Joel (Rob Morrow) is a little out of sorts when it seems that everyone in Cicely has been invited to Maurice’s (Barry Corbin) celebratory dinner except him.

The Big Feast was written by Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green. It first aired on 22 March, 1993.

The whole town is gearing up for the party, but Shelly’s (Cynthia Geary) anxiety goes through the roof when she accidentally breaks a very expensive bottle of wine imported for the party. How’s that going to resolve itself?

Well in typical Northern Exposure ways. Eccentrically.

As Maurice slowly gets increasingly upset by things not going as smoothly as he likes, Adam (Adam Arkin) and Eve (Valerie Mahaffey) return to town with their newborn. Adam, being a masterful chef is able to help out, and Eve helps figure out a way to help Shelly’s wine problem.

Joel confronts Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips) and then Maggie (Janine Turner) about where his invitation is, since both of them help with mail delivery.

Everything, of course, works out smoothly for everyone by story’s end, and it just ends up being a nice episode seeing the town of Cicely coming together in celebration.

I like Shelly’s story throughout the tale, but Joel’s story reduced him to the cranky, New Yorker who he was at the beginning of the series. He doesn’t feel like he’s been there for some time now. Yes, he’s still the outsider, but he’s also been accepted by the town. This story didn’t really work for him.

But it’s still a very fun episode.

Kaddish, for Uncle Manny first aired on 3 May, 1993 and was written by Jeff Melvoin.

When Joel’s uncle passes, Cicely has to come together to help find ten more Jews so he can say kaddish.

There’s some other fun stuff as well, Chris (John Corbett) and his brother Bernard (Richard Cummings Jr.) help solve a century-old feud with another family, and Marilyn (Elaine Miles) asks Holling (John Cullum) to be her Cajun dance partner.

Maurice works to organize people to sit with Joel, and sends out the call far and wide for any of the Jewish faith to help Joel out. He runs it like a military operation, and the town gets completely involved.

This gives Joel a chance to see how wonderful a small town environment can be. But will it mean the same if it’s just a bunch of people he doesn’t know? So perhaps it isn’t about the faith, but the community.

And the stuff with Holling and Marilyn is just wonderful. And Shelly is trying to deal with how she feels about that. It’s a fun little story arc, and allows the characters to grow nicely.

Finally, I love how Bernard sorts out the feud, and does it without throwing a punch, which he kind of regrets. But not a lot.

We’re coming up on the end of season four, and the show remains fun, engaging, and hart-warming filled with great characters and moments.