Transcript for Episode 3: Dorothy’s Friend Is a Lesbian
This is the transcript for the installment of the show in which we discuss the Golden Girls episode “Isn’t It Romantic?” If you’d rather listen to Glen and Drew than read what they say, click here. The transcript was provided by Sarah Neal, whose skills we recommend wholeheartedly.
Dorothy: Jean.
Jean: Dorothy!
Dorothy: Oh, honey. It is so good to see you.
Jean: Sophia! You haven't aged a bit! You look great.
Sophia: Oh, Jean. You were always a terrific girl. Dorothy, why can't you be more like Jean?
[audience laughs]
Sophia: Scratch that.
Jean: Where are your roommates, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Jean, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I don't know quite how to phrase this—
Sophia: The lesbian thing. Do you keep it under your hat, or what?
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Ma—Jean, do you? I mean [laughs nervously]—what I mean is—
Jean: I know what you mean. You didn't tell your roommates that Pat was a woman, did you?
Dorothy: No. Well, they just assumed that Pat was your husband, and I wanted to make sure it was okay with you before I told them.
Jean: Well listen, Dorothy, I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of who I am. Hey, you know your friends better than I do. If you think they're the kind of people who can handle it? I'd prefer to tell them.
Rose: Here we are. Ice cream clowns with sugar-cone hats for everybody.
[audience laughs]
Jean: It'll be our little secret.
[theme music plays]
Drew: You are listening to Gayest Episode Ever, the podcast where we go back and talk about classic episodes of TV series that deal with LGBT issues. I'm Drew Mackie.
Glen: I'm Glen Lakin.
Drew: And in case that intro didn't tip you off, this episode we are talking about The Golden Girls, specifically "Isn't It Romantic," an episode that's probably better known to the world as "Dorothy's Friend is a Lesbian." We happen to have a special guest for this episode—someone who knows Miami better than we do—Tony Rodriguez. Tony, say hi.
Tony: Hi. Hola, as they say in Miami.
Drew: You are from The Golden Girls' hometown. Is this true?
Tony: Well, south of their hometown. They're from—
Glen: So Harry Weston was not your doctor?
Tony: No.
Glen: Oh.
Tony: No. I wish.
Drew: Yeah.
Tony: Oh, my god. Would you bring that dog to work?
Glen: No, I don't think that's healthy.
Drew: They don't allow that.
Tony: Oh. All right.
Drew: Harry Weston, of course, is the main character in Empty Nest, the spinoff to Golden Girls, which also took place in Miami. Tony is an actor and a comedian. Tony, where might people recognize your name from?
Tony: They might recognize my name from the Upright Citizens Brigade where I perform a bunch. I've done a million musicals there. And currently, I'm co-hosting and co-producing the first-ever all-Latinx variety show at UCB—First Fridays at 10:30 at UCB Sunset in April and May.
Drew: That's awesome. That's crazy that in the history of UCB it took this long to get the first all-Latino/Latinx variety show, right?
Tony: Yep.
Drew: Huh.
Glen: So you wanted to thank President Donald J. Trump for this feat?
Tony: Absolutely. Actually, yeah. We have to thank him for a lot of movements that are going on right now, don't we?
Glen: Mm-hmm. Especially the movement I had this morning after breakfast.
Tony: Whoo, boy!
Drew: Thank you, Glen.
Glen: You can cut the poop joke if you want [laughter].
Drew: No, no. No, I'm going to keep it—to keep this very real [sighs]. Yeah. So we're talking about The Golden Girls. And just to be clear, Tony, you're some sort of gay person or something, right?
Tony: Yes. This is my first—this is my coming-out interview, I think. I'm gay. I'm quite gay.
Drew: Okay. Great. So are we, and we all grew up watching The Golden Girls before we had put two and two together?
Tony: Yes.
Drew: And we loved it. Do you guys—Glen, why don't you tell me: What do you remember about watching The Golden Girls when you were a kid?
Glen: Well for me, it was sort of my first hosting experience—not like, gay hosting.
Drew: Right. Different.
Glen: I was but a young boy. But I had a couple friends from school ding-dong ditch me on a Saturday, and I found them because I'm a sleuth and invited them over to come watch Golden Girls with me, and for some reason this sticks out as the first time I had friends over for a non-birthday function.
Drew: A Golden Girls function, which is maybe more important than a birthday.
Glen: Yeah. We made a night of it, and we talked about it for weeks after on the bus. Thanks, Jory and Kathy.
Drew: If they're listening.
Glen: They're listening. [whispering] I don't know if they're alive.
Drew: Okay. Well—
Tony: Oh.
Drew: Tony, what do you remember about The Golden Girls?
Tony: It never occurred to me until you just said what you just said, Glen, but my memories are watching it alone as a kid—
Drew: Oh, really?
Tony: —and loving it. Of course, there's a big conversation about gay men: Why does Golden Girls resonate with us? Is it that sense of chosen family? I don't know. It's a really gay show.
Drew: It is.
Tony: I can't—and I just—it just resonated with me.
Drew: I remember watching it and loving it, but we watched it with my whole family, or if we were at my grandparents' I'd watch it with my grandparents. It was something every generation in my family enjoyed. And my brother, who grew up to be a very straight man, also loved watching The Golden Girls because it was a genuinely funny show, and it wasn't until much later in life—like post-college—that I realized that it was something that gay men generally gravitated towards. And yeah, I think the whole inventing your whole family is a big reason for that. But yeah, it was one of the first shows I ever attached to. And also, Sophia taught me so many swear words. I learned the word "slut" from Golden Girls, and then used it on the playground and got in a lot of trouble for it, and they asked, "Where did you learn that word?" I was like, "Sophia. Sophia taught me." [laughter]
Glen: Aw. Tony, I don't want to give you the wrong impression. I had people over one time for Golden Girls. After that I watched it alone.
Tony: Oh, Glen. We have so much in common. Well, I just thought of something else that actually didn't occur to me until just now—but the two or three years that I watched Golden Girls alone were the years that my parents' marriage was actually falling apart. I just really put that together right now, and I don't know if there's some deep psychological connection to the show.
Glen: Are you saying that Golden Girls caused your parents' divorce?
Tony: Well, I should have started watching it sooner. But—
Drew: Oh. Oh! No. Yes. Maybe? I don't know how to feel about that comment, actually.
Glen: Podcast canceled.
Drew: Yeah.
Tony: [affected laughter] All right.
Drew: So I have a special thing I want to talk about with me and Golden Girls, and it was two years—three years ago, maybe, I wrote a piece for Frontiers, which was the gay L.A. magazine, and which no longer exists because it went out of business. But I did an oral history of The Golden Girls where I talked to a bunch of the writers, and it was lovely. Everyone had the best stories to tell. If you want to read that article, I actually had to host it on my blog because the Frontiers website is also gone. You can read it at backofthecerealbox.com/GoldenGirls. It's just me talking to a handful of writers about their experiences on the show, and they gave me literally the best Bea Arthur story ever which, if we're not running too long, maybe I'll share at the end of the show. But one of the people I talked to was Jeffrey Duteil, who's the man who wrote this episode, and he was a very charming, very nice man who wasn't on staff at the show. He just did this one script, and he got the job kicked to him because he was friends with Winifred Hervey, who is the first female writer on the show and another lovely person who shared a bunch of stories about being on set with the four ladies. And yeah, he was a gay guy who went on to write a lot of other shows, like Head of the Class, Different World, Small Wonder—he wrote for Small Wonder. Glen's very excited. You can't hear it. It's a silent scream of joy. But he just wrote this one Golden Girls episode, and he got nominated for an Emmy for it, which is kind of unheard of. It is surprising that they would have submitted the show that was written by someone not on staff for a writing Emmy, right?
Glen: No. Back in the '80s it was actually pretty common, and actually it was in the contracts that so many episodes per season had to come from freelance writers, and a lot of times those were some of the better episodes. Not because the staff writers aren't amazing, just because freelancers are sort of writing outside a vacuum and can have a more—not issue-oriented, but something that had a little bit more punch because they don't have the influence of the studio, necessarily, when they are thinking of it.
