Life Goes On (1989)
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Michael Lange — Director
Episodes 16
Isn't It Romantic
Cupid is shooting arrows at almost everyone. First Hans gets a crush on a lady that delivers newspapers whose husband just died. Kent, Paige's motorcycle man returns and aings ""Wild Thing"" to her at the Grill and they get back together. Becca has to dissect a frog in biology and her partner is a boy named Matt. They have an up and down relationship but still end up together rather than as friends. Tyler catches them smooching in the hall and becomes jealous. He sneaks into Becca's room that night and proclaims his feelings to her only to find out that it is Zoe he is talking to...Becca is out with Matt. Jerry develops a crush on Gina and they go out on a date provided that only the human part of Jerry is allowed on the date and if Jerry shows up, the date is over.
Read MoreThanks a Bunch, Dr. Lamaze
Drew confronts his feelings about them having yet another child. He comes through in the end when another woman goes into labor early. Becca makes muck over athlete's unearned grades-only to muddy herself.
Read MoreToast
The Thatcher's toast a third season by reopening their renovated grill, but their dreams go up in smoke. Corky is given more responsibility at the grill, specifically, cooking french fries. When they close one evening, he turns the fryers off, or so he thinkd, but in actuality, he turned the fryers up as high as they go, which was the cause of the fire. He finally tells Drew that he was the cause of the fire at the end of the episode.
Read MoreArmageddon
New roles with Libby as the primary bread-winner and Drew as the homemaker, create new friction in their marriage.
Read MoreSweet 16
At 16, Becca retains her innocence-but maybe not for long. Throughout this episode Becca records herself and her birthday party on camcorder for Maxi, who is in Paris. When Corky buys Becca a great looking jacket for her birthday, it is with the new-found power of a checking account. Unfortunately, some bad kids at school find out that Corky has checks and fool him into giving them a $100 check to join the fictitional ""Plebian Club"". At the end, Becca is in front of the camcorder again with a robe on, then opens it to reveal her negligee ( which Maxi sent her as a birthday gift), asking, ""Is this hot or what?""
Read MoreThe Smell of Fear
Christmas brings anxieties to all, but most of all to Becca, who fears the worst when Jesse is hospitalized with pneumocystis pneumonia.
Read MoreThe Room
Becca, Libby, and Paige have entered the ""man zone"". They tear down a wall in the Thatcher house to reveal another room, which is then redone (mainly by Paige) to be baby Nick's new room. Momentos from the old room lead to flashback-type scenes that reveal the changing roles of women in American society: Jesse and Becca as 60's hippies, Libby becoming a 50's Avon lady (with the Thatcher's as a 50's family), et al. Libby decides to leave Jerry's advertising firm to deal full-time with Nick. Paige discovers her true calling after finishing Nick's room-- she also wants to be a builder.
Read MoreThe Wall
It's just a graffiti-covered wall that the students are ordered to repaint, but it becomes a symbol of the future for Jesse, who's awaiting his medical test results. Meanwhile Corky feels that finders should be keepers when he finds an abandoned baby in the theatre.
Read MoreThe Fairy Tale
Libby writes a fairy tale about Corky, and Corky enters it in a contest. Libby then gets an offer to get it printed as a children's book, but in a rewritten form. Libby turns down the offer, staying true to the story which has so much to do with Corky. (Becca doesn't like this because she would have wanted the money for college.) At the beginning of each act in this episode there is fancy narration and illustration which fades into the scene in "" real life"". There was also a subplot with Paige, Michael and Kenny.
Read MoreConfessions
Corky, somehow rendered mute by the accident, does not speak up until Becca bears her soul to him. Then Corky says that Tyler tried to swerve around a boy on a bike. Becca still feels guilty over Tyler's death as she and Jesse place flowers at Tyler's grave. Also, Paige and Michael get locked in a refrigerated room for wedding cake storage ( she was looking for a cake for her and Kenny' wedding.)
Read MoreExposed
Jesse paints a nude painting of Becca. (It is never determined if she posed nude or if the nudity was solely the product of Jesse's imagination.) Becca decides to let it be shown in the Nevermore Bookstore, and this leads to a nice scandal. Endless date proposals on her answering machine are just the tip of the iceberg. See, Drew buys his paper there, and when he sees his daughter's voluptuous body immortalized in paint, he goes nuts, even lecturing Becca at school loudly enough for Becca's French class to hear. Drew tries to buy the painting from Harris, but Harris refuses. Drew, Corky, and Jesse conspire to steal the painting back, but get arrested. ( Corky was the mastermind, inspired by the Pink Panther Film Festival at the theatre.) In a subplot, poor Paige ( still hurting over her breakup with the Crown Prince of Irresponsibility Romanov) shows Becca and Libby a cubist tatoo of MIchael on her shoulder. Now, back at the police station, Harris bails out the three art bandits after
Read MoreThe Whole Truth
Paige fends off an attempted rape by Becca's poetry teacher ( Leigh J. McCloskey). But their accounts differ and Becca, at first, believe the teacher. Corky imagines that a calendar swimsuit model ( Shari Shattuck) has come to life, and this imaginary woman explains how men tend to see only the bodies of women, not what's inside. Libby confronts her memories of a rape during her high school days. Becca confronts the teacher when his story gets a few holes in it.
Read MoreChoices
Paige finds that she is carrying Michael's baby, and is at first delighted to know this. So's the whole family. But Michael comes back, and decides he does not want the baby. Paige is undecided on whether or not to abort, and Corky and Amanda want to adopt the baby. This all conviently ends with a miscarriage.
Read MoreVisions
Shortly after his 18th birthday, a feverish Jesse collapses in extreme pain at school and is rushed, unconcious, to the hospital. Jesse's AIDS Related Complex has progressed to AIDS. He has dreams which highlight the show: Ray french-kissing Becca at Jesse's funeral, and one where a healthy Jesse and Becca have a toast in an idyllic setting and have really nice clothes on-While Jesse is sick, Ray takes Becca out. Jesse is unable to speak about AIDS to a class, so Becca reads what he wrote for this speech, and it breaks her heart, and Goodman comes over to finish for her.
Read MoreBedfellows
A fellow AIDS patient named Chester (Richard Frank) encourages Jesse to learn to live rather than give up and die. He holds game shows with the other patients, makes fun of the sugar-coated remarks doctors make every time a new patient comes in, and sings, too. Jesse objects to Becca's inclination not to go to Brown University, saying that he would be too much of a burden to her. Chester dies when he races Jesse on the hospital roof.
Read MoreLife Goes On (and On and On)
The series finale, it leaps 4 years into the future to see Becca and Jesse marry, and 10 years when Becca, now about 27 ( and still played by Kellie Martin) tells her son a story about what happened after graduating from high school. Corky doesn't graduate, but says, ""I'll be back."" Ray was the valedictorian of Becca's class. Jesse leaves for Europe, breaking Becca's heart, but returns four years later. It is not determined whether Becca's son was fathered by Jesse or not, but Becca expresses a desire to have Jesse's baby, saying that new treatments could make it possible. The question of who fathered this child is hard to answer as Becca says the final words of the series: "" I love you, Jesse.""
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