Pop-Cultured Catholic #26: When God Works on Our Lives Like Frasier Crane’s Repairmen Work on His Apartment
Hello again, everyone. After my two latest posts on “Silent Hill” and “All Quiet on the Western Front”/“Joyeux Noël”, I have decided to do something simpler and lighthearted again. And the topic of this latest post came to mind just yesterday, as I watched another rerun of the popular sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer, “Frasier”. Today I will be revisiting that show and writing about the episode, “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”.
In the episode, “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”, the plot begins with the titular Frasier Crane wanting to be named president of an elitist wine club, which leads to him preparing his apartment to host a wine tasting. Frasier is finishing up the latest broadcast of his psychiatry radio show, and he makes the announcement to his producer, Roz Doyle (played by Peri Gilpin). As the two of them trade wisecracks and Frasier says that this is important for him, Roz replies “Since when? You used to say that club was nothing but a bunch of arrogant cork sniffing snobs”. “Well, that was before I got in”, quips Frasier. When the scene ends, we transition to Frasier back at his apartment with the rest of the main cast: Frasier’s fellow psychiatrist brother named Niles (played by David Hyde Pierce), their father and retired cop named Martin (played by John Mahoney), Martin’s hired housekeeper and physical therapist named Daphne Moon (played by Jane Leeves), and Martin Crane’s dog named Eddie (portrayed using two Jack Russell Terriers named Moose and Enzo). Frasier and Niles Crane are in the middle of readying the apartment for the wine tasting.
Right as the preparations are nearly complete, Frasier’s plan is figuratively scratched, when his brother accidentally leaves a literal scratch on his wood floor. Frasier notes that Martin’s beloved recliner chair is out of place and tells Niles to help him hoist it into Martin’s room. But being the prissier and physically weaker of the two brothers, Niles quickly buckles under the chair’s weight and drops it, scratching the wood floor. Martin sees no big deal. But Frasier is mortified: “Dad, you have no idea how critical these people can be. They love finding fault”. Niles offers, “there is still hope. I’ll bring my contractor by in the morning. Man’s a genius”.
And so begins Frasier’s quest to hire the contractor Joe DeCarlo, in order for his repairmen to fix the scratched floor and leave before all the guests arrive. Frasier requests that work be done by 5:00 sharp, with his guests arriving at 7. Frasier is pleased to hear that Joe expects to be finished by noon. One of the episode’s additional subplots involves Joe piquing Daphne’s romantic curiosity. This unsettles Niles, who spends the early seasons being secretly infatuated with Daphne and getting caught in various antics over it. He impulsively insinuates to Daphne that Joe is a womanizer, until his ethical conscience catches up to him and he clumsily tries to fix it.
When Frasier returns to his apartment later, he is bewildered and horrified to see that the workload has unexpectedly escalated. The scene begins with him in the elevator, happily conversing with two other repairmen. “Someone remodeling?”, he asks. “Nope. Bad wiring in one of the condos”, replies the first one. Frasier lets them know about the important guests he is inviting over tonight and asks if they will be done with the noisy work by evening. “Nah. Can’t make any promises. We’re here as long as this poor sap is willing to pay us”, answers the second. Frasier chuckles with them as they all leave the elevator… until he realizes they are all walking to the same door. Frasier suddenly hears the sounds of power drills and sees more workers inside: “What is happening!?”. Joe is still here: “Sorry about this, Dr. Crane. But when I plugged in the sander and started on the floor, you blew a circuit”. “So naturally you’re sawing a hole into my wall!?”, remarks Frasier. “When the circuit blew, it started a fire. You got some real bad wiring in here”, clarifies Joe. Meanwhile, the background subplot with Niles progresses. At one point, Frasier questions him on something and points out, “we both know that… that you must be telling the truth because… you’re such a slave to your ethics that even the slightest transgression would cause your nose to bleed”. Right at that moment, Niles claims his nose isn’t, suddenly sniffs through his nose, gets called out by Frasier, and claims he made a snort of contempt. But Frasier points out that a snort is outward and not inward, then Niles admits to not being straight with him. Afterwards, Frasier heads out for work and has Joe’s word that his apartment will be perfect by 5:30, when he returns.
When Frasier returns to his apartment again after work, he peers through his doorway and bugs his eyes out, upon seeing even more workers, some scaffolding, and his ceiling opened up with a guy working on it named Cecil. When questioned, Joe explains “When we opened up the wall to get at the faulty wiring, we found the gas pipes leading to your fireplace were cracked… had to be fixed”. When a dismayed Frasier asks “Tonight!?”, Martin wittily chimes in: “I okayed it. It just seemed wiser to do it before the explosion”. But the countdown is still ticking, for Niles shouts “Frasier, the club members arrive in forty-five minutes!”. Adding to the chaos, the Niles and Daphne subplot continues, with that segment even being titled “The Clot Thickens”. Niles and Martin see Daphne rebuffing Joe, because of Niles’ insinuations, which gives him a nosebleed attack and creates another thing to clean up. “Only the truth shall make you clot,” warns Frasier. While Niles tries to come clean with Daphne by the bathroom, they are interrupted by another worker named Bruce. Bruce asks for another available bathroom, is offered to use the master bathroom, and drops an indiscreet reference to his personal life before going, which makes it easier for Niles to vindicate Joe of being promiscuous and get the two back together.
Things are getting right down to the wire. When Frasier returns to Martin with a cut face, he rants: “I cut myself because I was shaving without water. And why was there no water? Because I had to move your chair, which gouged the floor, which made me call for Joe, who found bad pipes, which called for Cecil, who ate the cat that killed the rat that lived in the house that Frasier built!”. He then learns from Daphne that the guests’ vehicle has just arrived: “It’s over. Sing, fat lady, sing”. As an improvised saving throw, Martin gathers some hundred dollar bills from the brothers and offers it to the workers, if they pack up and leave soon enough. The workers pull it off, Frasier and Daphne are grateful to Martin and Niles, then Daphne heads out with Joe on a date.
