#any time rose or Blanche are the ones to hold Dorothy (because Dorothy is often on the giving end of hugs & things

[eeblouissant]

Ignoring the context of this scene because, lmao, but this still sends me into cardiac arrest every time

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Okay, now that I have a minute, let's think about this properly.

Agatha's coven on The Road has a total of six members: a potions witch (Jen), a divination witch (Lilia), a protection witch (Alice), a green witch (MRS HART OH MY GOD BRING HER BACK Rio), Agatha herself holding them all together, and Teen (who I'm including because E4 confirmed The Road considers him a part of the coven too).

However, the ballad (specifically the sacred chant version they used to access The Road) only mentions four witches as a requirement to open the gate:

Seekest thou the road to / all that's foul and fair? Gather sisters fire / water, earth, and air

Four witches, connected to the four elements. I don't think there's any confirmation of this, but Agatha and the others seem to consider the elements and their roles as synonyms (Agatha says 'I need a potions guy', not 'I need a water witch', when recruiting Jen -- but she's the one connected to water anyway), so I think we can do the same.

All this to say that the Golden Girls are exactly the right number and assortment of people to open The Road. Four are enough, and I'd categorize them like this:

Dorothy is the water/potions witch. I know, I know -- Dorothy tends to be seen as the protector of the group, but in Agatha All Along they put a lot of emphasis on knowledge, when it comes to this role; Jen manages to save them in E3 because she knows her stuff. Dorothy is the academic one of the quartet, so I'd say she's perfect for the position. She might not know how to make potions, but if anything, she's the one who's most likely to remember reading about the usage of this or that herb to cure this or that ailment in medieval times, so... Also, she's very rational: I'm pretty sure, unless we're going for an AU, that she'd have a hard time adjusting to the idea that magic is real, and potions magic is the one that feels less... magic-y to me (it can be rationalized as chemistry with pizzazz), so I think it's the one she'd latch onto.

Consequently, Blanche is the fire/protection witch. Blanche is fiercely protective when it comes to her loved ones (especially when she's not threatened herself). She's the only one to use actual physical violence to protect her friends! I think she also aligns with the element of fire pretty well — she's very passionate in everything she does, so it seems fitting. She doesn’t share Alice’s disposition to be in service of others, but, once again, we’re talking about her loved ones here — I think she’d find the impulsiveness, if not the courage, to fight. She believes in karma, in ghosts, and has a fairly open attitude to the supernatural in general, so I can see her taking well to things like protective circles and runes.

We don’t know much about the other two types yet, but I’d say that Sophia can take on the air/divination role. She’s often the one the girls turn to when they need advice, and she’s often right about said advice, although she usually chooses to express it through colourful stories with unclear interpretations. I feel like this is pretty similar to the oracles of Greek and Roman fame: people who divined the future and shared their visions through cryptic words, that the listeners interpreted as they wanted. I think she’d do pretty well! Besides, she is the oldest of the group and she is kind of wispy and kooky. If the shoe fits…

This leaves Rose as the earth/green witch. We don’t know a whole lot about green witches; we’ve barely seen Rio (who calls herself ‘the green witch’, may I add, so she’s likely a blueprint for the role) so far, and she hasn’t showed the full scope of her powers yet, I’m pretty sure. That being said, both Agatha’s pick of the late Not-Mrs-Hart (who was chosen while working on her garden) and Rio’s attitude when she was conjured on The Road (emerging from the ground, bringing flowers, appreciating the leaves and scenery) make me thing that a green witch is a witch that takes her power from nature, particularly plants and the soil, as befits the ‘earth’ connotation. None of the girls express a strong interest in gardening, but of the quartet, Rose is definitely the one who’s more in touch with nature! She was a scout when she was younger, she still leads a scout squad as an adult, she’s outdoorsy and a farm girl… I think she fits the role pretty well, as different from Rio as she is!

This is definitely not the only possible attribution of the roles (for example, Rose could fit as the water/potions witch too: she’s pretty knowledgeable on specific subjects, and she’d love the chance to heal people), but overall, these feel right to me. As opposed to Agatha’s coven, the girls are very close and in tune with one another, so I’d say they don’t need a fifth witch to bind them together.

In fact, I’m pretty sure they’d have no trouble opening the gate to The Road, even in a canon setting. There’s lots of ways to go about it — maybe Sophia pretends to be a witch to fool some people and make an easy buck, or Rose tries to retell the story and songs of the famed coven of St Olaf, or Blanche gets a spell book from the library as a prop to use with her sexy witch costume for their Halloween party… I can even see Dorothy accidentally performing the incantation: she decides they’re all going to sing the song to prove to the other girls that it’s all fake, and bam, there’s the door, witch. Whatever the case, they’d stumble their way through the challenges while discussing philosophical quandaries with their renowned humour, they'd have some heartfelt moments of growth, they’d beat demon Stanley with a steel chair, they’d get to the end unscathed, and they’d go home to have a good cheesecake to celebrate.

At least, this is if we want to stay on the general tone of The Golden Girls, but there’s lots of potential if we want to pivot to the atmosphere of Agatha All Along, too. The girls’ fears and traumas are more… metaphysical, in general, than their counterparts’ in Agatha’s coven, but there’s plenty to take inspiration from, if one wants to design actual challenges with a spooky-horror flair from them. Maybe they find an orphanage immersed in the cold, dark snow on their path? Maybe a hospital, or a church? A drive-in cinema, a big Southern house with a nice balcony? Maybe even the very house they live in? I don’t know — I’m not very good at writing horror, but there’s lots of material there, and I’m pretty sure in the right hands it could be transformed into some truly fascinating trials.