Drew: He did tell me that he received absolutely no pushback for this script, though. He wanted to write something gay. He chose to make it a lesbian instead of a gay man, which props to him because it's nice when you can take a step outside your own experience. I think this is a very good script, and I think Dorothy's lesbian friend is a pretty well-realized character, but I like that he took time to—he didn't just write it about a gay guy. He wrote it about a lesbian, and a lesbian whose experience was in a much different place than his own because he was pretty young, I think, when he wrote this. But yeah. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the context of stuff that was going on when this episode aired. So this was shortly into The Golden Girls' second season. It aired at a point when the show is doing really well in the ratings. Initially, [it] was a little shaky and then just kind of shot up and never left the top 10 for most of its run. It came in fourth [sic] for the week with 23.9 million people tuning in, and it was right between Cheers at number two and Night Court at number four for that week. The number one show was that sitcom with Phylicia Rashād that was really popular in the late '80s, the name of which I can't remember. You guys don't remember that? Can you—no?
Glen: Spanish-Speaking Black Lady: The Series.
Drew: Yeah. I think that's what it was. Phylicia Rashād is great. I just can't remember the name of that show. And then it aired on a Saturday night that was full of all-new episodes, including 227, Amen. Golden Girls aired at 9:00, and the kickoff for the programing block was Facts of Life. It was the episode called "The Little Chill," which is a takeoff on The Big Chill, when the girls reunite with the cast members who were cut from the first season of that show—you know, when there used to be seven girls in Facts of Life, back in the day? You guys?
Glen: Vaguely. Molly Ringwald was one?
Drew: She's the only one who doesn't come back because she was a bigger deal, but Felice Schachter came back. She's very pretty, if you don't know who she is. When this episode aired, The Facts of Life had only recently suffered from the departure of Mrs. Garrett. Cloris Leachman was about two weeks into the role as the new head house mom on that show. The Fox Network itself was only a few weeks old, which is crazy to think about. And also just having launched that fall, a few months earlier, were Alf and Designing Women—one of which we're going to talk about later in this series, one of which we will not talk about later in this series. Actually, now that I think about it—
Glen: I will find a way to talk about Alf. You will not stop me from talking about Alf.
Tony: Oh, my god.
Drew: Is there a gay episode of Alf?
Glen: Listen. You could view all of Alf as a gay metaphor. I haven't yet, but I will look into it.
Drew: Okay. That sounds like a bonus episode, but I'll let you do that. Yeah.
Glen: Because he's not allowed to eat the pussy. There we go.
Drew: But he wants to so badly.
Glen: He only thinks he wants to.
Drew: Okay. Yeah. I guess—
Glen: I'll work on it.
Drew: Okay. Let's talk about "Isn't it Romantic?" The episode opens with Sophia watching a pornographic film, which is interesting for being an episode about sexual transgression in a way—sort of?
Glen: Well, it's also just an episode—it's opening with them recognizing that even as old women they have sexual urges, and it's still something they talk about and—not struggle with, but are maybe not always open about.
Drew: Dorothy clearly is uncomfortable with the fact that Sophia is watching a porno, which she accidentally rented because she was trying to rent something else, but she's old, so she can't see, and she doesn't really realize it's porn, initially, I guess.
Tony: She's watching it eagerly while inhaling popcorn [laughs]. But then, obviously, when she realizes what it is and Dorothy reprimands her as if she was a teenage child—she's like, "Do you think I'm going to find anyone to be able to do these things with?"
Drew: Right.
Tony: And then she keeps watching it with the sound off, right?
Drew: No, then Dorothy tried to turn it off when Blanche and Rose come in, and—
Glen: She accidentally fast-forwards.
Dorothy: I cannot watch any more of this.
Rose: Hi.
Sophia: Wrong button. That's fast-forward.
Rose: Oh, my. What are they doing?
[audience laughs]
Blanche: I know what they're doing, but I never saw anybody do it at that speed.
[audience laughs]
Rose: It reminds me of my uncle Ricky's rabbit farm.
[audience laughs]
Sophia: That's reverse, Dorothy.
Blanche: I did that once.
[audience laughs]
Glen: They stretch this pornography joke out. I'm in admiration of how long this porn joke goes, but it's for a while.
Drew: For an episode of a show that aired in 1986, I'm kind of impressed that a show that was on at 9:00 p.m. on a major network could just openly talk about pornography, and because it's old ladies that probably made it okay. Family Ties wasn't going to be able to talk about porn, right?
Glen: I'm sure there's some capitalist message that Alex P. Keaton would have about pornography.
Drew: Pro, or anti?
Glen: Probably pro.
Drew: Okay. That makes sense.
Tony: Interestingly enough, the writing Emmy that year went to Family Ties.
Drew: That's right! It's the one where Alex's friend dies in a car accident, which is a very moving thing. I remember watching that—I guess when it first aired because it would have been that year. I remember watching it and thinking it was very sad. I told Glen earlier, "This is the funnier episode by far." As far as an Emmy for outstanding writing in a comedy, this is much funnier.
Tony: It was a period of Emmy awards for comedies where they submit the one that deals with a topic, right?
Glen: Probably. Did Diff'rent Strokes win for—what's her name—Dana Plato having an eating disorder?
Drew: Oh. I don't know. I haven't looked up Diff'rent Strokes. That's not on our radar yet.
Glen: I mean, it's on our radar for a bad reason, which is probably why we're not going to talk about it.
Drew: Right. We're not going to talk about "The Bicycle Man" episode because that's weird.
Tony: Oh. You know that there are certain shows where there are some episodes you've seen multiple times for no reason? That's the episode for me for Diff'rent Strokes—the molesting one.
Drew: I don't know why that episode was shown as often as it was in syndication. Seemed like it was off and on in syndication, like, "Oh, Diff'rent Strokes is on. Oh. It's the molestation episode again. Oh. I don't want to watch that."
Tony: No. And then the Nancy Reagan episode. No one wants to watch that.
Drew: No. No. This is not a molestation episode, though. This is a lovely episode about Dorothy's friend Jean coming to visit. Dorothy's friend Jean shows up promptly after the pornography scene, played by Lois Nettleton, who was also nominated for an Emmy for her performance in this episode, which I think is awesome. I looked her up and found out the interesting things about her. She was married to Jean Shepherd. You know about Jean Shepherd?
Tony: Yes.
Drew: Yes. A Christmas Story.
Tony: Yes.
Drew: Yeah. Do you want to say it?
Tony: No. You just did [laughter].
Tony: They were married?
Drew: Yeah. He's the essayist who wrote the short stories that were the inspiration for the movie A Christmas Story. He also narrated A Christmas Story. And his writing's really good. I actually—
Glen: So what you're saying is, she never needed to work again?
Drew: They divorced in the late '60s, so yes. She was married a few more times. She worked until her death. She died in 2008, and two of the other interesting roles she played were: She played Aunt Becky's mom on Full House, which I don't think was too much of a recurring role, but I think she might have just been in the episode where Aunt Becky and Uncle Jesse get married; and then she also voiced Maleficent on House of Mouse.
Glen: The episode where her and Horned King fuck?
Drew: Do they fuck?
Glen: I think they're on a date or something.
Drew: Oh. That would make sense.
Glen: I like the Horned King, and that's his only appearance outside of The Black Cauldron.
Drew: Right. House of Mouse is a cartoon show where all the Disney characters hang out at a nightclub that Mickey owns.
Tony: What? Where?
Drew: Yeah. I know. It's really weird. On Disney Channel, I guess, or it's just in general syndication.
Glen: It was in the '90s, with most great things.
Tony: That sounds like fake news to me. I don't—
Drew: So the villain from The Black Cauldron shows up in one episode, and he's on a date with Maleficent. We've talked about this already on the podcast, haven't we?
Glen: Probably for the Return to Oz in We Are Not Young Anymore.
Drew: Probably. Yes. We Are Not Young Anymore is our other podcast.
Glen: I'm not on it.
Drew: My other podcast, but Glen was a guest on the Return to Oz episode, and I think we talked about the Horned King.
Tony: Back to Golden Girls, there's one other interesting—
Drew: We have tangents.
Tony: Huh?
Drew: We have tangents.
Glen: We have multitudes.
Tony: Yes. That's what a podcast is. Another interesting thing about Jean is that—
Glen: Parmesan.
Tony: What? Gene Parmesan? Is that what you just said?
Drew: "Gene!" Yeah.
Tony: Jean, Lois's character, is named after him on this episode. Isn't her character named Jean?
Glen: Yeah.
Tony: It's named after her husband—her ex-husband.
Drew: Oh. Weird. Is that purposeful, or is this just coincidental?
