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Recap / Cheers S 9 E 14

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Episode: Season 9, Episode 14
Title: Achilles Hill
Directed by: Andy Ackerman
Written by: Ken Levine and David Isaacs
Air Date: January 10, 1991
Previous: Honor Thy Mother
Next: The Days of Wine and Neuroses
Guest Starring: Bebe Neuwirth, Keene Curtis, Valerie Mahaffey, Eric Christmas

"Achilles Hill" is the 14th episode of the ninth season of Cheers.

John Allen Hill continues to drive Sam up the wall, not just with the fact that Sam now has to pay rent for his pool room and bathrooms, but also with the obvious pleasure that Hill takes in reminding him of that fact. Sam gets in the occasional good zinger about Hill's Bald of Evil but is unable to annoy his arrogant upstairs neighbor—until he meets Hill's pretty daughter Valerie. Sam instantly gets an idea for a very good way to get revenge on Hill.

In the B-plot, Woody pulls a foosball table out of the basement, only for Carla to insist that it's haunted.

Last of four appearances by Eric Christmas as Father Barry. Diedrich Bader appears uncredited as a Melville's waiter.


Tropes:

  • Actually Pretty Funny: Valerie actually thought Sam signing his rent check for the Pool room and Bathrooms to "John 'I Stink' Hill" was funny.
  • Broken Tears: John Allen Hill is in the middle of telling Sam about the dinner specials when his facade cracks and he bursts into tears, saying "Please don't take her away from me, Sam!"
  • Comically Missing the Point: When Rebecca says Sam is only dating Valerie for the same reason he went after her, she says "the same reason as me". Woody hears this and thinks this means Rebecca wants Valerie.
  • Dating What Daddy Hates: Turns out this is why Valerie wants to go out with Sam. When Hill gives up and gives her his blessing, she loses interest, and dumps Sam.
  • Erotic Eating: Sam tries to invoke this, with him and Valerie each eating one end of a breadstick, in order to annoy Hill.
  • Forbidden Fruit: Rebecca correctly notes that the only reason Sam wants to go out with Valerie, even after getting out of paying rent to Hill, is that now he can't go out with her.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Carla, the most superstitious person on Earth, is convinced the foosball table is cursed. Frasier dismisses this, but he still starts acting unusually psychotic after a few hours around it, so Carla calls in Father Barry to exorcise it.
  • Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Sam says that he won't face any consequences for going out with Valerie, because he's "Sammy". Frasier sneers that Sam thinks he's Friedrich Nietzsche's Superman, and naturally the others think he's talking about the comic book.
  • Troll: After Hill comes to taunt him, Sam angrily asks why he always rubs Sam's face in his ownership of the deeds. Hill grins smugly and says "that's why."

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