Episode Info

Final: 5x13 -- Letting Go (Jun/25/1980)

Buddy disappears from home after Doug interferes in her new romance with a handsome medical student.

Cast

Sada Thompson As Kate Lawrence	James Broderick As Doug Lawrence
Gary Frank (1) As Willie Lawrence	Kristy McNichol As Letitia "Buddy" Lawrence
Elayne Heilveil As Nancy Lawrence Maitland (S01)	Meredith Baxter As Nancy Lawrence Maitland (S02-S05)
Quinn Cummings As Annie Cooper Lawrence (S04-S05)

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1x1: The Best Years recap: Lawrence's older daughter Nancy is shown coming home early to find hubby Jeff in bed with her best friend. Then the opening credits roll as Nancy speeds off to mother. Mother Kate Lawrence (Sada Thompson) tells Nancy (Elayne Heilveil) that a successful marriage requires setting aside one's individual pride. But this belated advice, for whatever it is worth, comes from a woman who has harbored a grudge against her husband for exactly that same infidelity. And Mama Kate is living proof that simply setting aside one's pride can make you the scourge of the family as she has been for 20 years. Forgiveness is never mentioned. Instead Kate and Nancy have to change Jeff from his spoiled, rich-child ways. In the meantime, the Lawrence son, Willie(Gary Frank), is doing his 13-year-old sister's math homework as if it were perfectly legal, letting her also drive the car as if it were perfectly legal and sassing his mother along with other signs of barely tolerated respect. Buddy, the young sister, knows all about what abortion means . So when she overheard her mother say she had tried to track down an abortionist when she was carrying Buddy, Buddy runs away in the car, vandalizes a greenhouse, is picked up by the police and is bailed out by her father before morning. On the way to and from jail, the background music is spirited drum rolls and playful flutes which brighten the charge of breaking and entering and assault into a mere juvenile adventure. Buddy gets a reconciliation with her mother when Kate told her she — Buddy — is important because: "You're the chance life has given to me to be better, to do better".. read more.

Crew

Creator: Jay Presson Allen
Executive Producer: Leonard Goldberg, Mike Nichols, Aaron Spelling
Producer: Edward Zwick, Carroll Newman, Nigel Evan McKeand, Carol Evan McKeand, Marshall Herskovitz
Music: Pete Rugolo, Mark Snow

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Recurring Guests