In any case, however they go about it, I’m pretty sure they would somehow manage to get to the end, and I think they’d use their wish for something silly but heartwarming. The show only says that 'The Road will give you the thing you want the most', and Agatha seems to think that means a whole lot of magical power, but I'm not as convinced as she is (or claims to be). She also implies that everyone who makes it to the end will receive the prize... which is not a guarantee either.

I think the end result of the Girls' trip along The Road would depend on their conditions when they enter it. They have lots of important things they might wish for (Blanche could wish to have her husband George back, for instance), but ultimately all of them arrive at the end of the series having made peace with their grief and regrets, and it would be narratively unsatisfying to undo this character growth (at least, to me). I think it's more likely for them to end up accidentally wasting their wish! Something like: they overcome yet another trial and Blanche says 'Lord, there's nothing I wouldn't give to take a nice, hot, steamy bath right now!'. They all agree... and they find themselves at home, in a nice, hot bath. Whoops, they hadn't realized they'd reached the end of The Road! If we start from a canon setting, they might not even know what reaching the end means, so we can forgive them for their carelessness, I'd say. :) Then again, we still haven't seen the end of The Road in the show, so there's plenty of room to speculate on how it really works!

This was such a fun idea to think about. Thank you so much for putting it out into the world, anon, it's brilliant!! If you (or anyone else) has any other ideas on this, I'd love love love to hear them!

Golden girls witches road au. Just putting the idea out into the world.

The first fear they face is Dorothy’s. It ends with Blanche, Rose, and Sophia beating a demon version of Stanley with a steel chair.

[occasionalfics]

Warrior, v (Thor x Reader)

part i | part ii | part iii | part iv

Summary: Everyone’s gearing up for the coming battle, but you learn something that changes everything.

A/N: So I had two sections that were not super short but not super long on their own. I could’ve posted them together, but that seemed like it would be almost too long for a single part, so instead, I’m posting them separately. That way, you guys get more Warrior for longer! 

Tags: @oknstark​ @httpmcrvel​ @a-girl-who-loves-disney​ @markusstraya​ @125bluemachine125​ @blvckxsoulz @jooheonie-bee (let me know if you want to be tagged!)

