After listening to the replay of the show, and having some time to digest what we heard at 2 a.m. on Friday, I feel I can better describe how I feel about Maureen leaving, and the events of Friday's show.

To summarize, Lino offhandedly mentioned that Fr. Jim was named in the acknowledgments of his book "Sinner" (pre-order links on the side of the page) but Maureen was not, with Lino saying that he felt like he could trust Fr. Jim more. After some bickering back and forth, with Maureen hurt beyond belief that Lino included people like Secular Jim in the book and not her, despite her working for Lino for years.

It was then revealed that Maureen is leaving the show AGAIN, with her news being the bad news that Lino was cranky about a few weeks ago. It wasn't something that Maureen actively sought, but an opportunity that just came up and pays a LOT more money for her to work at home. We can't speak for Lino at our blog, but we are very supportive of Maureen's decision: it's not as if fans of TCGS are pitching in for her retirement fund or savings account. If the job will give her and Danny better financial security, then she would be nuts to not go for it.

Throughout the final hour of the show, Lino and Maureen shared their true feelings on the matter, which seemed healthy for them (maybe not so much for the listeners). In short, Lino felt hurt and took the decision to leave personally. And to Lino's credit, he apologized for leaving her out of the book, saying that he didn't realize it would cause so much hurt (and is now putting her back in the book). It was the right thing to do, and constitutes one of the fan blog's three yearly allowances to say he was wrong (we have two posts left to do that).

And while we're generally supportive of Lino, we gotta ask, "Are you nuts?" How in the world WOULDN'T that hurt? I would be hurt if I was in Lino's shoes as well (heartbroken is how he put it), but it's not as if the friendship has to die when Maureen leaves the show. The feeling we got from listening is that Lino felt like Maureen was severing a friendship by leaving the show, whereas Maureen was sad to quit but just couldn't pass up a better opportunity. We hope that Lino and Maureen were able to fully patch things up before the weekend commenced.

Lino also said that he didn't want to do the show without Maureen. As nuts as this sounds, we see his point. Maureen isn't the on-air talent, but is a very integral part to it's success (go back and listen to shows without her in the producer chair for evidence of her value). There have been many instances of successful TV shows going into the ground after a popular character leaves. The quality varies (M*A*S*H stayed popular after McLean Stevenson left, but 8 Simple Rules after John Ritter's departure went south quickly), so if Lino felt like he couldn't create the best show possible without an integral character, then from that viewpoint I would say that Lino quitting would be a great idea.

We of course would be devastated if the show ended, and we all tune in for Lino Rulli first and foremost (so don't take this as saying that Lino by himself is crap). But from an entertainment standpoint, if Lino's show ended on a high note, that would be better closure for us fans than a show that dragged on and was gutted of all quality as time passed.

It wasn't clarified, but there's a good chance that Friday will be Maureen's last day on the radio. Thankfully I'm on vacation this week, so I'll hopefully get to enjoy her appearances more.