Tony: I was about to say that it shows that you can still have a platonic friendship after romantic things are taken off the table, and that is a lesson in this episode.
Glen: Spoiler alert.
Tony: Yeah. Well—right? Do you think someone's listening to this podcast while watching the episode for the very first time?
Glen: It's possible.
Drew: I can't wait to find out what happens with this Jean character, and also the Horned King is apparently a character on the show as well [laughter].
Drew: So Jean shows up. Jean is coming to spend the weekend. Before she even shows up, though, Dorothy and Sophia have a very interesting conversation about her where Dorothy is hemming and hawing around something that she's uncomfortable to bring up.
[audience laughs]
Sophia: What's the matter?
Dorothy: Nothing. Nothing. I'm a little nervous about Jean. I mean, she's a very special person. I don't know if she's going to get along with Blanche and Rose.
Sophia: You mean because she's a lesbian?
Dorothy: Oh, Ma [laughs]. She's not a lesbian. I mean, what an absurd thing—[suddenly serious] How did you know?
[audience laughs]
Sophia: I've known since you two were in college together.
Dorothy: She didn't even know in college. How did you know?
Sophia: A mother knows.
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Oh. Do you think I should tell Rose and Blanche?
Sophia: Jean is a nice person. She happens to like girls instead of guys. Some people like cats instead of dogs. Frankly, I'd rather live with a lesbian than a cat.
[audience laughs]
Sophia: Unless the lesbian sheds. That, I don't like.
Drew: And it's very interesting that Sophia is fully aware that this girl that Dorothy became friends with in college is a lesbian and doesn't really care and just knew without ever having a conversation with Dorothy about it. Dorothy seems more uncomfortable than her elderly mother does. It's interesting, right?
Glen: Yeah. It's a very sweet moment because parents know—well before their kids know, a lot of times—that they're gay, and my parents definitely had an awareness that I had a friend in grade school who has turned out to be gay that they knew the second we were friends that he was gay, and probably that I was gay. And so it is a very uniquely homosexual issue, I think, and for Sophia to recognize that this friend that Dorothy had in college was gay but never feel the need to bring it up and tell Dorothy, like, "Oh, by the way, your roommate's a lesbian. Watch out for her."
Drew: Right.
Tony: I've had the opposite experience, but this scene reminded me of—spoiler alert—season one of One Day at a Time. Pause for anyone who wants to skip this part.
Drew: You're talking about the Netflix One Day at a Time?
Tony: Correct. The reboot. When Justina Machado's daughter comes out, then Rita Moreno's character is more okay with it initially than the younger generation—the parent is.
Drew: Right. She comes around in literally 15 seconds of rationalizing what something the Pope said and being like, "Okay. I'm good with it."
Tony: Yeah. It reminded me of that.
Drew: It was a very lovely scene. It reminded me of the episode that we were initially going to do of Golden Girls, which is the one where Blanche's brother comes out, and I actually made Tony watch that one already, and then I changed my mind after watching it myself. I'm like, "I think 'Dorothy's Friend is a Lesbian,'" which is the name of the episode I'm going to use, has much better writing. And I think it's true, but interestingly in that episode, Sophia very quickly picks out that Blanche's brother is gay before he comes out to—Dorothy knows, right, at that point? That scene in the kitchen?
Tony: I don't remember.
Drew: So Sophia asks Clayton—this is the episode we're not actually talking about, but it has the similarity of Sophia being more—having better gaydar, basically, than any of the younger people on the show. She asks Clayton, like, three questions, and she's like, "He's as gay as a picnic basket," and figures it out right away. And everyone's like, "How did you figure that out?" And Blanche, for example, is extremely [dense 00:21:07] to pick out that her brother is gay, and that happens in this episode as well.
Glen: Yeah. We'll talk about that when we get to it.
Tony: I wish I remembered her questions. She was like, "Question—interesting. Hmm."
Drew: The questions are "How are you enjoying this Miami weather? Have you ever been to Europe?" and then there's a third question [laughter], like, "How many fingers am I holding up?" He's like, "Two." She was like, "That's good. Head back into the living room. I need to talk to my daughter now." And then she announces, "He's as gay as springtime," and he leaves the room.
Glen: I thought it was a picnic basket.
Drew: Picnic basket in springtime.
Tony: Picnic basket. That was my memory as well. Yeah.
Drew: Yeah. This whole theme of Sophia being wiser than you might expect of someone from her generation comes back later in the episode, but yeah. Just a surprising take, I guess.
Tony: Sophia typically is the most open-minded outside of the house, right, in terms of she has more diverse friends, she has more worldly points of view, but she'll just throw shade left and right to the three other people that she lives with.
Glen: Well, she has zero fucks left to give.
Tony: True. Is her backstory that she had a stroke, and so she can only really speak the truth?
Drew: Right. And they kind of almost never really mention it again after the first episode. I think it's the—that's the only time I can remember of them directly addressing it, and then she's just a funny, crazy nanny for the rest of the series.
Glen: Did any of you notice when she was dreaming in a later scene—like when they're in bed together—she spoke with a more Italian accent, correct?
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Tony: Yep. Yeah.
Drew: Maybe she lost her accent with the stroke. She's also been in the United States for a long time, but yeah, I noticed that, too.
Tony: [with a heavy Italian accent] "I've been cooking all day. Don't touch me." Is that what it was?
Drew: Yeah, something like that, except less like Frank Stallone.
Tony: [impersonating Stallone] "Cooking all day, huh? Just get off of me, eh, you big galoot."
Glen: Special guest star on this episode, Frank Stallone [laughter].
Drew: I don't think that's what she sounded like, though. We'll play the clip just to prove you wrong. So, Jean does show up. Jean is lovely, and I like that they just made her look like a pretty sophisticated woman in her 50s or 60s. They didn't butch her up a whole lot, and they also didn't make her look non-gay. She just looks like a normal, real person. I think she dresses like a perfect cross between Dorothy and Blanche.
Glen: Oh, yeah.
Tony: Interesting.
Drew: Which if she were a Crystal Gem fusion, she'd be Blorothy.
Glen: I don't—I'll think of something else for that [laughter].
Tony: Oh, my god. She would not be caught dead wearing that sweater that Rose wears in the gin rummy scene.
Glen: I'm going to bring the sweater up later for story reasons. I thought the most interesting thing about Jean's character, which is quickly introduced, is that we're told that a year ago her spouse died, and what's clearly revealed is that that spouse was a woman named Pat, but still a woman, and I thought that was an unconventional choice for this era of TV. They could have just as easily said, "Oh, she had a husband. He died, and now she's free of that husband. She's exploring her sexuality." Instead, it is, "She was a lesbian. She has always been a lesbian. She had a partner for eight years." And for that to just be something that the character has and is not apologized for, I thought was pretty bold for this time.
Drew: Yeah, as opposed to Clayton's story in the episode we ultimately didn't pick. That's a coming-out story where he's just coming to terms late in life with this. But yeah, she seems pretty comfortable as being a lesbian, which is nice and just kind of weird to see in 1986.
Tony: I wonder how Dutail—is that the writer's name?
Drew: Duteil. Jeffrey Duteil.
Tony: Jeffrey Duteil, though, might have been informed by his own experience, maybe, being more comfortable in his own skin. But do you know who the writer was for the other episode that we're not talking about?
Drew: Christopher Lloyd—not the actor, but the sitcom writing veteran who did a bunch of things who is not a gay person. I don't believe he's gay, right? Look that up real quick. Sorry. I just want to make sure. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. I knew this, but I forgot this. So the Clayton comes out episode was written by Christopher Lloyd, who's a huge sitcom writing veteran, and he's not gay. He's married to Arleen Sorkin, voice of Harley Quinn.
Glen: [gasps]
Drew: [gasps] Was that a burp or a gasp?
Glen: It was a gasp.
Tony: Glen just made the face that Rose makes when Jean says in this episode, "I'm very fond of you." [exclaims] That's the face you just made.
Glen: This is a fine time to bring it up since you already mentioned the sweater, but I feel like they infantilize Rose this episode more so than usual. She makes ice cream clown sundaes for Jean, this woman whose spouse died, and later she wears a sweater with teddy bears on it, and there's—and I don't know if they do that to make her rejection of Jean more innocent and less of a gay panic and just have it be more about Rose, because—well, we'll talk about it later.
