I watched "Dinner at Eight" last night on DVD, and the recent comments about the episode were fresh in my mind, so I thought I'd offer my own thoughts. I, too, think it rather odd that Andy didn't just explain the mix-up to Helen. This would have diffused the whole situation. However, his approach, when you stop to think about it, is not really inconsistent with his character. Andy generally tried to avoid confrontation when he could, but would take that step when necessary.
We are more apt to see Andy confront someone, though, when that someone is a MAN. Andy appeared to have a much more difficult time confronting WOMEN. Now, he usually didn't have any problem putting his foot down with Aunt Bee, but she was family (although he went to great lengths to avoid confronting her about her kerosene cucumbers!). With other women, Andy seemed to think that explanations would complicate, rather than simplify, any difficult situation. His approach was "ignore it and it will go away." I think that's why Andy didn't explain to Helen that Goober didn't tell him about the dinner invitation and that he had already eaten two dinners because of Goober! He figured he would keep quiet, she would get over it, and the whole thing would blow over. We could probably come up with many examples, but here are a couple just off the top of my head: Andy didn't want to tell the "fun girls" to just go home, and he didn't want to tell Helen about these girls, which only made matters worse. Andy wouldn't tell Flora that he didn't want to date her until she forced his hand by kissing him in public, and he didn't explain to Helen what was going on, leading her to become jealous and angry. Can you think of other times when Andy avoided confronting a woman? I wonder how many we could come up with! Thelma Lou (Janet) _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com http://mail.wbmutbb.com/mailman/listinfo/wbmutbb_wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/