"Second Wind"




This aired on May 16th (the same night that Season Two of Three's Company was wrapping up), but it's the beginning of summer, although raining heavily.  One of Richie's college professors (I want to say Anthropology) recommends romantic pairing for productive workers.  (I guess it's good they were studying baboons rather than bonobos.)   So Richie has Fonzie fix Al up, but Al gets dumped.  I like getting some more backstory on Al, and I did laugh a couple times (at the very Molinaro-looking family portraits and at Richie having his own parents in his little black book), but the story felt a bit off, especially that we hardly get to meet Anna the meter maid and don't even see Al's new prospect.  I'm going with a C+.

Notes:
  • Richie is happy to work in a grocery store with Lori Beth (name-checked but another unseen woman this episode).
  • Howard had his heart broken when he was fifteen or sixteen.
  • Al has had trouble moving on from when Rosa Coletti eloped with another man in the mid-'30s.
  • Joanie says she's been dumped but when?  She's not counting when she had a crush on Potsie, is she?
  • Ralph and Potsie hope to meet "trollops" while working the docks, even though Potsie is presumably still seeing Jennifer.
  • Chachi becomes assistant manager at Arnold's, while Ralph and Potsie are busboys.  (And Ralph was a busboy seasons ago.)

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