Tony: Well, you just made me think. Is it also a way to say—if you infantilize her a little more, you're desexualizing her so that she's not asking for any sexual attention, like she's absolutely innocent.
Drew: She seems incapable of sex, basically.
Tony: Right. This was Betty White's nominated episode this year for the Emmys.
Drew: But she didn't win, correct?
Tony: No. Do you know who won?
Drew: Who?
Tony: Rue.
Drew: Oh, right.
Tony: For End of the Curse.
Drew: End of the Curse?
Glen: Which one is that?
Tony: I don't know. I thought one of you guys would know.
Drew: I don't know episode titles.
Glen: But does making Rose more innocent make Jean more predatory?
Drew: Maybe, but I could also see that it was maybe the showrunners wanting to completely undercut any idea that there could be some hot, lesbian action on this show. They were like, "Jean can be a lesbian, but there has to be not a hint that Rose could be into it, and that's how this is okay, maybe."
Glen: Also, we talked about this in the Frasier episode, and I said that it being an early second season episode was important because it was addressing obvious "is Frasier gay" questions. And even though this is written by a freelance writer, I wonder if the reason the studio gave so little pushback was because it was maybe answering a critique from first season of "How can these four adult women live together and there's no romantic relationship between them?" Is this their " The Golden Girls Aren't Gay" episode?
Drew: Right. Like, "They're living together, but this is not an alternative lifestyle show. They're just friends."
Glen: Yeah. And so again, it's answering the question, or it's killing the elephant in the room, I guess.
Drew: I will point out that there is a scene that happens later—and I'm fine with jumping ahead for just this point. But much later in the episode, Jean and Rose are playing cards late at night and just talking about stuff, and they were talking about prom, and I think Jean says she never went to prom—no. Rose says she never went to prom. One of them didn't go to prom, and Rose had this boy that she thought was—
[audience laughs]
Rose: Actually, I was so sure Delbert was going to ask me that I turned down our only foreign exchange student, Cyril Mountbatten. Well, Daddy didn't like Cyril anyway, because he was British. Daddy said the relationship would never work out, on account of the language barrier.
[audience laughs]
Rose: Daddy was a very caring and ignorant man. Well finally, it got to the day before the prom and Delbert still hadn't asked me. So I marched across a crowded cafeteria, stared him straight in the eye, and said, "Delbert, what gives?" He said, "Jenny McCoy. That's why I'm taking her to the prom."
[audience laughs]
Drew: And Jean laughs at this story, and Rose, her reaction is as if she still does not understand what that comment meant. Like, he's saying, "This other girl will have sex with me, and you won't. So I'm going to take her to prom, so screw off." But the "What gives?" "Jenny McCoy gives. That's why I'm taking her," she does not seem to understand what this reference is. And that just goes more so that in this episode she seems completely sexually naïve, even though she's often not that way in other episodes. She has a lot of sex over the course of the show—not just with Miles, either.
Glen: There's another part of that prom story that stuck out to me in that one of her potential beaus was British, which her father disapproved of because of the language barrier—ha ha, joke. And she says that her father was—"Daddy was a very caring and ignorant man," which applied to British prom date as just, like, okay. Whatever. But it's also an excuse made for parents who are disapproving of gay relationships, and I thought that was an interesting parallel.
Drew: Oh. I didn't even think about that. That's a really good point.
Tony: Ah. Yeah. I didn't think of that either.
Glen: That's why you have me on here—and I live, like, 10 feet away.
Drew: Right. Yeah. To point out again, Glen is the person I wanted to host this podcast with, but he's also my roommate.
Tony: Oh. I'm a six-minute drive away.
Drew: Yeah. We cast a very small net on this show [laughs]. Okay. So there's a lot of humor had at withheld knowledge in this episode. The joke is that Dorothy and Sophia know that Jean is a lesbian. Blanche and Rose do not know, and there's a few different jokes about—someone makes—
Blanche: Jean, forgive me if I'm dwelling on the subject of men, but don't you think it's about time you planned something special, if you know what I mean?
Jean: Oh, I couldn't.
Blanche: Oh, come on. It's been a year. Of course you could.
Dorothy: Believe her, Blanche. She couldn't.
[audience laughs]
Rose: I know just how you feel. I couldn't even think of another man for years after my husband died.
Blanche: That's exactly why you have bad muscle tone.
[audience laughs]
Drew: And those are all decent jokes. None of them are making fun of her being gay.
Tony: One of them comes close?
Drew: Okay. What? Tell me.
Tony: Either Jean or Blanche says something like—oh, Blanche is like [impersonating Blanche] "Oh, you probably need a break from men," and Sophia goes, "You don't know the half of it."
Glen: Is that your Blanche accent?
Drew: Clearly.
Tony: [impersonating Blanche] Cha, of course it is.
Drew: It was pretty good, actually. I'm okay with this.
Tony: [impersonating Blanche] Lesbian! Lesbian! Lesbian!
Drew: [laughs] This is why I brought you on the show.
Tony: Oh, thank you.
Drew: I'm going to put that as a soundbite at the end of the show [laughter].
Tony: Doesn't Sophia go, "You don't know the half of it"?
Drew: Right.
Tony: But that's at Jean's expense, isn't it? That one toed the line for me. Sophia just said she's fully supportive of Dorothy's friend, and then she's like, "[imitates mocking speech]" right in front of her.
Drew: Yeah. It's weird that Jean doesn't be like, "Wait. What?"
Tony: That's the only one, though.
Drew: Right. Well, it is interesting that—Dorothy makes a point of saying, "I didn't want to out Jean without her permission." Dorothy seems to think that is Jean's story to tell, which is, again, a very progressive, modern look. Dorothy didn't warn her roommates ahead of time, "I'm bringing this lesbian in the house. You better be careful," which is very, very thoughtful—although I guess she does tell Blanche later.
Glen: Only because Blanche thinks that—Blanche knows that they're hiding something, and she thinks that Jean is sleeping with a married man. That's where Blanche's mind would go.
Drew: Blanche cannot think outside her own experience [laughter]. Watching the Clayton episode as well with this one, I'm realizing Blanche is a self-centered bitch, and she just cannot—her mind refuses to extend beyond her own experience of the world, which is sleeping with men and having an affair with a married man.
Glen: I think you told me this. I think it was you who told me this, that Rue was the one who came into the show as an actress whereas the other women were comedians first. And so when you were relying on someone to end a scene with a joke the other girls could pick it up, but Blanche was more of a nuanced character. And I actually did—we're going to talk about the ways in which her reaction to this is ridiculous. But after that, I think—I don't know. I think there's something to her selfishness that comes off as—not sweet, but a little bit more understandable. I just think it shows a vulnerability, like she can't imagine. She's uncomfortable when she is not the object of attraction.
Drew: Right.
Glen: Like, she loses her power.
Tony: Well, when she's thinking of someone who isn't a rival or someone she's not attracted to—or a man [laughs]—there we go. If she's not thinking of a woman who's not a rival, then she just wants the best for them, and the best for them is getting men that she doesn't want or have. But that's her entire world?
Glen: Yeah. And again, that is what she offers Jean, this woman whose spouse has died. She's like, "I'm going to make you feel better by finding you a man." And so when the only tool in her arsenal is taken away from her, she's going to come off as kind of a sad bitch at first.
Drew: Right. Then she does come around, which is also a characteristic of Blanche. She eventually gets it; it just takes her—you have to hit her over the head with it a little bit.
Tony: Her playing yenta is Rose's clown ice cream cone [laughs].
Drew: Yeah.
Tony: See?
Glen: Yeah.
Tony: Everyone's presenting their best self to make this new person feel better about their partner's death.
Drew: Right. Interesting.
Tony: It's sweet. I think it's sweet.
Drew: So the scene ends, and it opens on the next day, or maybe a few days later—it's not clear. But it's raining, and Blanche has—
[music plays]
Blanche: Oh, I do love the rain so. It reminds me of my first kiss.
Dorothy: Aww. Your first kiss was in the rain.
Blanche: No, it was in the shower.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Which is such a good joke, but you would almost think that they are setting this scene in rain just for the purposes of that joke. No. That is a through-line that affects the rest of the episode. Not that much further into the scene, you see Jean and Rose come in from having gone to a movie, and they went to a tear-jerker movie, and Rose is upset. They went to a tear-jerker double feature. That's right.
Tony: How many fingers am I holding up?
Drew: Two.
Tony: That's right.
Drew: Does that mean I'm gay?
