"HIGH SOCIETY" Beauty and the Beast October 24, 1999

by
Gordon Hom

This episode is beautifully written and executed, and makes for vintage NASH BRIDGES. The combination of Jake Cage and Caitlin Cross is just the right mixture of male brutishness and female prissiness. He's an animal, she's a delicate creature. He's low culture (wrestling) and she's high culture (well, about as high as looking stunning in a party dress). For once, those quizzical, blank looks on Caitlin's sweet face become really funny as she says to Jake: "What are you doing? Why are you holding your fork like a hammer?"

The denouement is, of course, when Caitlin is mashed into the wedding cake. She is literally thrown into the symbol of what must occur to every woman who lives with a man (especially this man): When is he is going to marry me? All these anxieties have been exacerbated by Jake Cage's articulate and incisive analysis of Nash's life: "...he'd [Nash] rather lease than buy." So there she is, standing there with cake all over her lovely dress, as Nash saunters up to her. He doesn't have to marry her - he can have his cake and eat it, too: "I don't know whether to kiss ya or eat cha."

Nash is a rogue when it comes to women, as is emphasized when he and Joe pull off the violin caper. Cops committing crimes? Holy shades of MIAMI VICE. As if to reverse this illusion, we get semi-regular Boz Bishop, the white man who thinks he's a black man. This is highlighted in a hilarious scene when Boz strips (yup, he's definitely white) and goes into a shower with Joe hiding inside. We see Joe in his true colors (as Joe must wear Boz's clothes) - holy shades of Cheech when he was with Chong. Nash finally breaks this illusion by confronting Boz: "You're not black!" Just as Nash breaks this illusion, so breaks Caitlin's illusion of a wedding cake.

And finally, Evan is definitely not high society as he proves himself a lowlife by taking advantage of a young prostitute. Evan is on a very dark path this season...

For more, see synopsis for Episode 83

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