Episode Comparison: Meet the Guirilinis (Riptide)

(I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures in this post. I own season 3, but not season 2, and the copy I was looking at was sub-par, to say the least. The edges all fell off the screen.)

I’ve been trying to think of a post for another series, but my mind is still stuck in Riptide mode and thinks I should do a comparison post of the two episodes featuring the Guirilini family: Arrivederci, Baby and The Pirate and the Princess.

First of all, I come from a slightly unusual background in that I saw the second episode first, due to chasing down Christopher Cary’s wonderful guest-spot. It was my introduction to that adorableness that is Riptide. I watched several other episodes from season 3 and then decided that I’d really like to see the first episode with the Guirilinis. I have a great love for recurring characters, just as I do for oneshot characters.

The family consists of three: father Angelo and his two children, Tony and Giovanna. It’s unknown what happened to his wife, but since she’s never around or mentioned, she’s likely either divorced from Angelo or dead.

I’m not sure where I came up with some of the odd perceptions I had before seeing Arrivederci, Baby. The strangest was probably thinking that in the first episode, the Riptide detectives helped the Guirilinis get started on their career and even named the boat. Arrivederci, Baby sounded like a name Nick might give a boat, rather than Cesar Romero’s Angelo Guirilini.

But that first episode establishes that the Guirilinis are already highly successful oceanographers and already have their signature boat. It also establishes Cody’s crush on Giovanna Guirilini, something only briefly touched on in the second episode.

The first episode shows us Cody and Nick’s first meeting with the family. It’s Murray who knows them from the past, something that also surprised me. I assumed the groups had only ever met together, rather than only one of the detectives being previously familiar with the Guirilinis.

Both episodes are filled with adventure and excitement and mysterious sabotage aboard the Arrivederci. The second episode, however, mostly focuses entirely on the mystery aspects, while the first episode has a rather prominent subplot concerning Cody’s crush on Giovanna and his desperate quest to speak Italian. Nick’s ability to speak it at least semi-well is a running joke throughout. He and Giovanna even have a couple of playful conversations in Italian around Cody, exasperating him to no end.

The first episode also has an amusing running joke involving Murray’s sister Melba, who is absent due to being on a safari in Africa. The crewmembers ask about Melba and are disappointed to learn she won’t be there. Later, when Tony Guirilini wakes up from being injured, Angelo reports that his first conscious word is “Melba.”

There are a couple of oddities about Tony that remain consistent for both episodes. Whether or not it was intentional is unknown.

Tony has very little screentime in both episodes, and when he is onscreen, he doesn’t often talk. In Arrivederci, Baby, Tony is shot with a spear gun while diving right at the beginning of the episode. There’s an alarming and sickening shot of blood beginning to spread through the water. Later, he stumbles to where Angelo and Giovanna are having a party and collapses on the floor.

Tony’s condition remains a background plot point through the rest of the episode, with Angelo furious to not be allowed in to see his son at the hospital and later wondering whether to cancel their expedition altogether because of what happened. Giovanna convinces him that Tony would not want that and they should go ahead.

Tony only actually speaks in the epilogue, where he’s released from the hospital and reunites with everyone. His left arm is in a sling to immobilize his wounded shoulder. He seems like a nice, good-natured person, in spite of what happened to him.

In The Pirate and the Princess, Tony has a bit more screentime but still doesn’t often talk. He translates Captain Scofield’s Maritime Association records into English from the Italian printout on their computer. Later, he rushes in excitedly with Murray and speaks in Italian to Angelo and Giovanna, telling them that they’ve found the location of the sunken pirate ship.

Several times Tony is in a scene but is silent. The last we know of him, he’s staying behind in the main cabin tending to the badly wounded Scofield while everyone else works on sending the bomb to their enemies before it blows up.

Tony is also rather unlucky in that he’s hurt in both episodes. The first time is definitely the most serious. In the second episode, he’s bit by an eel that swims out to attack when they try to retrieve their miniature submarine. He has to go to the hospital to have it treated, but then he’s released and is on the ship for the rest of the episode, complete with a bandaged arm.

