User Reviews

This episode starts strong, with an implied message that men and women can be platonic friends and that women need more from life that sitting around waiting for their husbands to come home. Lt. Rice spends his days consoling a fellow officer's wife who rarely ever sees her husband. Toward the end the wife, who has been talking about getting a job and living a fuller life, decides to get a divorce and take the next bus out of town. Good for her, right?

Unfortunately the third act takes a bizarre turn where Rice abducts the wife, forces her to watch her husband's difficult maneuvers, and chastises her for whining about having to sit at home and eat cake. In the end the couple stay together.

This is an obvious backlash to the brewing rise of second wave feminism taking place in 1964. Rice is very clear about a woman's place being at home, ignored, for the mental well being of her husband. He mental wellbeing, of course, is an acceptable sacrifice.