Tony: Yep. Interesting.
Drew: Okay.
Glen: Oh, I get it. Callback.
Tony: Yes. That was a callback.
Drew: It's Love Story and Terms of Endearment, and Rose is just bawling. And they don't know this initially, and Blanche's reaction to Rose coming in—
[audience laughs]
Jean: Oh, it's okay.
Dorothy: Oh, my god. What happened?
Jean: Oh, don't worry, she'll be fine.
Blanche: Of course you will, honey. That phony hair color won't come out just because you got caught in the rain.
[audience laughs]
Rose: It's not that. We saw Love Story and Terms of Endearment. It was the Cry Me A River Matinee at the Rialto.
[audience laughs]
Rose: I'll be back. I want to change, then I'll make us some tea [cries].
Drew: So they get another joke out of it, and then later in the episode Sophia develops a cold which becomes a crucial plot point because she was out in the rain buying more pornographic movies [laughs].
Glen: Renting.
Drew: Renting more pornographic movies. And I actually love that they got two decent jokes out of the rain, and then you find out "Oh, this is actually important during the plot. It's not just something they threw in there for the sake of a single joke," which I really liked.
Glen: I don't know where this joke came in. I didn't write it down. But I did not get the cow sex joke.
Drew: Yes! Oh, my god. Thank you. I wanted to talk about this. So it turns out Jean grew up on a farm, and Rose of course grew up in the wilds of St. Olaf on a farm, and they have a bunch in common, and they quickly become friends.
Jean: I haven't eaten a breakfast like this since I left the farm.
Rose: Really? You were raised on a farm?
Jean: Mm-hmm, until I was 17. A dairy farm.
Rose: Whoa. A dairy farm? Just like me! Oh. Oh, did you hear that? Jean was raised on a dairy farm. I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me Jean was raised on a dairy farm?
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: I was afraid it might be too much excitement for you.
[audience laughs]
Rose: Did you have to help with the milking?
Jean: Oh yes, until my father got a milking machine [laughs].
Rose: Oh, thank goodness for the milking machine.
Dorothy: Difficult as it is to tear myself away, I really have to get ready for work.
Blanche: Yes. Me, too.
Rose: I don't have to be in until late today. Would you feel like going to an early matinee?
Jean: Oh, that sounds great.
Rose: I remember when we first got our milking machine. I hooked Molly up to it, flipped the switch, and she dropped like a rock.
[audience laughs]
Jean: Oh.
Rose: Well luckily, she wasn't electrocuted. After that, she was no good for milking, but she certainly became the most popular cow during mating season.
[audience laughs]
Drew: I don't know. It's a very weird joke. I can—I still have his email. I can email Jeffrey Duteil and be like, "Hey. By the way, a quick follow-up. I want you to explain the cow-milking joke in this episode because I do not understand it. It's for our podcast."
Tony: That was an executive note. That block of shows had a bunch of milk through-lines.
Drew: Right.
Glen: Oh. Milk sponsors. Those milk ads were hot back then.
Tony: [laughs] They were.
Glen: Yeah, where the 10-year-old boy grows up to this hot teenager?
Tony: Yeah.
Glen: That was a good ad.
Tony: Yeah.
Glen: Gave me a lot of body dysmorphia.
Tony: Oh.
Drew: They have this exchange, and then very shortly after that Dorothy and Jean are having a conversation at the kitchen table, and Jean reveals that she's falling for Rose—the first time in a year she's felt feelings for anyone else, and it's Rose. How realistic do we feel that anyone would have sexual feelings for Rose, especially this version of Rose?
Glen: I didn't have a problem with her having sexual feelings for Rose, but I had a problem with it being like, "I couldn't imagine loving again other than Rose." It's like—I don't know. Then again, 1986. I don't know the lesbian experience in 1986.
Drew: Like, lesbian-of-a-certain-age experience, in 1986 especially, maybe.
Tony: I took the falling in love thing—yes, we all think of it as a sexual and romantic thing, but they're—what, barely in their 60s, these characters?
Drew: Blanche, at least, is in her 50s until the final season of the show.
Tony: Huh.
Drew: Yeah.
Tony: I didn't know that.
Drew: She says she's in her 40s, but she's lying.
Tony: I don't like what I'm about to say. I took it more as companionship, like the partner she'd had [laughs] had become the life partner, and that's what she saw in Rose. I didn't have a problem with it. But you are arguing why would anyone—but plenty of men find infantilized women sexual.
Glen: I think had she phrased it as "Talking to Rose last night was the first time since Pat died that I didn't feel alone," that's something, then, if it had been framed as a companionship or filling some void. But to say, "I'm falling for her," is a specifically romantic way to say it.
Drew: Mm-hmm. I agree.
Tony: Yeah.
Drew: Betty White's a very pretty, older woman, and I get that. But—yeah. I just was trying to figure out what the fuck—
Glen: Again, because she brought in clown ice cream cones and, at some point, wears a teddy bear sweater.
Drew: A hideous teddy bear sweater, which it's coming up in the not-too-distant future. We're already at the mid-act break.
Tony: [laughs] Even if there was a version of the script where Jeffrey included something about companionship love, I wonder if there was some executive note, like, "This is a gay episode. It's already controversial. We don't have time to unpack what kind of love or attraction this character has for Rose. Let's just say 'falling in love.'" Maybe?
Drew: Right. That might be true. Most of these people don't know what a lesbian is, so we have to—
Tony: Lesbian! [laughter]
Glen: I could also see the opposite of it being explicitly sexual, like, "I haven't gotten off since Pat died, and I see Rose, and I'm just like, 'I've got to have some of that,'" and the executives are like, "No, no, no. It's true love or something. Whatever. I don't understand what's happening."
Drew: Right.
Tony: What if she had fallen for Blanche? What if there was a pitch for that to happen?
Glen: Let's just—go ahead.
Drew: I would say I think Blanche could be convinced to be into that.
Glen: Yeah. I was going to say this. I want to now jump to—I cannot not talk about anymore the fact that Blanche doesn't know what a lesbian is.
Drew: Okay. So that is actually the next scene. So Jean is staying in Sophia's room, so Sophia and Dorothy are in bed together, and it opens with this weird scene where—yeah. Dorothy nudges into her mother, and Sophia's response is—Tony, do you want to try that line again?
Tony: [impersonating Sophia] "Hey! Quit poking me in the back you big galoot. I've been cooking in the kitchen all day. Let me get some sleep!"
Drew: It's nightmarish.
Tony: It is a terrible—
[music plays]
Sophia: Not tonight, Salvador. I've been cooking all day.
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Ma, it's me. It's Dorothy.
Sophia: Oh, Dorothy. The way your elbow was poking me, I thought it was your father sneaking up on me.
Dorothy: I'm sorry, Ma. Go back to sleep.
Drew: That's—okay. Yeah. I mean—
Glen: I was also trying to picture that sleep position where—I don't know. I'm now miming elbows into someone's back when they sleep. I don't know.
Drew: It happens.
Glen: It's been a while.
Drew: Okay.
Tony: [impersonating Sophia] Your bony elbow reminds me of your dad's dick [laughter]. Sweet dreams!
Drew: So unpleasant. Dorothy can't sleep, and she wakes Sophia up, and they start talking about, like, "Ma, what would you have done if it turned out that one of your kids was gay?" Sophia's response is perfect.
Dorothy: How would you react if you were told that one of your kids was gay?
Sophia: Your brother Phil is gay? I knew it. When he was a kid, we couldn't keep him away from gladiator movies.
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Ma, Phil is not gay.
Sophia: You mean you're gay? What, your friend Jean is having some sort of membership drive?
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Ma—
Sophia: Dorothy, I know you don't get many dates, but stick with what you know.
[audience laughs]
Sophia: At your age, it's very hard to break into something new. Good night.
Dorothy: Ma. Ma, I am not gay. I just wanted to get your reaction.
Sophia: I'll tell you the truth, Dorothy. If one of my kids was gay, I wouldn't love him one bit less. I would wish him all the happiness in the world.
Dorothy: It's because you're the greatest mother in the world, and I love you [kisses Sophia].
Sophia: Fine. Now keep your fat mouth shut so I can get some sleep.