Words: 2,208 (like I said, not super short, not as long as the other chapters)

~~~ It appeared that Val was trustworthy after all. If she repeated anything of your story to Thor, he said nothing to you about it, at least. So you believed she kept the whole thing to herself, which you were grateful for. You would tell him, you insisted. One day. When he no longer mourned the death of his father and the loss of his home, you would tell him.

In the interim, you trained. Sometimes Thor trained, sometimes Val, but you had a long way to go before Thanos was to arrive. No one truly knew when that would be, just that he was on his way.

Captain America returned with the King of Wakanda as well as the Winter Soldier. You’d never met any of them - not even the Captain, truthfully. But you knew their fights were often fought for the greater good, so you took no offense. He seemed nice enough, if tense and maybe a bit protective of the Winter Soldier - who, at no point in your gazing at him, seemed like he needed protection. Tony Stark, however, glared at the man as if his eyes could make him explode.

The longer you trained, the more equipped for battle you became. It had been so long since you’d truly brandished your sword, too long since you’d joined an army. You slowly remembered why being a warrior had been so important to you on Asgard. It was your calling. You started to believe Val’s words when she said you would’ve made a good Valkyrie - perhaps not the best, but a Valkyrie nonetheless.

You said so to no one, but as the days dragged on, you wished Sif would arrive. You didn’t know if she would at all - how many of these Avengers did she know? How many times had she come to Midgard? Where was she, since Thor had assured you she hadn’t been destroyed by Hela the way Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg had?

For the first time in over an hundred years, you missed Asgard. Truly missed it - the place, not simply the people that had made it home for you. You missed it in your heart, in your bones, in your dreams. You missed its sunshine, its mountain ranges, the Bifrost...

Your dreams were starting to drive you crazy. Every night, it was the same - a dream you’d had when you’d landed in Norway that had stopped months after you’d become accustomed to living on Midgard. A dark shadow crept up a wall, into a bedroom, and wrapped you in its cold arms. It made sure to cover your mouth, to keep you from screaming. It jumped from the window with you in its arms, then ran across the palace grounds until it brought you to the Bifrost and Heimdall. It threw you at the ground, watched as you skidded across the floor until you hit the wall. Heimdall jumped, and the shadow took form. It was Odin.

“Traitor!” he screamed, just before you woke up, shivering and covered in cold sweat.

You took to the showers after the dream. There was no other choice but to clean yourself off and tend to the garden, no matter if it were four in the morning or nine.

You were out there one morning before the sun came up. You’d just pulled a weed from the plot of a tulip when the door behind you shut.

“It’s a little early to be pulling weeds, don’t you think?” Thor asked.

You quickly glanced at him over your shoulder, then shook your head before going back to work. “Can’t sleep,” you said.

His footsteps approached until he was beside you, standing at his full height while you kneeled before the plots. “Me neither,” he said, then he sat beside you and fiddled with the branch of a fern.

“Be careful with Dorothy, please,” you said. “She may look strong, but she’s quite frail against the hands of a God, especially one that wields lightning.”

He laughed softly. “Of course you named them,” he said.

You nodded to the plant in front of you. “This one is Blanche. That one,” you pointed to the rose plot next to you, “is Rose, obviously. The succulent next to Dorothy is Sophia.”

“Those are...peculiar names,” he said.

“They’re the cast of an old television show here,” you said. “The Golden Girls, because these four are my favorites. Just don’t tell Rock and Dean across the patio. They fancy themselves rebels without a cause.” You glared at the tomato and pepper plants by the door.

“Were you friends with these people?” he asked, still inspecting Dorothy’s leaves.

You shook your head. “Just a fan. The woman that played Rose is the only member of the cast still living. Hilarious woman, Betty White is. You’d love her.”

“If she’s anything like you, I’m sure I would.”

You stopped rummaging around Blanche and stared at him. You didn’t tell him that you were nothing like Betty White, but thought that surely, after 200 years and New Mexico, Thor had moved on. You would not hold it against him, nor hope against hope that he still held a flame for you. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise; Odin had made sure of that. You’d convinced yourself of it.

But then, people did not say things like that without meaning.

“Are you not scared of Thanos coming?” he asked.

Scared was not a word you thought was in his vocabulary. Thor was the bravest man you’d ever known. Sometimes he was so brave that he was stupid, but you didn’t mind that so much. It made his life interesting, to say the least. That’s what he would’ve said the last time you’d seen him on Asgard, anyway. You wondered what he’d say now, eyepatch, short hair, and all.

“Captain America had to bring the Winter Soldier out of a cryogenic slumber,” you said, sitting back on your heels. “Of course I’m scared. But we are large in number and ability.”

“He has the Infinity Stones.”

“Captain America?” you asked.

Thor shook his head. “Thanos. I know not how many he possesses, but he’s on a quest for them.”

You could feel your eyes go wide. “That’s why he’s coming, isn’t it?” you asked. You knew, somewhere in the compound, was a small glowing box that Loki had once possessed - all details you’d learned in the aftermath of what happened in Manhattan. The Tesseract.

“The Guardians gave the Orb to the Nova Corp. Sif and Volstagg gave the Aether to Taneleer Tivan, the Tesseract is here, and Vision…” He trailed off.

You’d had few interactions with the humanoid artificial intelligence named Vision, though you’d lived with him for some time. Your eyes widened when you thought of him, though. In the center of his forehead laid a small yellow gem.

“He is one of them, isn’t he?” you asked. “The Mind Stone.”

Thor nodded. “There are already too many here alone. Xandar will never be able to fend off Thanos from getting the Power Stone. He may have some trouble finding the Reality Stone in that museum of Tivan’s, but it won’t be long before he has that one, too. The Space, Mind, and Time Stones won’t be safe when he arrives. The latter is being kept by Doctor Stephen Strange, who should be arriving any day.”

“And the Soul Stone?” you asked.

He shook his head. “No one knows who has it or where it is. My best guess is that, if Thanos is not already in possession of it, he will be. Soon.”