You know, I just thought of another, rather strange thing. It seems that on Riptide, injuries to the left shoulder are highly favored. Both Tony and Scofield are wounded there, and Cody is shot there in the episode Echoes.

Tony’s sister Giovanna is an interesting person. She is a determined and practical Italian woman, the voice of reason in both episodes when Angelo doesn’t want to go ahead with something. In some ways, it may seem unfeeling for her to say that they should go on the expedition while Tony is in the hospital. But her reasoning makes sense and she is thinking of Tony, knowing how he would hate to be responsible for bringing such an expensive expedition to a halt.

She worries about Angelo’s tendency to like everyone, knowing it can get him into trouble. But she was unsuspicious of both Harry the Oilman and Guido, who were highly crooked, while being suspicious of Captain Scofield. Both Harry and Guido were, she thought, above suspicion and genuinely cared about them.

She is a kind and somewhat playful person, very friendly with the Riptide detectives and amused by Cody’s crush and Murray’s boundless enthusiasm (and terrible attempts at Italian). She is loving towards Guido and tries to help him into his diving gear. Later, they’re relaxing together on a couch in the main cabin.

She is fully involved in the oceanography operations. The first episode shows us that she is a diver just like her brother. For some reason, she doesn’t dive in the second episode, leaving that up to her beau Guido instead.

She is proud of her Italian heritage and very close to her family. In the first episode, she is fully into the celebration being thrown and dances with her father.

She is instantly aware that Cody has a crush on her, and his awkwardness about it seems to gently amuse her. At the end of the episode, she accepts a dinner date with Murray. While Cody kept thinking he needed to ask her in Italian if he wanted to impress her, Murray just came out with asking her in English and she was happy to accept.

She’s dating filmmaker Guido in the second episode, but that goes sour upon the revelation that he, and not Captain Scofield, is the traitor in the group. He is promptly killed by the wounded Scofield to prevent him from planting a bomb in the engine room.

In the fantasy sequences in the same episode, she plays the Spanish princess Carlotta while Cody plays pirate captain William Tyson. This is the only time where they’re shown to actually be together. In reality, it’s unknown what would become of Cody’s interest in her. He expressed happiness for her with Guido, but by the end of the episode she’s been betrayed and is sorrowing over her loss. Perhaps if the show had been renewed for a fourth season, we would have seen her again and there might have been a renewal of Cody’s attempts to date her.

Angelo is a cheerful and happy man, proud of his family and in love with his work and the ocean. He can become understandably furious when calamities ensue, such as not being allowed to see Tony in the hospital, or when people he trusts turn against him. But in spite of setbacks, he seems to continue believing in the goodness of people and doesn’t become cynical and distrusting.

It’s Angelo’s longtime friend Harry the Oilman, played by Dana Elcar, who is the Big Bad of Arrivederci, Baby. In The Pirate and the Princess, Angelo’s trust in Captain Scofield is shown to be justified, while the traitor is Guido. Angelo berates himself for trusting the man.

It’s good that Captain Scofield wasn’t at fault, for more reasons than one. It would be exasperating if everyone Angelo put his trust in, aside from the main characters, ended up being an enemy.

Angelo has an amusing and endearing habit of giving many of his close friends strange nicknames. Murray Bozinsky is “Bozin the Doctor”, while Nick and Cody are “Nick the Pilot” and “Cody the Mustache.” Cody expresses dismay to Nick at one point in the first episode, saying he feels like shaving. But they appear to get used to the pet names. I have to curiously wonder what Angelo might call Scofield, if they continue to associate and become friends!

Both episodes are so much fun and highly remind me of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book series, as well as the television classic Sea Hunt. While I’ve loved every episode of Riptide that I’ve seen so far, and find it to be one of the most charming and innocent series of the 1980s, the Guirilini episodes, especially The Pirate and the Princess, will always hold an extra-special place in my heart.