Drew: Which is a beautiful speech and a great moment. And I asked Jeffrey, when I was interviewing him, about what that motivation was, and he said, "That speech coming from Sophia made it better than if any other character had said it. You might have expected the other characters to have said that, but for Sophia—the oldest one who's from a different generation—it meant more." And then he said it also meant more that they picked his episode for Emmy consideration that year. They could have picked any of the other episodes because there's other topical episodes in this season, and he's like, "It was really nice that they chose the gay episode to be the one they wanted to put out there to be like, 'This is worthy of an Emmy.'" But I think it's true that everyone else seems more uncomfortable with Jean's lesbianism than Sophia.
Tony: [impersonating Blanche] Lesbianism.
Glen: Stroke victim [laughter].
Tony: Bony elbows!
Drew: Yep. Key phrases here. So then they're laughing—what are they laughing about?
Glen: Oh, they're laughing because Dorothy tells Sophia that Jean has feelings for Rose.
Dorothy: Jean thinks she's in love with Rose.
[Sophia laughs]
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Ma, come on. It's not funny.
Sophia: The hell it's not. Jean in love with Little Miss Muffet? Come on.
[audience laughs]
Drew: Right, Little Miss Muffet is Sophia's reaction, which is a great description of Rose as a person.
Glen: And of her vagina.
Drew: Oh. Gosh.
Glen: You can cut it.
Drew: No. Yeah. And this is what—Blanche hears laughing, so she wants to come in and see what's being discussed, and she finally is told that the big secret they're keeping from her this whole time is that Jean is a—Tony?
Tony: Lebanese.
Drew: She doesn't say Lebanese. She just initially—
Blanche: What's funny about that?
Sophia: You aren't surprised?
Blanche: Of course not. I mean, I've never known any personally, but isn't Danny Thomas one?
[audience laughs uproariously]
Drew: Danny Thomas, by the way, is an entertainer who was—I don't know if he was known to be a Lebanese-American. He was Lebanese. He was on TV. His daughter is Marlo Thomas—Free to Be… You and Me, which I know is meaningful to Tony.
Tony: [gasps] Yes! You remember that?
Drew: Yeah.
Tony: I love Free to Be… You and Me.
Drew: She's also Rachel's mom on Friends, and she was also on the show called That Girl. Have you guys ever seen it? It's on Hulu. It's old. It's from the '60s. It's basically The New Girl in the '60s. She's so fucking appealing. And Marlo Thomas, also a Lebanese-American—not a lesbian. Blanche confuses the two. She doesn't know the difference.
[audience laughs]
Dorothy: Lesbian.
Blanche: Lesbian. Lesbian. Lesbian?
[audience laughs uproariously]
Blanche: But isn't that where one woman and another—
Dorothy: We already know what it means.
Blanche: But Jean's a very attractive woman. She could have any man she wants.
Dorothy: She doesn't want them.
Blanche: Well, why not? A man has so much more to offer, you know what I mean, Dorothy?
Glen: How is this sexually progressive character not aware of what a lesbian is? I get it goes to, like, she just thinks about men and she can't possibly imagine someone not wanting men, but there's a way to play that that doesn't make her come off as an idiot.
Drew: So again, in the Clayton episode, she has a hard time accepting her brother's homosexuality even though you'd think it would be easier for her to be like, "Oh, you like men? I understand that." It takes her a few beats to actually work around to that. I just think Blanche is—she's maybe Southern and a little homophobic.
Tony: I was going to say that—the Southern homophobia. There's certain things you just wouldn't discuss or even dare to think about, and if her hobby is men then that's all she thinks about.
Glen: Not accepting is one thing, but being completely ignorant of—I just think there could have been a better way to brush that off.
Drew: Probably.
Tony: Yes.
Drew: Actually, Ellen did a joke about the similarity between Lebanese and lesbian, too, but that's kind of a hack joke. Those words just happen to sound sort of alike—not even that much alike. Yeah.
Tony: Lesbian.
Drew: Lesbian. I actually have in my notes, "Lesbian, lesbian, lesbian."
Tony: I want to say one thing about, that problem aside, I do like her turn at being outraged that Rose wouldn't fall for her.
Drew: Jean. Jean wouldn't fall for her.
Tony: Sorry. Yes. That's—yes. Thank you.
Drew: That seems more understandable than her not knowing what a lesbian is. She gets from "What's a lesbian?" and then like, "She doesn't like me?" and then she seems mostly okay with it after that.
Tony: She goes from [impersonating Blanche] "Giggle, giggle, what you girls laughing at? What's a lesbian? They're not into me?" That was it.
Drew: Yeah. So this brings us to the card scene where everyone goes to bed and leaves Jean and Rose to talk and bond while they play some card game that I can't identify because I don't know anything—
Tony: Gin rummy.
Drew: Is it gin rummy?
Glen: Is it just that every older woman loves card games? Because that's what I did with my grandma. We just played cards.
Drew: My boyfriend's whole family is card people, so when we were—
Glen: What? They're made of cards? Like in Alice in Wonderland?
Drew: Yes. Like Alice in Wonderland. It's really weird. His dad's the king of clubs. It's very confusing.
Tony: [impersonating Blanche] Isn't Danny Thomas a card person? [laughter]
Drew: No. But I feel like maybe we do it less in California because our weather is nicer here, but Dan's family's from Buffalo so it's miserably cold for months at a time, and they sit around, and they all seem to know card games. I'm embarrassed to be like, "I don't know how to play cards."
Glen: I'm from Chicago. It gets so cold. Maybe it's just that my family doesn't want to spend time with me.
Tony: My mother's family is from Indiana. They play cards all the time. And yes, that's right, I'm half Latino.
Glen: [gasps dramatically]
Drew: Oh, god.
Tony: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Sorry. I thought—no. That's disappointing.
Tony: Sorry.
Glen: Um, please cut the promotion of this show.
Drew: Yeah. Okay. That's fine.
Tony: Guys—but I speak Spanish.
Drew: That's—okay. That counts.
Glen: So does Clair Huxtable.
Tony: Oh, that's—[speaks Spanish]. That was—cut that, too.
Drew: Rose and Jean are playing cards. This is where they have that whole exchange about prom, and Rose doesn't seem to understand that the other girl is putting out and she wasn't; that's why she didn't get to go to prom.
Tony: Yeah. It was a very—
Drew: On most of these episodes, there's a lot of sexual content, but there's just a lot going on here sexually. Then it's 2:00 a.m., and they've been playing cards until late in the night, and Rose is like, "Well, don't go wake up Dorothy and go to bed in Dorothy's room. Just sleep in my room because Dorothy's already asleep." And again, this works very organically. The reason Jean doesn't have her own room is because Sophia got sick from being out in the rain—which is the third useful thing they do with the rain—and that's why that room is not open. And I feel like there's that thing in sitcoms where it's like Three's Company syndrome where if someone just said one thing, all this misunderstanding would be solved, and this is not that at all. It is perfectly believable that Jean would not have said anything about being a lesbian, and Rose is just being a good host, being like, "Don't wake up Dorothy. Just come to bed in my room." And it is a zany misunderstanding, but it's structured really well. It's not an improbable thing that this is happening, that she's inviting a lesbian into her bed, and it doesn't turn out.
Glen: What Rose doesn't mention is that the combination of her sheets and bedspread are horrendous.
Drew: I don't remember. I remember her sweater. You said you would say something about her sweater.
Glen: I feel like we've talked about the whole teddy bear sweater enough. I want to talk about her sheets, now.
Drew: Please.
Glen: Her sheets are this awful, multi-colored checkerboard thing in tones of peach and sky blue and Pepto-Bismol. And then her bedspread is green palm leaves, and the entire scene—the entire emotional scene, I just kept looking at the sheets and the bedspread and being so angry at this woman for doing that. But she also has a couch in her room. These bedrooms are huge.
Drew: They're really big. They're as big as my living room. I'm not surprised that Rose is tacky. She's from St. Olaf. What does she know about putting a look together?
Glen: That's very classist of you.
Drew: You saw her sweater. It was an ugly sweater. Jean comes into the room and tells Rose, "Rose, I'm very fond of you," which is an interesting word choice. And I was surprised Rose figures out what the fuck is even going on because she says, half asleep, "I'm fond of you, too." And then Jean clarifies, "No. I'm really fond of you," and then Rose is like, "Oh, no! Lesbian," and pretends that she's asleep so Jean won't lesbianize her.
Tony: Isn't there three? She's like, "I like you." "I like you, too." "I really—" Or whatever. "No, I really like you." "Mm-hmm." And then the fond of you, that's when she's like—
Rose: Am I hogging the covers?