You sat back further, your toes curling so they weren’t supporting your weight on their own anymore. It dawned on you that it would not matter how much you trained, if Thanos acquired all six Infinity Stones. Your nightmares seemed like nothing in comparison.

You hadn’t noticed until then, but your breathing had gone uneven. You leaned forward, digging your nails into the soil around Blanche. You couldn’t blink, could barely heave a breath past your throat, which was clogging with nothing. “There will be no stopping him,” you said, shaking your head as the rest of your body convulsed. Images of everything you had - everything around you - being destroyed, turned into dust, all flashed before your mind’s eye. “He’ll take everything.”

“We won’t let him,” Thor said, leaning forward to encroach on your quickly blurring vision.

“How?” you asked. “He’ll be too powerful. Who are we, compared to a tyrant with all six of the Stones? What could we possibly do if he has the Gauntlet?”

He had no answer. Of course he didn’t. There was no answer to give. There was only darkness, an abyss of nothing before you that was much worse than any shadow. It was all shadows combined with the object of exiling all life on Midgard.

You looked at him, forcing yourself to stop moving so much. “I spent so long waiting for you to come back to me,” you whispered. “And now that you have, it will mean nothing.”

Again, he was silent.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, looking at Blanche for a moment, unsure of who, exactly, you were apologizing to. Were you failing Thor or the plant by letting Thanos come and destroy all you held dear? Without an answer, you stood suddenly and turned back toward the door. “I have to go.”

He caught up with you before you had your hand on the doorknob. “Where are you going?” he asked, still quietly.

Your arms tensed, and your fists balled. You could hardly stand to have his hand on you. “I...I don’t know. I just...I can’t sit here and talk anymore.” You tried to reach for the door, but he wouldn’t budge. You glared at him as you said, “I have to do something.” Then you focused on the sleeve of his shirt, unsure of what would happen if you dared look at his eye for too long.

Would your resolve break? Would the world? Would it matter, now that you knew what Thanos was after? Everything else felt so miniscule and meaningless, but somehow that made you only more secretive and guarded. If divulging felt inappropriate before, it felt downright ludicrous now.

“What are you going to do on your own?” he asked. “What could you possibly think is going to change right now?”

You shut your eyes, took in a deep breath, then let it out. “I. Don’t. Know.”

His grip tightened. It almost hurt, but you were tense, and you knew that had something to do with it. “Please,” he said. “Before...before everything falls apart, I have to tell you something.”

You shook your head, glaring at the ground. “No, you don’t.” It would mean nothing. You could do nothing about whatever it was he wanted to say. At the end of the day or week or month, everything would be gone, and any action you took now would be absolutely null and void.

“(Y/N),” he said.

“Stop, Thor.” You allowed yourself to look him in the eye before you went on. “Something bigger than anything we’ve ever dealt with is coming. There’s no reason to waste your breath.”

“Breath cannot be wasted,” he mumbled, rolling his eyes at the absurd saying. When his eye met yours again, his brows were harshly furrowed, perhaps to make up for the lack of fire in the socket behind his eyepatch. The other eye burned hot as you looked upon him. “Why are you so insistent on denying the expression of my feelings?”

You paused. You’d known what he wanted to say, or at least some part of you did. But now was not the time - that you knew with absolute certainty. Now was the time to sharpen your sword, to somehow find a suit of armor, to say your goodbyes. If Thanos was heading for Midgard, where three of the six Infinity Stones could be found, there was no hope for tomorrow. Not anymore.

“Because there has always been a tyrant between us,” you said, your head suddenly too full and hot. Your vision blurred with tears that pooled along your lower lid. “Because there has never been a good time for us, Thor. And now…” A tear streaked across your face, and you wiped it away just as quickly.

He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. It wasn’t so much a comforting gesture, but rather a releasing of tension as a reaction to feeling hopeless. You just couldn’t figure out if he’d given up trying to talk to you, or if he’d stopped believing anyone could defeat Thanos.

“Fine,” he whispered, letting go of your hand over the doorknob. “You’re right. I apologize.”

You didn’t move at first. You searched his gaze for some reason, for an answer he couldn’t give. Or maybe you’d kept too many things from him, and he no longer trusted you with answers. Either way, he looked away from you, out toward the horizon, then stepped away from the door.

You opened the door, stepped through the threshold, then stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I promise that this is the last time I will ever hurt you, Thor Odinson.”

[one-of-us-blog]

Leaving the Lanai - A Golden Girls Retrospective

In this final post regarding The Golden Girls, Eli will flashback to his time covering the series at Drew’s insistence, summarize his thoughts on the program as a whole and the various escapades the girls have experienced, and answer the most important question of all: has he been converted into a full-fledged fan of the show?

Keep reading to find out…

I can’t believe we have reached the end of this phase of the blog!  Despite our progress slowing drastically in recent months, I can still remember when this crazy project started, and I still find it to be a lot of fun sharing this experience with Drew.  When this all kicked off, I think I made my feelings about The Golden Girls pretty clear.  To me, it was a fairly standard, multi-camera sitcom that I had watched here and there growing up.  I found it to be amusing, but I didn’t really identify with any of the characters (the fact that I was a young boy at the time that it aired probably had something to do with that), and I thought there were far better examples of shows to point to as representative of what I considered to be a fairly weak era of television.

