I’m excited and nervous for next week’s episode of Pan Am. The episode, entitled “Romance Languages,” shows naive Laura finally getting a juicy storyline. Here’s the official synopsis, which slyly doesn’t mention Laura’s plot development:
Dean is shocked when Ginny follows him to Rome; a precocious unescorted minor develops a crush on Colette; Kate faces the dangerous consequences of her connection with Niko.
What the synopsis leaves out is that Laura, still being a roomie with Maggie, takes part in a bohemian party Maggie and her guy friend are throwing (not her boyfriend, I suppose, from what some of the promo pictures for “Romance Languages” suggest, since she’s cozying up to the Village Voice writer we met in “Ich Bin Ein Berliner”) and meets a rather dashing Navy man, who also happens to be a black guy. Here’s the picture:
Credit: ABC
As a sidenote, if anyone is thinking about making a Sidney Poitier biopic (AND SOMEONE SHOULD!) cast this guy. He’s a dead ringer for Poitier circa 1960.
Also, here’s the promo for that episode which fleshes out the relationship a bit more (not too much more than the picture–it is a teaser, after all):
But as for this episode–what I’m hoping is that we’ll get to see the development of a lot of things I’ve been dying to see:
- Ted finally be outed for the racist that he’s been suggested to be
- For Navyman to be a well-rounded recurring character on the show
- For Navyman to probably have a sister that wants to be a Pan Am stewardess, but can’t because of the race restriction, which could lead to conversations about the ironies of Pan Am having the Nisei program and hiring Sanjeev (and other Indians?) but not having the guts to actually hire a black woman
- Laura to grow a backbone and some thoughts after being exposed to racism via her relationship with her paramour
- Somehow, for Sanjeev to get in on this racially-charged episode and say some lines to Ted. Someone of color needs to set Ted straight because Ted’s got to say something uncouth in this episode, of all episodes.
Also, from the promo, this will show that New York, for all the history books’ talk about the north being so much more liberated than the south, can be just as racially intolerant. I would hope that the scene in the promo where Navyman gets punched isn’t when the stewardesses fly to the south. That would be stupid and lazy writing, and besides, we in the south have got enough problems as it is in 2011–I don’t feel like seeing how racist the south was in 1963, not when I already know it by living not to far away from the Civil Rights Institute, 16th St. Baptist Church, and less than a few miles from an area where Klan rallies were held back in the day, not to mention my own parents witnessing racism as children. I know it enough.
Anyway, my hopes are high for this episode. DON’T LET ME DOWN, PAN AM! And, if you want to see the other promo pictures, click here to get to the show’s Facebook page.
EDIT: I found out the actual title of the episode is “Truth or Dare.” There seems to be some confusion all around about this episode’s title, sinc IMDB still has this episode listed as “Romance Languages,” as does the Facebook page–perhaps it was changed at the last minute? I don’t know.
