"She scares me!" Mother Emma Buchannan (Eileen Heckart) tells son Jesse (Tommy Hinkley) in the scene after new daughter-in-law Charlotte Ross tells her that if she doesn't stop interfering in their marriage, she will be forced to do something. The way the delightful Heckart says that simple line is so perfectly stated with scared girlish innocence that it is easy to see why Jesse could believe that his wife just threatened his mother. Of course, there's another moment for Eileen that comes straight from her decades on stage where older daughter-in-law Alex (Judith Ivey) confronts Emma about the location of the house she wants to purchase for them. "It's the house next door, isn't it?", Alex asks, to which Emma responds with a hysterically crooked mouth and a very reluctant "Maybe", that sounds as if it came out of the mouth of Tallulah Bankhead. Emma's been keeping her son Jesse at her side after Alex convinced him and Bree (Ross) to move out of Mother Buchannan's and stay with her so they won't have to deal with her interference. Of course, Alex has her reasons as well, finding that the love making sounds coming from Jesse and Bree's room influences her own husband to make love to her all night, and her response to the fact that her own husband has a weak heart is "If he dies, he dies."
For its second episode, every detail is practically perfect, with each actor truly in character and interacting with each other as if they have (with the exception of newbee Bree) have known each other for years. Emma questions why everybody thinks that she's some manipulative witch, and ends up regretting asking when both Broderick and Ivey chime in with an answer. Of course, Harris's Vivian is the Greek chorus with her snooty but witty lines showing both a bit of understanding and pompousness, especially when she comments on her own love making habits with her own husband. Perhaps Vivian is thinking of her own two children, twins who in the previous episode were playing international terrorist with Alex's cat.
It is difficult to say who is the scene stealer here because everybody in the cast is obviously graciously giving to each other the opportunity to shine, and the script really aids in the continuity of the series to be practically perfect. Ivey, just having come off of the last season of "Designing Women", gets a better character to sink her teeth into, and Harris, eight years away from her Broadway triumph in "Thoroughly Modern Millie", also wins the viewers over. She claimed after winning awards for "Millie" that she was told her first words were "Tony" but believed it was "Give me Tony!". It is too bad that with this series it couldn't have been "Emmy", because had there been an ensemble Emmy Award, this show could have won hands down!
For its second episode, every detail is practically perfect, with each actor truly in character and interacting with each other as if they have (with the exception of newbee Bree) have known each other for years. Emma questions why everybody thinks that she's some manipulative witch, and ends up regretting asking when both Broderick and Ivey chime in with an answer. Of course, Harris's Vivian is the Greek chorus with her snooty but witty lines showing both a bit of understanding and pompousness, especially when she comments on her own love making habits with her own husband. Perhaps Vivian is thinking of her own two children, twins who in the previous episode were playing international terrorist with Alex's cat.
It is difficult to say who is the scene stealer here because everybody in the cast is obviously graciously giving to each other the opportunity to shine, and the script really aids in the continuity of the series to be practically perfect. Ivey, just having come off of the last season of "Designing Women", gets a better character to sink her teeth into, and Harris, eight years away from her Broadway triumph in "Thoroughly Modern Millie", also wins the viewers over. She claimed after winning awards for "Millie" that she was told her first words were "Tony" but believed it was "Give me Tony!". It is too bad that with this series it couldn't have been "Emmy", because had there been an ensemble Emmy Award, this show could have won hands down!