I have now watched and summarized every episode of The Golden Girls, and I can safely say that my feelings have changed drastically.  If I’m being perfectly fair in my criticism, many of the complaints that I tend to have for shows of this kind still apply: they are often quite predictable, the multi-camera approach to sitcoms feels very dated, the plot is sometimes blatantly condensed to keep things safely in the ballpark of 22 minutes, and the events of one week generally have little to no impact on the events of the next.  But despite those limitations, this show somehow manages to transcend the disposable fare of similar programs of its day, and it has made a lasting impression on me.  It helps that I now have some actual life experience behind me, and that I have made some incredible memories with my own tight-knit group of friends (shoutout to the Honey Boys).  For the record, Drew, if we ever find ourselves old and all alone, I had better be the first person you call as a potential housemate.  But there is just something about the dynamic between these four actresses that was incredibly special, and the writing plays to their strengths in a major way.  Bea Arthur (still my favorite of the cast) is perfect as the hard and stoic but deeply caring Dorothy, Betty White (who could have easily played more of the Blanche type given her past roles and public persona) is wonderful as the naïve but kind-hearted Rose, Rue McClanahan (who surprised me the most in the series) fully embodies the selfish but passionate Blanche, and Estelle Getty (who I enjoyed turning into a monster in my head canon) had some of the most touching moments of all as the sharp-tongued but protective Sophia.  I think if you had exchanged even one of these actresses, the experiment probably wouldn’t have worked.  But thankfully, what we got was a genuinely hilarious and sometimes quite moving glimpse into the lives of four women who have gone far beyond friendship to become family.

When people latched onto this show again in recent years, it mostly felt (to me) like a trendy thing to do because it was ironically funny to be a fan of an older show about a bunch of older women.  I still think there is an element of that for some, but I understand now that there is a real reason that the show has maintained or reclaimed its popularity.  It just works, and it does so with a consistency that is pretty astounding.  It’s amazing to me that it found its groove almost instantly in its run.  While my favorite episodes fell somewhere in the middle of the show’s history, there wasn’t a weak season among the seven, and aside from the mysterious disappearance of Coco (for which Sophia eluded justice after all), it honestly hit the ground running from the very beginning.  This show has endured in a way that others cannot, and I have to give it credit for that.

So, am I now a die-hard fan of The Golden Girls?  I am definitely a fan, and I have no reservations at all about making that claim.  I don’t think I will ever be as fiercely loyal to it as some others, and there are still other classic sitcoms that I would personally rank higher based on my own preferences.  I don’t really feel the need to own any Golden Girls-related merch, or to memorize the contradictory details of the family histories of the characters.  But while I stop short of considering myself a “super fan,” I now have a genuine appreciation for what these ladies accomplished, and I think it’s safe to say that Drew has accomplished his goal.  My wife watched nearly every episode along with me, and my daughter turned into a big fan of the show along this journey as well, and the show became a real source of joy in our house, even when I felt way too busy to write another recap.  And what’s more, I will now forever connect The Golden Girls with my friendship with Drew, and that means it will always be near and dear to my heart.

Thanks, Drew, for undertaking this long, strange adventure with me, and for always being a positive force in my life!  The blog hasn’t reached its end just yet, as you still have quite a few James Bond films to examine, and I will still be knocking out the entirety of The Golden Palace, a show that will be a brand-new experience for me.  But I’m looking forward to seeing this project through to the end, and then finding out what crazy endeavor we decide to pursue in the future.

Next, I’ll be sharing my recap of the first episode of The Golden Palace, and then I’ll be holding my nose as Drew returns with his recap of the completely unofficial Never Say Never Again.  For now, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

[one-of-us-blog]

The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo (TGG, Season 4, Episode 2)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo, Episode 2 of the fourth season of The Golden Girls.  Will this episode be a glimpse into the sad, humdrum days of an aging woman, or will Sophia turn out to have the most exciting and fulfilling life of anyone in the household?  Keep reading to find out…

As always, let me begin by telling Jon what a fine job he did with his latest Doctor Who recap.  Great job, Cap!  I appreciated your impassioned plea on behalf of Slender Man, but let’s face it…these are all just tributes to The Blank from Dick Tracy, right?  I’m kidding, I’m kidding.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that two-parter, because the next episode is…well, not great, in my opinion.  I don’t want to color your perception too much, but it’s one of the episodes I never really bother going back to, even with the Treasure Island reference.  Your mileage may vary.  However, once you make it through the third episode, you’ll have one of the best episodes of the entire series on deck!  For now, it’s time for me to get to my own recap, so let’s head to Miami!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman, directed by Terry Hughes

It’s a rainy day in Miami, and Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose are prepared to settle in at home and enjoy it.  Sophia, on the other hand, is headed out to the market to do what she does every single day: buy a nectarine.  The girls worry that Sophia doesn’t have enough to do at her age to keep her occupied.  Rose and Dorothy wonder if she needs a hobby, but Dorothy doesn’t think this is the answer.  At any rate, she is happy that her mother still has the ability to go out and do things independently.  And speaking of doing things, the girls decide to spend their day productively by tackling household projects.  Perhaps they will line the kitchen shelves?  But first, they set their sights on eating some cookies.  Priorities, people.

Sophia is at the market, getting pretty assertive about nectarines with the man in charge of produce.  A friend of hers, another older lady, strikes up a conversation about the difficulties she has been having with returning food to the grocery store, and Sophia takes it upon herself to intervene.  Pretending to be an attorney and the CEO of various organizations representing the interests of the elderly, Sophia manages to talk the manager into a refund for her friend (of more than $1) and a discount on her own nectarine.  Honestly, she operates like a total badass.  On to the next adventure!

Back at home, the girls haven’t left the kitchen and Blanche is in the midst of tales of past affairs and floppy-eared hunks; you know what they say about the size of a man with big, floppy ears, right?  The girls don’t feel like lining shelves anymore, and try to come up with a new idea.  Blanche wants to rent an adult video, drink mimosas, and make out with pillows (sounds like a fun day to me), but she is vetoed.  Everyone decides on rearranging the furniture instead.  Okay, but do we have to skip the mimosas?

