As I slowly age this has become my favorite episode. I first saw it on its original air date when I was nineteen years old. The statement of the human condition to which it relates was unknown to me then, but as I aged he wisdom of the writing becomes clearer and clearer. Usually, the political and social messages contained in most episodes was especially for the times poignant and direct, But this time the message was socially romantic and certainly not political. Edith is attending a class reunion with Archie and prior to her attendance she romantically muses about the past to her entire family. She looks back to a time of youth her own "Splendor in the Grass" moments. She speaks of a young, beautiful Adonis named Buck Evans and wonders if he will be at the reunion as well as what has become of this "masculine giant of her youth" Archie thinks of her classmate as a potential rival for his wife. Edith of course, is relating stories of a man in his prime and Archie in his minds eye only views Buck according to Edith's accounts as a virile Herculean young man. At the reception Archie runs into Buck and finds him to be exactly the opposite of what Archie imagined. Just like Archie, Buck is now an extremely overweight bald middle aged man. Archie is gleeful as this potential rival is in worse physical shape than he and he immediately finds Edith and as he places them face to face for his triumph he is shattered when Edith immediately (with a sigh as well as a young girl's passion) recognizes him. So you are asking; what is the point? The point is that Edith still sees him as "Adonis" and not the "old fart" that stands before her. Buck too does not see Edith as an old matronly woman. He sees her as the (pre Archie) young Edith Baines. The world has turned over many times since I was 19 but I understand and appreciate this episode every time I attend a reunion or meet an old classmate. "If youth knew and age could do" sayeth George Bernard Shaw!
Review of Class Reunion