Jean: Oh, no, no, no. Everything's fine. Rose, I want to tell you something. If I don't say it, I'll never get to sleep.
Rose: What?
Jean: I like you very much, Rose.
Rose: I like you too, Jean.
Jean: I think you're very special.
Rose: I think you're special, too.
Jean: What I really want to say is, I— [whispers] I'm quite fond of you.
Rose: I'm fond of you, too.
[Rose pretends to snore]
[audience laughs]
Glen: But still, "fond" is the word choice. Again, maybe it was a studio executive note being like, "Old lady can't say, 'I have the hots for you, Rose.'"
Drew: "I got a hard-on for you, Rose."
Glen: "I got a bony elbow for you, Rose." [laughter]
Drew: Yeah. Maybe it's old-lady language. Maybe "fond of" meant something that we don't understand today. But Rose figures it out. It wakes her up and makes her uncomfortable.
Glen: Did anyone else think that the shot of Jean coming to bed was predatory?
Drew: Yeah, because Rose has her back to her, and she's coming into the room, and she's coming behind her. Then, when she's rebuffed, you see her recede, and then she sleeps on the couch and not in the bed. Rose is offering her a spot in her bed, right?
Glen: Yes. But when she was coming to—they cut to a medium shot of her that's from below, and the lighting is kind of sinister.
Tony: They show the time.
Glen: They show the time, and there's shadows under her eyes. I get it's a night scene, it's a sitcom—the cinematography is not always stellar. I took a single TV directing class in college, and so I don't know a lot. But it's very hectic, the way you call cameras and frame shots. But still, it felt somewhat intentional to shoot her like that.
Tony: I thought it was intentional for the purposes of keeping Rose faced away from Jean so that she could react Tex Avery cartoon style at "fond of you."
Drew: Right. You're right. We could see that she was awake, but Jean couldn't see that she was awake. That's true. That's probably why it was, but it also has the effect of making Jean look a little bit predatory. That was maybe not intentional, but you could read it that way.
Tony: Easily, the shot of the clock and then that blocking, 100 percent that could turn into a Hitchcock movie right there [laughs].
Glen: Also, it makes more sense that Rose didn't take her makeup off before sleep because when they're playing cards, they're like, "Oh. It's 2:00 a.m.," and then the shot of the clock is 2:11 a.m. it's like, "Oh. Not much time passed—just hopped right into bed."
Drew: Wait. You noticed that she was wearing makeup to bed?
Glen: Yeah. She was wearing makeup to bed.
Drew: I'm really bad at spotting when woman are wearing makeup. I kind of forget that makeup exists when looking at a woman's face.
Glen: I mean, it's a lot of makeup.
Drew: Oh.
Glen: No shade to Betty White, but—also, again, filming a sitcom. She may not have had time to take it off.
Drew: Also, probably never would have wanted to appear onscreen without makeup because she's a fucking TV star. So the next morning, everyone's waking up and they're trying to figure out where the fuck Jean ended up because she didn't come into Dorothy's room. And Rose comes in asking, "Where's Jean?"
Tony: You mean Blanche?
Drew: Blanche, or Rose? Does Blanche come in first? I'm sorry. I may be confusing the order. Everyone wants to know where she is, and Rose has the answer. Doesn't she ask to speak to Dorothy privately about this?
Glen: Yes.
Drew: Yeah. And Sophia and Blanche scoot away, waiting to—
Glen: Not so quickly.
Drew: No. No, they linger.
Tony: I love when they're just hovering by the door.
Glen: "We're going. We're going."
Tony: Yeah. I'm just so easily amused by stupid things.
Drew: So Rose tells Dorothy. She's like, "Oh, I think your friend has feelings for me," and Dorothy's like—
Rose: I don't want to shock you, Dorothy, but Jean—
Dorothy: I know. Jean is gay.
Rose: You know already? Well, what about Blanche?
Dorothy: No, Blanche is not gay.
[audience laughs]
Rose: I don't mean that. I mean, she knows?
Dorothy: And Ma.
Rose: You told everybody but me?
Dorothy: Honey, I didn't even know if you'd know what a lesbian was.
[audience laughs]
Rose: I could have looked it up.
[audience laughs]
Drew: That is how dumb they think Rose is, and also that is maybe how dumb Rose actually is. I can't decide.
Glen: And also, Blanche didn't know what a lesbian is.
Drew: That's a good point. She was just confusing one word for another. Maybe. I don't know. But Rose is a little hurt that—
Tony: I think she says "gay." I think she says "gay" in this scene. I think—
Drew: Dorothy says—
Glen: She says "Jean is a gay."
Tony: Yes.
Drew: "A gay"? [laughs]
Glen: No. She does not say "a gay."
Tony: I could be wrong, but surprised that Blanche doesn't know what the word lesbian is, and the kitchen scene with Dorothy and Rose, I thought it was "gay," and that Rose wouldn't understand the concept of gay, not what the word "lesbian" is, which is—yeah. I could be wrong, but that was my memory of it—because I thought if they were saying "lesbian" again, they could do another Danny Thomas joke.
Glen: And, well, Rose's response is, "I could look it up," which is cute.
Tony: I don't know now.
Drew: Yeah. She knows how to use a dictionary. That's more credit than we might have given to her.
Glen: See, I pictured her going to the library and going to the card catalog.
Drew: "Lesbian. Lesbian—" Okay. Yeah. And then Jean comes in, and she's like, "I got to go," and Rose speaks to Jean one-on-one, and Dorothy very slowly scoots away and has to be told "No, no. Please leave."
Glen: "I'm going, I'm going."
Drew: And Jean says that she worries she might have offended Rose, and Rose says—
Rose: Want a cup of coffee?
Jean: Maybe I will have a coffee.
Rose: Oh, good.
Jean: Rose, about last night. I should never have said anything.
Rose: Oh, you only said what you were feeling.
Jean: Well, it's just that this last year has been so difficult for me. See, Pat was the person I planned to spend the rest of my life with, and when she died, I just felt so terribly alone—empty. I thought I could never care for anyone again—until I met you. I just got very confused. I hope I didn't make you feel uncomfortable.
Rose: Well, I have to admit, I don't understand these kinds of feelings. But if I did understand, if I were, you know, like you, I think I'd be very flattered and proud that you thought of me that way.
Jean: Thank you, Rose.
Drew: I'm mostly okay with what she says. She says, "If I were like you, I would be flattered," which is kind of there. You can just be flattered. This person thinks you're attractive and nice. It doesn't matter that you're not a lesbian. You can still be like, "Oh, this person's interested in me. That's nice." But she hedges it with "If I were a lesbian, maybe I'd get it."
Glen: I think this is a scene where her being treated like a child pays off because she boils it down to a very sweet concept of can there be friendship once the veil of romance is lifted from a relationship, which I thought was—like, yes. That is a good lesson for episodes that are about—I don't love these episodes, but episodes that are about a gay character lusting after a straight character if the lesson is: Just remove the context under which we sort of connected, and let's be friends, and we are both adult enough to do that. Or, in Rose's case, she is childlike enough to do that.
Drew: That's a good read. I like that read. That makes me happy.
Tony: Yeah. I was very moved by Betty White in this scene. While she's saying everything you said about "I would be flattered," I don't know if you noticed—she was rubbing—she's standing behind the chair. Jean's sitting, and she's rubbing the chair she's standing over the whole time. And at first, I'm like, "All right. That's a little much." And she did that the whole time she's speaking, and it made me—like, this woman is really stepping out of her—she's trying to understand, to relate to this human being, and she's really uncomfortable right now but she's truly trying to make a good effort in not offending this other person. And I have to say, I know people like that, and I was really moved by it.
Glen: Yeah. What you didn't see is, in a deleted scene, Rose just clutches her hands so hard that her palm bleeds, with her fingernails.
Tony: Oh. Yeah. I didn't see that.
Glen: It's a little less sweet.
Tony: Hulu doesn't give you everything, do they?
Drew: No, no. Glen has the Blu-ray.
Tony: I want to see that scene.
Drew: He won't let us watch it.
Tony: And she says, "Who's the predator now?" Crinkle, crinkle, bone-crunching of hands.
Glen: And then she unhinges her jaw and swallows Jean whole.