We cut back to Sophia, who is now organizing a jazz band in the park to raise funds for the senior center.  It already seems that she has quite the routine worked out!  Move over, Count Basie...this band is seriously swingin’!  Estelle Getty pretends that she knows how to conduct music, and people start handing over money as quickly as possible.  Sophia is still far from finished though, and has some items left on her daily agenda.

Still in the kitchen, the other girls have just finished off a pizza, and now Blanche is feeling sleepy.  They are determined not to waste any more time, however, and therefore immediately get started on a new round of stories.  This includes the rousing tale of how Pigpen Johansen ruined Founder’s Day in St. Olaf, and it’s clear that this one is going to go on for a while…

Sophia now shows up at the hospital for some volunteer work.  She gives a cartload of flowers and balloons to a sad old lady (I wonder who will be missing out on their deliveries as a result), chats with a young boy in a wheelchair, and offers reassurance to the people waiting on hospital patients.  She has a lot of work ahead of her, but it seems like she’s in her comfort zone.

Back at home, Rose is still rambling, but the gals have baked a cake.  Dorothy ironically goes back to worrying about Sophia staying active, concerned that her mother may not have the desire to get out and do things.  We get another small story about her grandmother’s political ambitions, and the girls resolve once more not to waste the day entirely.  Hey, let’s go watch Jeopardy!

Sophia is still at the hospital, hanging out with the little boy in the wheelchair and attempting to cheer him up.  The boy has a terminal illness and seems to have lost all hope of survival, but Sophia gives him her nectarine and a pep talk, telling him that he can’t give up hope because we never know what the future holds.

We go back home for one last nighttime scene, with Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose hanging on the couch in their pajamas, having done nothing all day.  Sophia returns home, and when they ask about her day, she keeps her various exploits to herself and tells them that she did the same thing she does every day…bought a nectarine.

The End.

I thought the season premiere was good, but this episode was even better!  Even if I slightly prefer Old Friends overall, this episode may have been the best showcase for Sophia yet.  As much as she seems to exit stage left on a regular basis in other episodes, only to pop back in later for a punchline, it was nice to get a glimpse of some of her activities.  I’m a sucker for a good band, and I really through Estelle Getty nailed the scene in the grocery store.  I also appreciated the irony of the other girls worrying about Sophia’s activity level at her age, while they proceeded to spend their day doing nothing other than eating and chatting, and Sophia was out raising funds and spirits.  I liked the fact that she kept her activities to herself as well.  But even the conversations back home were on point.  It often seemed that we were about to drift into a flashback, but the girls would just keep talking and stick the landing.  I can’t praise this one enough.  I heartily give The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo a score of 5 poofy hairdos!

Check back in tomorrow when Jon will give us his take on The Curse of the Black Spot, the next episode of Doctor Who, and I’ll be back on Tuesday with a recap of The One That Got Away, the next episode of The Golden Girls.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and or being One of Us!

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The Artist (TGG, Season 3, Episode 13)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap The Artist, Episode 13 of the third season of The Golden Girls.  Will this episode be an exciting new artistic achievement, or will it ultimately fail to meet the lofty expectations for genius that it establishes?  Keep reading to find out…

Jon, you did a fine job of recapping and analyzing Victory of the Daleks.  While I love my evil metal pals, I think you may have appreciated this particular episode just a bit more than I did.  I just can’t help but roll my eyes at those colorful Daleks.  At any rate, I’m glad that the new Doctor didn’t lose any ground in winning your favor, even if he didn’t gain any either.  And I’m particularly excited to get your take on the next two-parter, given that it features the most iconic villains that are exclusive to New Who, and perhaps a familiar face as well.  But if you’re excuse me, I need to disrobe and prepare for my own recap, so let’s head to Miami!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Christopher Lloyd, directed by Terry Hughes

Dorothy is watering her plants when Sophia arrives home wearing a trench coat, and nothing else.  She flashes her daughter, and explains that her dress got ruined during Bingo, due to a prank being played by some jokester named Maury Heseltein.  He took her clothes to be cleaned, and she was left wearing only a coat home.  Now, this entire story sounds pretty suspicious to me.  Seriously, who sends their clothes away for cleaning while they’re in public?  If I spill ketchup on my pants while I’m at work, I don’t finish the work day in my undies.  What actually happened here?  Did Sophia lose her clothing in a particularly scandalous scenario, or does she get some jollies out of being an exhibitionist?  I mean, she does admit that some passersby got a peek at the goods on her way home.  Rose enters and wonders what is happening, so Sophia throws a flash her way as well.  Thankfully, Sophia exits before Blanche arrives home with a gentleman friend.  Laszlo is an artist from the local museum, where they recently attended a lecture on sculpting.  The girls are all taken by him, and Laszlo admits that women often find him sexy because he’s an artist.  He gives them all kisses and departs, and Blanche reveals that Laszlo has asked her to pose nude for one of his sculptures which is going to be displayed at the museum.  Rose can’t believe she’s going to go through with it.

We jump ahead to morning, and Dorothy greets Sophia in the kitchen.  She walks right into Sophia’s prank-o-rama, as Sophia is testing out various gags to get back at Maury.  Sophia has a real aptitude for these duplicitous acts (surprise, surprise), but Dorothy’s own attempt to prank Blanche falls totally flat.  Laszlo shows up in the living room, and privately asks Rose if she will pose for him, as there are qualities he wants to capture that Blanche doesn’t possess.  Rose hesitates, as this seems like a potential betrayal of her friend, but she has a change of heart after Blanche insults her.

