The Artist S3E13

The girls begin posing nude for a Hungarian sculptor and start competing for his affection; Sophia tries out various pranks to get even with a practical joker at the senior center.

80s Flashback

Sophia: “In the middle of bingo, Murray Hezeltine sits down. He's the big practical joker at the center. Believe me, Howie Mandel is funnier.”

That’s What She Said

Rose: “You said you’d like to help him mold his clay or buff his marble anytime.”

Lewd Ladies

Sophia, to the girls after finding out Lazslo is gay: “Who can blame him, the man look at the three of you naked for a month.”

Insult Watch (too many to count)

Rose: “Laszlo just decided he wanted someone with more innocence.”

Blanche: “With more cellulite is more like it.”

and

Blanche: “Rose just stabbing me in the back. She’s been posing for Lazslo too. I sure don’t know why, he’d go to Sea World if he wanted to see a naked whale.”

Rose: “Or to your bathtub!”

Product Placement

Blanche: “This is my opportunity to become immortalized forever in a classic work of art.”

Dorothy: “That’s exactly what she said when that shoe salesmen took Polaroids of her in the backseat of his Volare.”

Sassy Sophia

Blanche: “I just stand there in front of him in all my luscious nakedness and somehow he manages to suppress the urge to throw me on the floor and ravage me.”

Sophia: “Please, if he throws you on the floor you’ll both end up in the apartment below.”

Sophia: “Who's Laszlo?” 

Rose: “A Hungarian artist we've all been posing nude for.” 

Sophia: “In the future, a simple 'none of your business, Sophia' will suffice.”

Zbornak Zingers

Blanche: “Before you make your choice, let me say what a privilege it has been to work with a man I consider to be the greatest Hungarian sculptor of our time.”

Dorothy: “And let me say if Blanche can name two other Hungarian sculptors of any time, I shall eat that statue.”

Best of B.E.D.

Blanche: “Which one of us is it gonna be? Dorothy here, or Rose, or a woman whose breasts you once described as 'perfect champagne glass-sized orbs of dancing loveliness?'”

Laszlo: “Blanche, I did not say that.”

Blanche: “Well you agreed when I said it.”

Golden Quotes

Rose: “Dorothy was Sophia naked just now or does her dress really need ironing?”

Critique: Let's pretend for a moment that Sophia, a woman who she herself described as having a butt made of Play-Doh, is strong enough to sit on a whoopee cushion without making it go off. Now let's pretend Dorothy is dumb enough to not realize you actually need to blow up a whoopee cushion after someone before someone sits on it. But I digress. You certainly know by now that I think the show is at its best when the ladies are insulting each other, competing with each other, or trying to outdo each other. This episode is the perfect combination of all three. Laszlo is a famous Hungarian artist and he begins sketching each of them nude without each other’s knowledge and once the cat is out of the bag hilarity ensues, including a final reveal that is a genuine surprise and hoot. Sophia’s subplot is minor and seems to exist only so we can see Blanche sit on a whoopee cushion at the most inopportune time. Though it offers a few good gags including Sophia's opening bit about traveling ten blocks home wearing nothing but a tweed overcoat that, strangely enough, foreshadows the entire episode’s nude modeling storyline. Though in the end you realize how much is really missing from this episode; there are no St. Olaf stories, no “Picture it” stories, and no tales from the Old South, or Brooklyn. At least the insults are as fierce as ever. GRADE: B+