You Can Go Home Again
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"You Can Go Home Again" is the twenty-fourth episode and season finale of the third series of the American television sitcom Frasier.
Primary cast and characters
Kelsey Grammer - Dr. Frasier Crane
David Hyde Pierce - Dr. Niles Crane
John Mahoney - Martin Crane
Jane Leeves - Daphne Moon
Peri Gilpin - Roz Doyle
Plot outline
Frasier and Roz celebrate the third anniversary of Frasier's show - and their time spent together making it - with presents; Roz gives Frasier a taped copy of the first ever episode of 'The Frasier Crane Show'. Later that day, Frasier returns home to find Daphne on the phone, calling him a dictatorial tyrant who won't let her go home to Britain. It's not as it seems, however; she's merely on the phone to her mother, trying to wrangle her way out of another boring-but-obligatory return visit home, as she only gets one week of vacation a year and she wants to spend it somewhere like Acapulco. Sympathizing, Frasier plays along (although is unable to provide an impression of her Aunt Lillian). While Daphne calls travel agents to determine which 'guilt trip' to avoid going home would be cheaper, Frasier puts on the tape of his first ever show - and as his awkward voice starts, prepares himself for a bumpy ride...
May 21st, 1993 1:57 PM: Frasier, newly arrived in Seattle, arrives for his first day as a broadcaster, only to discover that Roz is his new producer, having taken over at very short notice when the previous candidate refused to work with him. Thrown by this, Frasier is nervous and unsettled when his show finally starts, and manages to fall off his chair and miss his very first caller's problem entirely. To add insult to injury, during a commercial break only five minutes into his show he learns that Roz is already trying to get herself another gig. Trying to make himself feel better in Cafe Nervosa afterwards, Frasier is surprised to see Niles enter, learning that it is his brother's favorite haunt. The reunion is not warm; despite not having seen Frasier in two years, Niles attempts to leave and sit by himself but is persuaded to join his brother. In conversation, Frasier reveals that he has not yet visited Martin and admits that he is not eager to reunite with his father. Niles persuades Frasier to accompany him on his weekly visit, but not before he is briefly entranced by the lingering scent of a young British woman who has briefly asked to borrow the sugar. On reaching Martin's apartment, however, Martin is grumpy and unwelcoming and Niles, who is uncomfortable and irritated by Eddie's infuriating habit of staring at him, soon concocts an excuse to be leaving, but not before transferring the dog's attentions to Frasier. Left alone, Martin and Frasier do not communicate well; despite giving Frasier his catchphrase ("I'm listening, I'm listening!"), after only five minutes he decides to leave to meet his friends, hurting Frasier's feelings. Martin points out that Frasier clearly does not want to be there, and has not made much of an effort to remain in contact since the death of his mother, but Frasier is determined to make an effort now. The two men remain uncomfortable and uncommunicative with each other, however.
Back in the present, Frasier wakes up to find Eddie staring at him as usual, but for once it doesn't bother him. Niles and Martin enter the apartment, intending to take Frasier out to dinner to celebrate his radio anniversary, which Martin found out about after listening to Frasier's show. Playful teasing and banter having replacing barbed comments and awkwardness, it is clear how much closer Frasier, Martin and Niles now are after three years; and when Daphne enters the room, Frasier tells her that he's giving her extra holiday time, so that she can both go home to Manchester to visit her family and go to Acapulco, in order that she can connect with her own family... and take a break to recuperate afterwards.
Trivia
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- Frasier's comment about his first episode - "Fasten your seatbelt, Eddie, it's gonna be a bumpy ride." - mirrors the famous quotation from Bette Davis' character Margo in All About Eve.
- The episode title is a reference to Thomas Wolfe's 1940 novel, You Can't Go Home Again.