Recap / Cheers S2E22: "Ill Be Seeing You, Part 2"

Episode: Season 2, Episode 22
Title: I'll Be Seeing You, Part 2
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Glen Charles and Les Charles
Air Date: May 10, 1984
Previous: I'll Be Seeing You, Part 1
Next: Rebound, Part 1
Guest Starring: Christopher Lloyd

"I'll Be Seeing You, Part 2" is the 22nd and last episode of the second season of Cheers.

Events follow hard on the heels of the previous episode, "I'll Be Seeing You, Part 1". In the previous episode, Sam told Diane straight up that if she posed for arrogant, conceited artist Phillip Semenko (Christopher Lloyd), he would break up with her. Diane, anxious about making Sam angry but unable to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, poses (wearing a Victorian dress, not nude) for Semenko anyway. She nervously hopes that Sam will forgive her once he sees the painting, but the smug Semenko predicts that he will in fact dump her.

Meanwhile, Sam answers an ad in TV Guide and gets a painting of Diane done by mail-order. It is terrible. Finally, Diane comes to the bar with the wrapped-up Semenko portrait and comes clean with Sam. A whole season's worth of fighting comes to a head as the two have an angry confrontation.

In the B-plot, Coach tries to get people to volunteer to help with the Cheers spring picnic.

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Tropes:

• Ambiguously Bi: Philip Semenko. He hits on Diane, but then...
  Phillip: I make love to everything I paint!
  Diane: Your most famous painting is of the Harvard-Yale football game!
  Phillip: Yes, I spent three months in jail. College types don't understand me. [wistfully] I do, however, still get a few Christmas cards.
• Ambiguously Gay: With a dash of Poor Man's Porn and Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?. Cliff says all the Renaissance artists were gay. His evidence? All the wieners in the "Nude Male Statuary" book that Cliff has at home.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: At closing time, a bar patron offers Carla a ride home. She gives a knowing laugh and says that he really wants to take her home so he can get her into bed. She paints a vivid picture of how he'll escort her inside her apartment and turn on the radio to "a soft music station" before he kisses her. When the bar patron insists that he's not that kind of guy, Carla says "Shut up and listen!"
  Carla: You give me a kiss and nibble on the ear.
  Bar patron: Which ear?
  Carla: Your choice.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Just like Sam predicted, Semenko makes a pass at Diane, saying "Let's go to bed." A shocked Diane says "You want to make love?"
  Semenko: No, I always take a nap with a blonde in the afternoon.
• Blatant Lies: Sam insists he's not angry about the painting, even though Diane points out he's trembling and his knuckles are clenched.
  Sam: I always get that way when I'm about to look at art.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Carla literally cannot say "thank you" when Diane gives her a gift. When she says it by accident, she screams "I have to punish my tongue!", and proceeds to slam her tongue in the door.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Cheers summer picnic is a B-plot to provide some laughs with Coach, but it also is the reason why the bar is completely empty for Sam and Diane's nasty fight in the last scene.
• Cliffhanger: What will happen to Sam and Diane now?
• Downer Ending: After a whole season of stormy romance, Sam and Diane break up, for real.
• Gainax Ending: Diane hopes that Sam will like the abstract portrait of Diane that Semenko did, and will forgive her. Semenko, who holds Sam in utter contempt, predicts that Sam will hate it and will break up with her. At the end of the episode, Diane asks Sam to look at it, but then won't let him look at it when she sees how angry he is. A very nasty fight erupts, that ends in their breaking up and Diane leaving the bar. Finally, Sam unwraps the portrait and looks at it. His reaction? An awed, breathy "Wow." Smash to Black, The End.
  • Hidden Depths: Philip mocked that Sam was too much of a gorilla to even comprehend the painting.
• Get Out!: Sam says this during his argument with Diane. The situation eventually means he upgrades to "get the hell out."
• Jerkass Has a Point: During their ugly fight in the previous episode, Sam says that Semenko's desire to paint Diane is a way to get into her pants. Diane is outraged, but in this episode Semenko does in fact make a pass at her.
  • Conversely, Semenko is able to assess Sam and Diane's relationship better than either of them can.
• Love Cannot Overcome: Even after Sam and Diane have broken up, Sam telling Diane to go and her refusing to come back, they both reconsider. Sam starts toward the door, clearly planning to go after her, but stops and turns away. Then we see Diane come halfway down the stairs before she too stops. Neither notices.
• Malicious Misnaming: Semenko keeps referring to Sam as "Bullwinkle" and "Mortimer" despite Diane repeatedly requesting him not to.
• The Masochism Tango: Sam and Diane's destructive romance reaches a breaking point in this episode. Her rage at him for being mean to her, his rage at her for being condescending, and their fundamental incompatibility despite sincerely loving each other, leads to a literal slap fight, and a sort of Mexican Standoff where they're both painfully grabbing each other's noses. They break up and Diane leaves Cheers.
• Monochrome Past: In the Previously on… intro narrated by Coach, the still pictures of the previous episode, and the brief live-action clip, are all in black and white.
• Mood Whiplash: Sam and Diane's fight goes from comical to ugly to heartbreaking real fast.
• Multi-Part Episode: The second half of the two-part Season 2 finale. Followed by the two-part Season 3 premiere, "Rebound".
• Previously on…: Coach, in voiceover, describes the events of "I'll Be Seeing You, Part 1", drawing lines on the picture like a TV football analyst to describe the action. He gets sidetracked into diagramming a double steal in baseball and trying to remember the directions to his daughter's house.
• Relationship Sabotage: Semenko completes his work of breaking Sam and Diane up. He says that she should be alone when she shows Sam the portrait, "because it's the last time you'll ever see him." He's wrong about that, but they do break up.
• Screw Your Ultimatum!: Diane tells Sam not to demand she go, because if she does leave, she won't ever come back. Sam just remains very quiet. You can actually see Diane's heart breaking at Sam's inaction to her threat.
• Stylistic Suck: Sam's attempt at getting a portrait of Diane done.◊
  Carla: (laughing) Even I think that's tacky!
• Suddenly Shouting: Diane insists Sam's gestures aren't bothering her, then starts shrieking at the top of her lungs for him to stop what he's doing.
• Take Our Word for It: Semenko's painting, which Sam seems genuinely impressed by, isn't shown. You can make out a glimpse of it as he's unwrapping it, but the angle and the (apparently) abstract style means the details can't be made out very well.
• Trust-Building Blunder: Sam and Diane end up grabbing one another by the nose. A suggestion is raised that on the count of three they let go of each other's noses. They do not.
• The Unfair Sex: Diane slaps Sam first, he slaps back with the same amount of force, no more and no less. Diane still venomously declares how dare Sam hit her, and slaps him again. He slaps her back, again. They do it three more times, before both give up in disgust.

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