Frasier’s guests finally arrive and everything has been cleared, at least seemingly. We cut to the POV of Frasier’s guests, which include some high-up politicians. They see the door open to reveal Frasier welcoming them to his “humble abode”. But suddenly, it turns out that the worker named Bruce was still in the bathroom and has only just now come out, appearing behind Frasier in front of his guests with a bare cardboard roll: “You know you’re out of T.P. in the can?”. Cut to the end credits, during which Niles now tries to help Frasier move Martin’s recliner back where it was. As the ending song plays over mute footage, Niles once again struggles with the weight, accidentally dropping the chair on Frasier’s wood floor again and hurting himself multiple times.
On a slightly humorous and more uplifting note, I could not help but notice that the way this "Frasier" episode's plot plays out seems to mirror the way God sometimes answers our prayers. We sometimes turn to God, asking to care for a relatively minor and/or superficial "scratch" that is bothering us. But when we allow God to get to work on our lives, he sometimes turns out to be interested in the deeper "faulty wiring" and "cracked gas pipes" in our lives or hearts, which we do not know or do not care about immediately. So we end up getting more than we bargained for, and at first, that can seem very much unwanted. Yet this other work turns out to be just as important, if not more important, than what we originally asked him to help us with. We may find ourselves grateful for that in the long run. Similarly, there are times where we might be annoyed that the "scratch" even came up and became another thing that requires our attention. That is, until we realize that us getting to work on that is what led to us realizing and getting help on those deeper things going on with us. In the long run, I imagine Frasier is a lot happier than he would be, had they not been privy "to do it before the explosion".
Me coming across that DVR-recorded rerun of "Frasier" seemed like perfect timing, since it is the start of 2025 and I have been coincidentally reminiscing on the my life's progress these past two years... along with how God seems to have been working on my life in a similar manner as Joe DeCarlo's team works on Frasier's apartment. At around the end of 2022, my life journey was in a stagnant state. While thinking about Bishop Barron's sermons on the "invasion" of God's grace and the way Jesus enters the boat of Simon Peter, I started praying to God. I expressed that I had no idea what I should do next with my life and asked that God would send something to "invade" my current livelihood, so I can be reactively steered closer to where he wants me to be. Shortly afterwards, at the start of 2023, something inconvenient occurred related to my job. That "scratch" on my "wooden floor" involved my workplace suddenly requiring my coworkers and I to get some personal information re-verified and re-submitted for the company. Some of my coworkers and I were quite annoyed at the apparent pointlessness of it. But in the process of getting my reevaluation, I ended up meeting someone who entered my life and became a very helpful life coach for me. This was the catalyst to me having the advice and encouragement to start branching out and progressing in other areas of my life, over the next two years. The talks he gave started to help me tend to the "wiring" and "pipes" in my life, when I was originally feeling irritated by the "scratch" I set out to address.
Besides the first “scratch” I elaborated on in the previous paragraph, there was a second one I addressed during those last two years. I spent a lot of my young adult years grappling with that second "scratch" in my life, which I wanted God to remove just so things could go back to being easy and making sense as they seemed before. However, it is as if God wanted me to open up to him more and recognize my need to have some "faulty wiring" and "cracked pipes" underneath the "scratch" be addressed, rather than settling for just the scratch's removal. In the Summer of 2023, I finally made it a point to follow my father's example and start aiming for Confession every two weeks. It became an opportunity for me to practice relying more on God's grace and spending more quality time with him in the sacraments. From there, I allowed myself to undergo further revelations and welcome God's help in fixing those deeper facets. While that second "scratch" is still there, God fixing the "wires" and "pipes" associated with it has helped me to accept the inconvenience of the "scratch" with a much better attitude and rest assured that the far more important things were addressed.
In fact, even the way I came across this very Locals community is as though God gave me a gift I never knew I wanted, along the way of tending to yet another issue I perceived. Originally, I spend a great deal of 2024 looking for ways I could try to reach out to Catholic apologists I have followed, such as Christopher West, Father Mike Schmitz, Trent Horn, and Matt Fradd. I wanted to reach out to one of them, in order to share some questions and concerns that were weighing on my mind. Towards the end of 2024, I did manage to finally reach out to Trent Horn on his Catholic Answers Live podcast and at least have a conversation with him about the subject, which helped me feel a lot better. During the preceding Summer of 2024, when I was still in the middle of searching, I happened to discover the link to Matt Fradd's online Pints With Aquinas community on Locals. It is then that I got the idea to join this community. From there, I got to meet a lot of good fellow Catholics, interact with Matt Fradd for other things, find a lot more people to pray for and receive prayers from, plus discover a new hobby in writing posts like this weekly "Pop-Cultured Catholic" series. All of this happened, as a detour to me setting out to address a third issue on my mind. It is as if God used my concerns about an unrelated topic to lead me here, and I am happy to have found this community. Thank you all, and here's to a hopefully great new year of 2025. God bless… and goodnight, Seattle.
🎶 Hey baby, I hear the blues a-callin'. Tossed salads and scrambled eggs. Quite stylish… And maybe I seem a bit confused. Yeah maybe, but I got you pegged! Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha! But I don't know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs. They're callin' again. See you next year, we love ya! 🎶
And by the way, these were the only two clips of the episode I was able to find, during a brief search on YouTube...
1.) When Niles Accidentally Gets the Floor Scratched:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8bDxHekTVc
2.) Frasier's Rant About "...the house that Frasier built!":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuTuf444Th8
