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 Frank
Armsted enters the Lockridge mansion as a new milkman and, soon, new toy
of the priceless Lionel Lockridge.
While
his wife is suffering from temporary blindness and that their
relationship is in jeopardy, Lionel asks Frank to play the suitors for
Augusta in order to restore confidence in herself and in her seductive
ability. To do this, Frank has one thing to do : to read the love
tirades that Lionel has written for him and especially to stop
blundering and saying too much, as he turns out to be used to. As from
his first meeting with Augusta, Frank, under her spell, gets hooked by
the game of seduction and forgets Lionel's
lines to invent for himself a past as a retired astronaut, used to make
journeys to the Moon.
Frank,
however, is regularly requested by Lionel, and begins to believe in a
possible romance with Augusta. But when she gradually regains sight, she
discovers that Frank is actually a puppet whose wires are constantly
drawn by her husband. Augusta decides to deceive him during one of
Lionel's
sting operations, where he makes her believe by many artifices that
Frank leads her by plane in a luxury hotel for an intimate evening
getaway. Away from Lionel's eyes, she pretends to offer herself to Frank
and simulates orgasm. Lionel, who can not hold it longer, discovers that
Augusta regained her sight, and Frank finds himself put aside, with no
more frantic romantic to dream of.
Frank,
for a few episodes again, stays temporarily alongside Lionel, with whom
a certain complicity get established, despite the ridiculousness into
which he plunges at each appearance, too kind, nervous and especially a
little simple-minded.
He
comes back one last time in 1985 on the occasion of Christmas to bring
gifts to the Lockridges.
Unexpectedly,
Frank makes a surprise come-back in 1988, a few hours before Gina DeMott
Capwell and Keith Timmons' wedding.
Whereas he has just robbed the district attorney's office in search of (fake
!) jewelry, Frank takes Keith as hostage with a gun. But always inclined
to kindness and senseless reactions, he finally agrees to drive him to
his church, tied up and stressed out.
We
can only regret that Lionel is then absent from the show and that this
absence has deprived us of new incongruous come-backs of a hilarious and
very endearing character.
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