The next up newsletter was going to be about the “Absolutely Fabulous” episode, “Poor,” which I think about constantly, specifically the part where Patsy pushes a whole row of shopping carts, so unfamiliar is she with the concept of a supermarket. But I am changing course because of the very sad news that Cloris Leachman has died, at 94. Leachman was an incredibly accomplished actress, but I bring her up here because: Phyllis Lindstrom. Failed completist that I am, I never saw spinoff “Phyllis,” but I have seen and re-seen and re-re-re-re-seen “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” albeit not recently enough to have the best Phyllis moments lined up.
Phyllis and Rhoda are two alternate paths Mary might have gone down. Rhoda’s an experiment in, what if Mary cared a bit less what others thought of her, and wasn’t hung up on being a good girl. (Not that Rhoda ever does anything remotely racy, but she’s not eager to please the way Mary is.) Phyllis, meanwhile, is the hypothetical Mary who did marry the sensible fiancé, the one who dumped her, thus forming the catalyst for the show.
The brilliance of Phyllis as a concept is that she is, for all practical purposes, exactly as single as Mary and Rhoda, if not more so. Her husband is offscreen character Lars, a sort of meta-nonentity, the husband who is simply too boring to appear. Phyllis isn’t available or dating or anything, but she can hardly be the appendage of her man (ala Georgette, who only appears in relation to boyfriend Ted) when this man is only ever referenced. Forget Bechdel tests. The Lars test, for a show where men exist only insofar as women see them as worth mentioning.
Phyllis fancies herself an enlightened, consciousness-raised, feminist sort of a housewife. In this, maybe she was representative of her moment (what do I know of the 1970s except from television?), but definitely 500% she anticipated many a moment to come. Sure, the facts of her life involve housework and child-rearing (not that tween-then-teen daughter Bess needs much in that department by the time we meet her - she’s far more mature than her mother), but she is not like other women. She is sophisticated, worldly, knowledgeable. An empowered woman, despite not particularly doing anything, and definitively (oh, this comes up) not earning money. She hates Rhoda because Rhoda sees through her pretentiousness, but adores Mary, why? Because Mary allows her to treat her like a naive idiot child. Oh Mary, so unversed in the ways of the world, let your good friend Phyllis (who is your age) sit you down and tell you about life amongst the grown-ups.
There are lots of good Phyllis moments, such as the ep where Lars ‘has an affair,’ or where she stage-moms Bess into ‘writing a book.’ But peak Phyllis is the one where Phyllis’s brother comes to town. It’s Phyllis’s great hope that Mary and this brother whose name I’m too tired to google will marry and happily ever after (whatever this would mean for Phyllis; remember that Lars is a bit spectral). But instead he winds up hitting it off with Rhoda. Phyllis cannot be more devastated. Rhoda!
But then everything turns out fine because Phyllis’s brother — and remember, this was light years before “Will and Grace,” when Mr. Humphries was left ambiguous — comes out as gay. Phyllis is positively thrilled to bits. Having a gay brother is exactly the sort of thing (proto-Edina Monsoon?) Phyllis would find cultured and somehow evidence of her own sophistication, but mostly there’s the matter at hand, namely that him being gay means he’s not with Rhoda. But again, this doesn’t quite come across as a homophobic joke (as in ‘even a man would be better than Rhoda) because Phyllis is plainly delighted.
I am Rhoda, I am Phyllis, and once in a blue moon maybe even Mary. RIP all three.