In the next scene, Sophia is still torturing her daughter with pranks in the kitchen, and manages to get her to sit on a whoopee cushion.  Blanche enters, clearly upset.  She sneaked a peek at Laszlo’s sketches, and they weren’t flattering at all.  It’s as if he thinks she’s a droopy old bag!  Rose confesses that she has been posing, which really sets Blanche off.  She gets even more insulting than usual as the two argue, until Dorothy reveals that she has been posing for Laszlo as well (to the surprise of absolutely nobody, I assume).

The reaction to Dorothy’s revelation is that Blanche is shocked, and Rose is relieved.  They all want to be immortalized, but Blanche thinks the other two are just moving in on “her man.”  He has apparently been telling each of them that they are his greatest artistic subject, which raises some flags.  Blanche attempts to be dignified, but this is compromised when she sits on the same whoopee cushion that Dorothy was subjected to earlier (and which was hopefully re-inflated by Sophia off-screen, because otherwise THAT’S NOT HOW WHOOPEE CUSHIONS WORK).  The girls all decide to boycott Laszlo as subjects, but when it’s clear that they don’t really mean this, they all decide to go to the artist and make him choose.  Oh, and Sophia brags about her butt muscles, since she doesn’t set off the whoopee cushion herself (EVEN THOUGH IT SHOULD ALREADY BE TOTALLY FLAT AND SO THERE IS NOTHING TO BE SURPRISED ABOUT HERE).

The gals confront Laszlo at his home, revealing that they all know the truth, but he insists that he would rather not decide between them.  All of the girls possess different qualities (and bosoms).  Blanche attempts to butter him up, but to no avail.  Laszlo chooses none of them.  Besides, he’s already got the goods on each girl in his sketchbook, and they’ll just have to wait and see the end result when his sculpture is unveiled.

At the party for the unveiling, Sophia is pulling pranks of more and more severity, even getting the cops involved.  When the sculpture is unveiled, each girl believes that they were the inspiration.  They heap compliments upon Laszlo, until he reveals that the work is a combination of all of them, based on the best features of each.  He also tells them that they are such good friends because they complement one another so well.  The girls still obviously have the hots for the artist, but this is when the show reveals to us that Laszlo is only interested in another man, as the studio audience shrieks in delight at such a scandal.  Imagine!

We get one last scene in which Sophia claims that her joking days are done, and offers Dorothy some orange juice.  Dorothy, who has apparently not watched The Princess Bride (released in 1987, the same year this episode aired) and learned about the glass-switching tactics of Sicilians, exchanges her own glass for her mother’s, takes a drink, and gets juiced for her naivety.

The End.

I keep hoping to like each episode of this season as much as I liked Old Friends, but I just can’t quite get there.  There are elements I like about each, but there are generally some aspects holding back my pleasure just a bit, even if I tell myself that this is just a sitcom and shouldn’t be judged harshly.  The opening scene for this episode really made no sense to me.  I know that Sophia in a trench coat was supposed to fit the later theme of the girls modeling, but a dress in need of cleaning seemed like a silly excuse to put her in that situation.  Clearly the whoopee cushion continuity got under my skin.  But the biggest sin of the episode was simply that my wife and I predicted just about every joke seconds before it happened (especially with Sophia’s pranks).  There was only one real surprise, as I actually expected the unveiled statue to have Sophia as its inspiration in a twist.  But I did like the end note about how their personalities complement one another, and Blanche always delights me when she insults her friends without directly insulting them (until she totally does).  All in all, I’ll have to give The Artist a score of 3 poofy hairdos out of 5.

Check back in tomorrow, when Jon will give us his take on The Time of the Angels, the next episode of Doctor Who.  And on Friday, I’ll be back to present my recap of Blanche’s Little Girl, the next episode of The Golden Girls.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

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The Audit (TGG, Season 3, Episode 10)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap The Audit, Episode 10 of the third season of The Golden Girls.  As an auditor by trade himself, will this episode be the grand tribute to a wrongfully despised profession for which he has often longed, or leave him with an intense sense of self-loathing?  Keep reading to find out…

Jon, I really appreciated your take on The End of Time (both parts), and your criticisms were very justified.  I’ve always wished that David Tennant had been given a better send-off than he got, although he still knocked it out of the park for his own part in the two-parter.  I also loved your retrospective on the Tenth Doctor’s arc as a whole, and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that DT won you over and made a lasting impression.  There is always a transition period for viewers when a new Doctor hits the scene, and that’s part of what makes the show so exciting and eternal in my opinion, but I’m really looking forward to getting your initial thoughts on Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor!  Now, it’s time for me to head to Miami for a tribute to a particularly noble, though maligned, profession…

Buttocks tight!

Written by Winifred Hervey Stallworth, directed by Terry Hughes

(Disclaimer: Proofreading this recap, I realized how obnoxious it sounds).

As the episode opens, Sophia is cooking some bangin’ spaghetti sauce, and Blanche is lamenting the fact that she hasn’t had a date in eight whole days.  What’s wrong with the bachelors of Miami, anyway?  Do they hate having a good time?  Is this the beginning of the end of her sensual lifestyle?  A couple of verbal jabs at Dorothy lift her spirits, and then Rose enters to present the B plot of the episode.  In order to get a promotion that she really wants at work, she has to become bilingual.  Blanche is taken aback, and tells her that nothing is worth dating women.  Hmm, I know this is just a joke about Blanche not understanding words, but I guess we haven’t come super far from Isn’t It Romantic?, have we?  Anyway, Rose will be taking Spanish class at night school.  Blanche thinks this might be just the opportunity she needs to meet some smart, sexy, single men, and she wants to sign up along with Rose.  I hope she’s ready, because Rose wants to go all Spanish, all the time in order to have the full experience.  Meanwhile, Stan also shows up, so you know there’s trouble on the horizon.  He eats some of Sophia’s spaghetti (which Dorothy is all too willing to share with him, for some reason), and then announces that the IRS is auditing him…and since they are digging back a number of years prior to the divorce, they are also by extension auditing Dorothy.  Stan also tells her that there is going to be a problem; he totes pulled some shady shit with his taxes.  The end result could be either a fee, or a prison term.  So, no biggie, right?

