Recap / Cheers S 4 E 5 Dianes Nightmare

Episode: Season 4, Episode 5
Title: Diane's Nightmare
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: David Lloyd
Air Date: October 31, 1985
Previous: The Groom Wore Clearasil
Next: I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday
Guest Starring: Derek McGrath, Kelsey Grammer, Nancy Cartwright

"Diane's Nightmare" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of Cheers.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night at Cheers. Diane is on edge because Andy "Andy-Andy" Schroeder, deranged murderer and Diane's nemesis (Derek McGrath, previously seen in "Diane's Perfect Date" and "Homicidal Ham") has escaped from a mental institution. An amused Sam reassures her. Meanwhile, Woody went down into the wine cellar—and never came back. So did Carla. And Cliff. And Norm. Finally Diane goes into the cellar, where someone lights a match: it's Andy!

Diane then wakes up on Sam's office couch revealing that the above was All Just a Dream, namely her nightmare, brought on by stress after Andy Schroeder's recent parole from prison. She has just barely recovered from this when Andy shows up for real at the bar, seeking Diane's forgiveness and hoping to introduce the gang to his new girlfriend Cynthia. But is that really why Andy has returned?

Nancy Cartwright, one year before she was hired to voice Bart Simpson on The Tracey Ullman Show, appears as Cynthia.

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Tropes:

• Bubble Pipe: Diane has woken up from her Dream Within a Dream...or so she thinks, because she sees Sam's pipe, the Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe, on his desk. She picks it up, sniffs the bowl and smiles, puts it in her mouth, and blows bubbles. Smash to Black.
• Catapult Nightmare: Diane bolts upright, screaming, after her nightmare ends with encountering Andy-Andy in the basement.
• Creepy Basement: The heretofore unknown "wine cellar", where everybody at the bar goes one at a time and disappears, leaving Diane to go down the stairs and find...Andy-Andy. It's a nightmare.
• Death Glare: Making up stories about Cheers regulars, Andy tells his fiancee that Frasier is a kleptomaniac and stole his entire wardrobe. Frasier laughingly goes along with it, but out of Andy's sight gives him one hell of a glare.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: In Diane's fantasy dream of a smart, intellectual Sam, he's smoking a pipe.
• Do You Want to Copulate?: Shortly after playing a classical piano piece he wrote just for her, she demands he stop playing and have sex now (which leads to the Prepositions Are Not To End Sentences With line below).
• Dramatic Thunder: Rain and thunder outside Cheers in the first part of the episode, the one that turns out to be Diane's nightmare of Andy's return.
• Dream Within a Dream: It turns out the second part of the episode, in which Diane wakes from her Catapult Nightmare, only for Andy to return and ask for the gang's help in impressing Cynthia, was also a dream. The only part of the episode that's reality is the final minute in which Diane wakes up again and finds Sam's Bubble Pipe.
• Dwindling Party: The opening part of the episode has four of the six people in the bar go down to the wine cellar one at a time, and disappear. Finally Diane goes down there, only to find Andy.
• Foreshadowing: In the first part of the episode, after The Teaser, all the background patrons at the bar are wearing brown trench coats. This is a hint that Diane is having a dream.
• Halloween Episode: Aired on Oct. 31. Diane has a nightmare about deranged psycho Andy returning to the bar, and then he does.
• Innocently Insensitive: Diane tells Sam that he was "a beast" to her in her nightmare. When Frasier asks how he was, she says "You weren't in it." Frasier's "of course" look cannot be described.
• Maintain the Lie: Andy begs the gang for help, since he told his girlfriend that he owns Cheers. They play along, only to be irritated by all the bad things Andy said about them.
  1. Diane wanted to have Andy's child
  2. Sam is a flasher
  3. Frasier is a kleptomaniac
  4. Andy owns Cheers
• Or Was It a Dream?: Diane obviously wonders this when she wakes up from her second dream and sees Sam's Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe on his desk. She picks it up and finds that it's a bubble pipe.
• Prepositions Are Not to End Sentences With: In Diane's dream of Sam as a smart guy, she's so turned on that she embraces him and asks for sex there and then, saying "Let me be the instrument you play on." Sam smirks and says "Diane, do you realize you ended that proposition with a preposition?" Sam being a pedantic Grammar Nazi is of course part of Diane's fantasy of him as her perfect man.
• Sexy Coat Flashing: Andy says that Sam works for him after being arrested for being a flasher. Unfazed, Sam remarks, "Well, you know what they say. When you got it..." before getting a "Be Quiet!" Nudge from Diane.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The ending of the episode, where Sam all of a sudden is intelligent and cultured, starts with him quoting the "the quality of mercy is not strained" monologue from The Merchant of Venice.
  Diane: Yes, very true... — WHAT DID YOU SAY?!
• Tempting Fate: Sam, teasing Diane about her anxiousness regarding Andy, says "No guy is going to walk in here into this brightly lit bar and attack you." Immediately after this the power goes out in the bar.
• Troll: As they leave, Carla compliments Cynthia on her choker. Cynthia looks down and says she's not wearing one. Carla ominously chuckles she will be.

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