Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing the Canadian sitcom, Check it Out, which ran in syndication from 1985 to 1988.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Howard’s dead!  Or maybe not.

Episode 3.6 “Edna’s Choice”

(Dir by Alan Erlich, originally aired on October 24th, 1987)

This week’s episode opens with a rather odd scene in which Howard Bannister, who is still wearing his “Howie” manager uniform, showing up outside the gates of Heaven.  He’s shocked to find that Edna is waiting for him.  She has big wings on her back.  She says that she was made an angel when she came to Heaven because she lived a perfect life after she broke up with Howard.  Howard is surprised.  Edna mentions that she broke up with Howard because he refused to recommend her for a promotion that would have given her a store of her own to manage.  Howard refers to God as being a guy.  Edna replies that God is a woman and then sends Howard to hell.

WHAT!?

With this scene, the show establishes that 1) Edna and Howard broke up, 2) Edna died before Howard, and 3) Howard went to Hell.  That’s a lot to take in!

Of course, it all turns out to be a dream that Edna was having.  Edna tells Marlene about her dream and then she doesn’t mention it again for the rest of the episode.  This is despite the fact that Edna receives a chance to be promoted and Howard doesn’t recommend her for the job.  You would think that Edna would link all of this to her dream and maybe warn Howard that he was condemning his soul to the fires of Hell.  Maybe she forgot about her dream.  These things happen occasionally.  I sometimes forget about my dreams, too!

It’s between Jack Christian and Edna for the new store manager job and, in a very odd scene, Mrs. Schutlz (Barbara Gordon) interviews them both at the same time.  (Oddly, everyone at the store acts as if they all know Mrs. Schultz, despite this being her first appearance on the show.)  Edna notices that all of the questions appear to be biased against Christian.  Mrs. Schultz asks what they would do if a customer came in the store wearing the same dress as them.  Mrs. Schultz asks Christian what he would do if a customer was having PMS.  (“What’s PMS?” Christian asks and sweetie, you don’t want to know.)  Edna realizes that Gordon is only interested in giving the job to another woman so Edna turns down the promotion.  She wants to earn the job on her merits and nothing else.  And she doesn’t break up with Howard so I guess he still has a chance to getting into Heaven.

This episode was weird.  The dream sequence was actually pretty funny and Gordon Clapp scored a few laughs as the store’s dim-witted electrician.  That said, the whole job interview storyline felt strange.  Admittedly, I’ve never had to actually interview for any of the jobs that I’ve had but still, I just imagine it’s handled a bit differently than in this episode.  It was a weird episode.  Edna should have taken that job and ran with it.