Moonlighting S 1 E 02 - TV Tropes

Episode: Season 1, Episode 2
Title: Gunfight at the So-So Corral
Directed by: Peter Werner
Written by: Michael Petryni
Air Date: March 5, 1985
Previous: Moonlighting
Next: Read the Mind...See the Movie
Guest Starring: Pat Corley, Gary Graham, Tony Burton, Tim Robbins

"Gunfight at the So-So Corral" is the second episode of the first season of Moonlighting.

A man named Fremmer (played by a pre-stardom Tim Robbins) gets off a bus and arrives at a hospital. He carries flowers into the hospital room of an old man (Pat Corley) who is very sick indeed, suffering from deep, hacking coughs. Fremmer pulls a gun and is about to kill the sick old man, when the old man whips out a bedpan and whacks Fremmer in the head with it. The old man wins the fight that ensues, grabbing the gun before he knocks Fremmer out and makes his escape.

Cut to Blue Moon Investigations, where Maddie Hayes arrives for her first day of work, after having agreed to give David Addison and this whole detective business a shot. Maddie is unpleasantly surprised to find that no one is doing anything, the phone isn't ringing, and there are no clients. David swears up and down that there is a client and that he will be there in twenty minutes.

There isn't a client. David frantically races across the street to the offices of an apparently much more successful detective agency and lures away their next prospective client—the old man from the opening scene. Once the two of them get back to Blue Moon the old man identifies himself as Farley Wrye. Wrye says that he is dying, and he wants Dave and Maddie to find his estranged son Michael, whom Farley hasn't seen for twenty-odd years. He adds that he has reason to believe Michael is up to something "nefarious" (Dave has to look this word up) and that Michael might be difficult to find.

Maddie in particular is charmed by the courtly, affable Farley, and thrilled to take the case. Farley's belief that his son may be invovled in criminal activities leads Dave and Maddie to go to a Bad Guy Bar and ask around. They are shocked to learn that Michael Wrye is a hit man. Dave decides that this is too dangerous and they have to drop the case. He's right to think so, as they come back to the office to find Michael Wrye, who holds them at gunpoint. They are surprised to learn from Michael Frye that his father has been dead for 14 years...

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Tropes:

• Bad Guy Bar: Dave takes Maddie to a sleazy bar in a very sketchy neighborhood and says "This is a bar where a lot of nefarious types come to get wrecked." His idea is that it's the place to go to find a criminal like Michael Wrye, and he's right.
• Down in the Dumps: The climactic gunfight takes place in a scrap yard.
• Feet-First Introduction: An ominous mood is set when Fremmer's feet are shown getting off the bus in the opening scene.
• Handshake Refusal: Farley rejects Dave's outstretched hand, although it's more from amused contempt at his antics rather than the more usual deliberate insult.
• Hitman with a Heart: Frankie Tate aka Farley Wrye is tormented by guilt over his career as a murderer. So much so, that he pretended to be Michael Wrye's father, and hired Blue Moon to find Michael, so that he could tell Michael to do something else with his life.
• Hollywood Silencer: Fremmer uses the most iconic, ridiculous one, namely a silencer on a revolver.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Not a very subtle one, as Farley is hacking and coughing violently when Fremmer enters his hospital room. Later, after another coughing fit while he's having dinner with Maddie, Farley says that he's dying slowly.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Really noticeable when Farley/Frankie gets shot in the arm and is still able to hold and point a gun with that arm.
• Professional Killer: Three! Fremmer is a young and not very competent one. Michael Wrye is the best around, apparently. And Farley Wrye aka Frankie Tate is a veteran hit man who is riven with guilt as he faces death.
• Shout-Out: Maddie's impression that everyone at the agency is loafing is not changed when she comes in to Dave's office and finds him watching Family Feud.
• Supermodel Strut: Dave claims that Maddie looks too high-class to go into a sleazy Bad Guy Bar. He specifically instructs her to swivel her hips more so that she'll fit in.

  Dave: Let's put a little motion in the ocean, kid.