| Taps | |
| Season 06, Episode 24 | |
| Air Date | May 13, 1997 |
| Writer | Bruce Ferber Lloyd Garver |
| Director | Peter Bonerz |
| Previous | The Feminine Mistake |
| Next | The Kiss and the Kiss Off (season finale) |
Taps is the twenty-fourth episode of the sixth season. First aired on ABC in the United States on May 13, 1997.
Plot[]
A burnt-out Jill tells her father, Colonel Patterson, who wants to come visit, that she's sick. However, when he dies a few days later, Jill is overwhelmed with regret. Tim helps Jill and the boys cope with their grief.
Storyline[]
Jill has finished a hectic quarter at college, and now needs some personal time. So, when her father calls in wanting use up some expiring flyer miles, and fly in for a visit, she lies that she's feeling sick, so he won't visit. However, days later, Jill finds out that her father has had a heart attack and died, and she is beside herself with guilt and regret; a matter that is not helped when she flies down to Texas to help with the funeral arrangements, and her mother and sisters baby and coddle her still thinking she's sick. At the funeral, the minister talks about the Colonel, and how he always valued honesty, which only makes Jill feel worse. Finally, she confesses to her mother that she was never sick, but that she simply needed her personal time that week, and assumed he wouldn't understand. Her mother understands Jill's feelings, as the Colonel could be very stubborn at times, but they both still loved him deeply, and they know he loved them, and that he wouldn't have wanted Jill to beat herself up over a small thing like that.
Meanwhile, Tim, who comes down to Texas with the boys a day later for the funeral, has to deal with the various ways the boys deal with the loss, namely Randy's tendency to make jokes about it. Although Tim understands it's Randy's way of coping, he warns Randy not to make those jokes at the funeral. In the end, Jill is grateful for Tim's support through the whole ordeal, and even Tim is surprised that he handled things so well, feeling sorry that it took such an ordeal for him to show his truly caring and dependable side.
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