Drew: Yeah. Different ending. And it turns out, Sophia was listening at the door, and Blanche and Dorothy were standing outside the kitchen window watching, but you can't really hear that much, though. I don't know what good that does. But everyone was all up in Jean's business, and everything turns out fine. And we never hear from Jean again. She got over Pat, and this is probably—excluding the pilot where you have the gay houseboy named Coco that you never see again. He was actually lost at sea, which is sad.
Glen: Wait, is that true?
Drew: No. I just made that up, just like you did [laughs]. What is it like to be lied to, Glen? It's weird, right?
Tony: I have not told an untruth here at this table. Wait.
Drew: Well, we'll see what the—
Glen: Remember when you lied about being Latin?
Tony: I didn't lie. I'm—[speaks Spanish].
Drew: I can edit this to say anything.
Tony: All right. That's the world we live in now.
Drew: Yeah. This was probably the first major LGBT episode. There's at least two more involving Blanche's brother, and maybe one day we'll do those.
Tony: Does Blanche's brother come back again after "Scared Straight," after having come out to his sister?
Drew: Yeah. He brings his boyfriend. He wants to marry him.
Glen: Yeah. The marriage episode, I think, is sweeter than the first Clayton episode.
Drew: Right. Maybe if we do a season two of Gayest Episode Ever we can quickly recap "Clayton Comes Out," and then just go into the marriage episode.
Glen: Or do a double feature.
Tony: We'll hashtag Betty White's vagina, and—
Drew: We're at an hour and nine minutes right now, so—
Glen: Yeah. Well, you're going to edit that down. We said a lot of stupid stuff that I don't want to hear.
Drew: You're not going to listen to this anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Glen: Sure. I'm sure not.
Drew: Overall, what was your guys' take on this?
Tony: I thought it was a very good episode, even with the writing hiccups notwithstanding, and I watched this episode after seeing the season four episode of Blanche's brother coming out. This episode by comparison—almost flawless. I thought performance-wise, Lois is great. She just slides right in.
Drew: Lois, who plays Jean.
Tony: Correct. It's almost not a comedic performance from her. She's just a very grounded, real—as you said, Glen, she was—not complicated. What did you say earlier?
Glen: Nuanced?
Tony: Nuanced. Yeah. And the ensemble just floats, bounces off their jokes. By contrast, I thought that the actor who played Clayton in that episode—it was as if he'd stepped out from a lesser-known Tennessee Williams play and was sort of in a different world. But then the ensemble was so good that it was still an okay episode, but it's not great. He's just serviceable.
Glen: He brought too much gravitas, too, I think.
Drew: Not the right kind of gravitas. Yeah. He seemed over-the-top.
Tony: And it's a tortured coming-out character, right?
Drew: He's a much more boring story. Yeah. I was doing that podcast I did about Call Me By Your Name. We were talking about the difference between a coming-out narrative versus "I'm gay, and this has already been established. And I likened it to how we don't like superhero origin stories anymore because we saw so many of them we got bored of them, and now it's just like, "Start the movie. They're a superhero. You'll figure it out."
Glen: Exactly. This is not a Jean coming-out story. This is not Dorothy discovering her good friend is gay. This is not even Jean discovering that she's gay. She's been gay.
Drew: Right. And if we want to look [that up 01:06:24], there's probably 20 episodes of TV shows that came after this that are coming-out stories and finding out "My buddy from the army is gay now," or "My high school friend is a woman now all of a sudden," and those are not as interesting as knowing who you are already.
Glen: Cheers does a couple of those episodes, but they're still fantastic.
Tony: Speaking of Cheers, Lois—what's her last name?
Glen: Learner.
Drew: Nettleton.
Tony: Nettleton was nominated—as you said earlier—for guest, lost to John Cleese in cheers, and it was surprising to me. I guess they put men and women in the same category.
Glen: Equality.
Tony: There we go.
Drew: In one sense, that is like, "Yeah. If you're recognizing acting ability, that's nice. But it seems that the women would always be at a disadvantage if they're—"
Glen: [gasps]
Drew: No, because there's more male roles, and most of the writers are men, and they're writing for male characters and female characters are underwritten. And it would put these actresses who are happy to get whatever girlfriend they can play on a walk-on on Cheers or whatever—would get a disadvantage.
Tony: Whenever Glen makes a gasping noise, he's making that Rose [exclaims] face. Every time.
Glen: Well, I have a predator behind me.
Tony: Oh.
Drew: It's really hard not to see Rose's alarmed face and not think of Drew Droege playing this character. I've seen Golden Girls Live do this episode at least twice, and I think maybe both times Jean was played by Melanie Hutsell from Saturday Night Live. Do you guys know her? She's Adam Sandler/Chris Farley era. She's very, very funny.
Glen: Oh, yes. Wait, is she the one who did Jan Brady?
Drew: Yes. Yeah. She played Jan on SNL.
Glen: She's also in Bridesmaids as the tennis partner.
Drew: She is. She has a far-too-small role in Bridesmaids. She played Jean. She did an amazing job. And maybe that's one of the reasons I originally wanted to do the Clayton episode is that I felt like this episode was already out there in the ether because I'd seen it performed live twice. But Golden Girls Live probably picked it because it's just a very well-written episode, and there's a lot to work with there. Also, if you don't live in Los Angeles, Golden Girls Live is this thing that happens in Silver Lake where Drew Droege, Sam Pancake, Sherry Vine, and Jackie Beat perform two episodes back-to-back of Golden Girls, live, and it is amazing. It's one of my favorite weird cultural things that exist in my hometown. It's weird that I can walk to that from my house from here.
Glen: Hometown?
Drew: The town that I've adopted as my hometown.
Tony: Oh, like an immigrant that left their other hometown and then came to another place?
Drew: Exactly. Yeah. Like how you're from Indiana or something.
Tony: Oh, my god. I've never lived in Indiana.
Drew: Glen, any final thoughts?
Glen: No. I thought this was a, not shockingly, good Golden Girls. It's great. But I was surprised that it didn't have the elements that we talked about for usual gay episodes.
Drew: Right. Cool. Well, I guess—
Tony: Do you want to hear the rest of the Emmys for that year, for the Golden Globes—or Golden Girls related?
Drew: Do you know this, off the top of your head?
Tony: Yes.
Drew: Please, go.
Tony: This won Best Direction of a Comedy.
Drew: That's right. Okay.
Tony: Golden Girls won Best Comedy Series. Estell Getty was nominated for Supporting Actress that year and lost to Jackée from 227 [laughs].
Glen: No. I mean, I love—
Tony: Mm-hmm. 1986, my friend.
Drew: She got her Emmy, anyway, so Estelle Getty is not missing out. But Jackée deserves it. Jackée is awesome. I tried looking—I don't think there is a gay episode of 227. I would love to talk about 227, but—
Tony: [impersonates Jackée] Ooh, Mackie!
[laughter]
Drew: Oh, my gosh.
Tony: Was Estelle Getty ever nominated as a lead, or was it always supporting?
Drew: That, I don't know. You'll have to look it up.
Tony: All right.
Drew: If you want to listen to previous episodes of Gayest Episode Ever, you can do so at SoundCloud.com/GayestEpisodeEver. You can follow me on Twitter, @DrewGMackie—that's M-A-C-K-I-E. Glen, where can people find you?
Glen: I'm on Instagram, @BrosQuartz—yes, that is a Stephen Universe reference—and on Twitter, @IWriteWrongs. That's "write" with a W.
Drew: And "wrongs" with a W, too.
Glen: That's true.
Drew: Yeah. Tony, where can people find you?
Tony: On Twitter, I'm @TheTonyRodrig—like you're writing "the Tony Rodriguez," but you stop at the G—@TheTonyRodrig.
Drew: Yeah. We got it.
Tony: Instagram is @TonyRodrig, and again, I'm a gay man but I'm not a [impersonating Blanche] lesbian.
Drew: Thank you for clearing that up for us. And tell us again where people can see your all-Latino variety show.
Tony: All right. The first Friday of April and May at the Upright Citizens Brigade on Sunset at 10:30. And we don't have the lineup yet, right now, because of when we're recording this.
Drew: Right, right—but in Los Angeles. So if you don't live in Los Angeles, suck it. Yeah. Great. That's it. I think we're good then. Anything else?
Glen: Bye forever.
Drew: Bye forever?
Tony: Did I say Upright Citizen's Brigade?
Drew: No, I don't think so. Alright. Enough episode. We're done.
["Kissed by a Rose" by Seal plays]