager: Discussed Trope. Everyone in the bar, led by Carla, just presumes that a real man would of course leap at the opportunity to cheat on his wife. Norm for his part is petrified of looking like a "wuss" in front of the gang.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Coach manages to rattle off a surprisingly eloquent statement (for Coach), much to Diane's shock. He then admits he wouldn't be able to repeat it.
- Shout-Out: Carla says everybody cheats on their spouses, and justifies it by making a comparison with a TV show.Carla: The only difference between Dynasty and the real world is they got better haircuts.
- Troll: In the cold open, Diane's got an order that's too much for her to carry in one go, and at Carla's suggestion balances the final order on her head. Just as she's walking into the back room, Carla grins maliciously and calls out "Hey, look! It's Lawrence Welk!" Cue little old lady stampede trampling Diane, though even Carla realizes the stampede is even bigger than she thought, as she wears a horrified look at they run in her direction too.
- Unmanly Secret: Norm tells Sam that not only does he love Vera, but that she's the only woman he's ever slept with. Sam cackles with laughter before realizing that Norm is serious and saying "What's wrong with that?"