In the next scene, Rose is preparing for night school by practicing her Spanish, while Blanche is preparing for night school by prepping her bosoms.  Stan shows up with all his “tax receipts” (*eye roll*) in a garbage bag, because of course he does.  Blanche and Rose take off, and Dorothy and Stan get down to business.  Stan’s paperwork is both illuminating and troubling.  He wrote off a bad investment in tie bibs, and generally screwed things up.  He gives Dorothy an “I could have been a contender” speech straight out of On the Waterfront, and then she actually makes a pleasant discovery.  A ring he bought for her was more expensive than she realized, costing $2,500.  I’ll do my best to ignore the fact that he deducted this as a gift, which is more bullshit, because gifts aren’t even a thing you can deduct.  But the feelings of goodwill are short-lived, as Dorothy also learns that Stan bought himself a much more expensive Corvette and kept it as a secret from her.  Wait, how in the heck was he trying to write off a Corvette?  Anyway, Dorothy is now piiissed and wants him out of her life for good (uh huh, sure).  She doesn’t care if he goes to jail, but she is caught up in all of this with him and hates him for it.

Jumping ahead, Dorothy and Stan show up at a building somewhere to see the auditor, Wendell Murray (Side note: I guess the way they are going to depict this is with the two of them dropping off their paperwork and sitting in the same small room for hours while he pecks away at a calculator, which is not even remotely close to how any of this would work, but oh well).  Stan tries to bond with the bald(ing) auditor by removing his toupee, but he basically just insults him.  After some sweaty hours pass, the honorable Mr. Murray reveals that they owe a total of $5,000…he even splits it down the middle at $2,500 each since they are divorced, which is more nonse…you know what, nevermind.  But if they can’t cough up Uncle Sam’s dough, they could face liens or even jail time.

In the next scene, Rose is up late studying for her Spanish test, but Blanche isn’t sweating it; she already has the test key.  Rose wonders if she slept with the teacher, but that’s ridiculous.  She only promised to sleep with the teacher until she gets what she needs.  Duh!  Rose doesn’t want any part of this, as she only got caught up in cheating once, when she fed BBs to her prize lamb for the county fair, and it didn’t turn out well.  Dorothy can’t sleep because she’s so worried about the money she owes.  She only has half of her portion and she can’t get a bank loan, so she’ll have to sell off some stuff at the pawn shop (Side note 2: Look, I know this was made a few decades back, but it’s hard for me to believe that she can’t come up with $1,250 dollars to avoid jail time; and honestly, if she pays what she does have, there’s no way she’s getting locked up over $1,250, seriously).  Dorothy can’t believe where she has ended up in life, and Rose and Blanche have their own musings, which prompts Sophia to deliver her ��3 Rules for Life’:

1) Hold fast to your friends; 2) There’s no such thing as security; and 3) Don’t go see Ishtar (topical!)

The girls arrive at the pawnshop the next day, and Rose’s attempts to practice her Spanish almost score the girls the cash for Dorothy in an attempted robbery.  After things calm down, the owner offers $100 for everything Dorothy brought.  This won’t fly, but he then notices her ring.  You know, the one from Stan, which we were specifically and conveniently told cost $2,500?  He eventually offers her $1,200 for it, and though she is reluctant to part with the ring because it represents something positive about her marriage with Stan (who she just said she wants out of her life forever), she gives in and sells it to cover her debt.

In the final scene, we learn that Rose and Blanche both dropped out of night school.  Rose was bad at Spanish, and Blanche wasn’t finding any manflesh.  Stan comes by, and Dorothy gives him the check for her half of the tax liability (Side note 3: I was screaming “What?” at this point in the episode…after the stress that this money caused, how are you just going to hand it over the Stan, the architect of all this misery, and trust that he’ll take care of things?).  Anyway, he gives Dorothy back her ring.  He learned that she pawned it after speaking to Sophia off-screen, and he bought it back for her.  To do so, and cover the tax liability, he sold his Corvette.  Now he’ll just be a middle-aged bald man driving a Toyota (Side note 4: WAIT JUST A MINUTE, NOW THIS IS JUST GETTING PERSONAL, WHAT IS WRONG WITH BALD MEN DRIVING TOYOTAS, MAY I ASK?).  The two hug, and Blanche and Rose hit the town to prowl for men.  Stan tries to take Dorothy to bed, and he pays for it.

The End.

Man, where do I start?  I’m just too close to this one to judge it fairly.  Look, I never dreamed of growing up to be an auditor, but here I am, and I know what the job entails.  I feel like this episode is basically depicting what everyone I know assumes that I do for a living, even thought my job has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with making sure that government agencies spend their funds properly.  But I digress.  The way that everything unfolded in the episode was pretty (or very) unrealistic, but hey, it’s a sitcom…and it was nice to see Mr. Murray in action.  I always have such mixed feelings about Dorothy’s relationship with Stan.  I mean, the guy is obviously a tool who has screwed her over in multiple ways, and she needs to just stick to her guns in keeping this cancer out of her life from now on instead of handing him a plate of spaghetti the next time he shows up to prove what a bag of dicks he has always been.  But on the other hand, I guess they were married for a very long time, and it’s hard to just forget that such a significant portion of your life and all the associated feelings occurred.  I guess the ring thing was sweet, but it was offset by the fact that Stan even let her sweat the $2,500 for the amount of time he did, given that the whole predicament was 100% his fault.  Anyway, it’s a fine episode I suppose, but I feel compelled out of principle to give it a score of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5.

Be sure to check in tomorrow, when we will get Jon’s take on The Eleventh Hour, the Series 5 premiere of Doctor Who and the first outing of the Eleventh Doctor!  And pop back in next Tuesday, when I will be discussing Three on a Couch, the next episode of The Golden Girls.  Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!