A Word to the Wiseguy is the 15th episode of Season 3 on NBC series Frasier.
Synopsis
MOB JUSTICE – In spite of his separation from Maris, Niles hopes to make a friendly gesture by getting Maris off the hook for her $8,000 debt in outstanding parking tickets. Niles inadvertently enlists the help of the mob when he finds a guy (Harris Yulin) to "fix" the debt.
Recap
An arrest warrant has been issued for Maris for driving recklessly through the city, failure to appear at her trial and a huge back log of unpaid parking tickets. A first, Niles asks Martin to put some of his old police connections to use, but he refuses. At KACL, Roz gives Niles the number to Jerome Belasco, a "fixer" who helped one of her exes out of some troubles with the law. Niles decides to give him a call, but Frasier takes the number from him because he thinks it will just make the situation worse. However, Niles convinces him to give it back, saying helping Maris out of her problem will renew her respect for him. After calling Jerome, Niles, with Frasier as his "backup", meet him at a café and get him to make a phone call, instantly making Maris' warrant disappear, and promise to return the favor someday. Not long afterwards, Frasier and Niles come back from squash practice only to find Jerome in Frasier's apartment. To return the favor for helping Niles, he asks Frasier to convince his fiancée, Brandy, into marrying him when she calls his show. Fearing that Jerome will respond by harming Frasier, he agrees to do so.
Not long afterwards, Brandy does indeed call Frasier on the air. At first, he does as Jerome asked, even after she complains that he's often neglectful, she suspects him of cheating on her and he is too quick in bed. When she finally complains that Jerome doesn't allow her to get a job and start a career, Frasier decides to do the right thing and tells her not to marry Jerome. Later the same day, he and Niles meet Jerome at Café Nervosa. He clarifies that, though Brandy suspected him of cheating on her, he has never been unfaithful. He also explains that he has called in favors over the years to get Brandy over a dozen jobs, but she got fired from all of them. Because that made her unhappy, he didn't allow her to get any more jobs. Luckily, he has been able to convince her to marry him after all - if he finds her a job she can't lose. In the end, Niles becomes forced to hire Brandy as a secretary at his office, despite her incompetence.
Guest starring
- Faith Prince as Brandy (caller)
- Randy Travis as Steve (caller)
Title Cards
- The Little Commodore
- A Word to the Wiseguy
- Doesn't Everyone Have Poi Ramekins?
Trivia
- The title is A play on "a word to the wise", the Anglicized form of "verbum sapienti satis est".
- The phrase 'listen, wise guy' is also often used in old timey gangster films.