Synopsis: Rose is
dating college professor Miles and feels stupid around him and his friends;
Blanche is in a dating slump.
Dorothy: “Ma, this-this place is fantastic. I feel like I did
when I was 20.”
Sophia: “You mean unmarried and pregnant?”I thought Dorothy got pregnant in high school at the senior prom she may or may not have gone to.
Also, Rose asks Miles what a metaphor is but she obviously doesn’t remember that Blanche explained metaphors in “Dorothy’s New Friend.”
Musical Moments
Man in ballroom: “Would you care to dance?”
Dorothy: “Oh, I-I don't think so.”
Man in ballroom: “Oh. I'm usually not this forward, but Glenn Miller has such an effect on me. You don't like Glenn Miller, do you?”
Dorothy: “Oh are you kidding?? I was in the search party!”
St. Olaf Vocab
Gerflufen – loosely translated, it means, “I hope you have a license to carry that gerflufen”
Kåldomar – a Scandinavian specialty made with ground pork and cabbage (and fyi – this one is real)
Fingerborg – a thimble
Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Stanley
Miles: “If you're not busy Saturday afternoon, the university is playing Shostakovich.”
Rose: “Oh, I'd love to go. And I'll bet we’ll beat 'em.”
Dorothy: “Rose, honey, it's not a team. It's a composer.”
That’s What She Said
Blanche: “Just breathe it in his ear. Nothing sounds idiotic
if it's wet enough.”
Lewd Ladies
Rose: “You know, you can learn a lot about a man just by the
way he holds you in his arms. Whether he's kind, sensitive, caring-”Blanche: “He dipped you, didn't he?”
Rose: “All evening.”
Blanche: “Oh, Lord. It’s so long since I've been dipped. I can't even remember which end of a gerflufen is up.”
Zbornak Zingers
Dorothy: “Blanche, it takes a strong, confident, sophisticated
man to appreciate you. But honey, they're out there wanting you as much as you
want them.”Blanche: “I knew it had to be something like that. Thank you, Dorothy!”
Dorothy: “There really is one born every minute.”
Insult Watch
Blanche: “This is the fifth Friday night in a row I haven't
had a date.”Dorothy: “Honey, you're just in a little slump.”
Blanche: “Is that what this is? I never been in one before. Well, it feels like hell. Dorothy, how do you go through this for years at a stretch??”
Product Placement
Dorothy: “Blanche, what are you doing lining shelves on a Friday night?”
Blanche: “I'm workin' off all my excess sexual energy.”
Dorothy: “Why don't we just hook you up to the toaster and make Pop-Tarts?”
Sassy Sophia
Dorothy: “Oh, Ma, you going to the ballroom again?”
Sophia: “No. I was thinking of wearing this when I die. What do you think?”
Back in St. Olaf
Miles: “Oh, listen to that music. Who says you can't go home again?”
Rose: “Canute Trollsted. You see, he took Ilse Frickerdeller up to Smooch Point to play hide the fingerborg. That's a thimble. Well, Ilse sat on his compass, and they got so lost they walked to Finland, and that's when Canute said, ‘You can't go home again.’”
Best of B.E.D.
Blanche: “I sat down and tried to think of a surefire place
to meet men. It was so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it
before. The hardware store. I mean, hardware stores are alive with sexual
energy. Tools, plugs, sockets, nude furniture, dirty stuff like that.”Dorothy: “Why are you home so early?”
Blanche: “Well, I saw a very attractive man in power tools. I piqued his interest with the usual hardware questions. ‘Where does this go? What does this do?’ And he followed me to plumbing, where I bought a see-through shower curtain.”
Blanche: “I'd rather be tied to a tree covered in honey and have a family of grizzlies lick it off.”
Rose: “You're a college professor?”
Miles: “Well, what did you think I meant when I said I taught Hemingway?”
Rose: “I thought you were old.”
From Feud to Food
Miles: “Boy she left in a hurry.”Sophia: “Hey, who told her to feed me cabbage!”
What, We Can’t Learn From History?
Sophia: “The place was packed with old geezers ripe for the
picking. I charged them 10 cents a dance.”
Dorothy: “Ma, you didn't!”
Sophia: “Please. I worked hard for that money. Half the time
they'd fall asleep in the middle of a song. How would you like to hold Mr. Morelli
up for two choruses of ‘Jeepers Creepers?’”
Dorothy: “Ma, you did
all that for 10 cents?”
Sophia: “I know. It's worth a buck. But all these guys lived
through the Depression. For a buck they expect a good time, a shoe shine, and a
full tank of gas.”
Literary Intelligentsia
Elise: “Now, Harv, ‘Moby Dick’ is about self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Harv: “Oh, come on, Elise. The whale represents coming to
terms with the self-hatred that's in all of us. What do you think?”
Rose: “Uh I-I was just having a conversation with two people
over ther,e speculating, on if you could have any two people in the world,
living or dead, to your house for dinner, what would you eat?”
Reel References
Dorothy: “Ma, where are my dancing shoes?”
Sophia: “In the Smithsonian, right next to Fred Astaire's. How the hell would I know?”
Golden Quotes
Rose: “Miles is my dancing partner at the ballroom.”
Miles: “Oh yes, and tonight we were the king and queen of the rumba.”
Rose: “Ole!”
Rose: “Oh. As they say in St. Olaf, helderbargenberg gerflufen wurterberg.”
Dorothy: ““You wanna help us out here, Rose?”
Rose: “When we're on the dance floor, it feels like we're
made for each other. But tonight, with all his brilliant friends at the party,
I felt like a fish out of water. Oh, sure I didn't flop around on the floor
with my eyes bulging out gasping for air. I haven't done that at a party in
years.”
Sophia: “Cabbage, she serves me. In ten minutes I could be
sky-writing.”
Rose: “You girls were right about getting Miles on my turf. Oh,
Blanche, and I'm really grateful for you steering the table talk to things I
know about.”
Blanche: “Well, you ought to be. It wasn't that easy working
natural fertilizer into the dinner conversation.”
Blanche: “It's impossible. I'd - I'd feel like a I'd feel
like a-”
Dorothy: “A backstabbing slut?”
Blanche: “No.”
Rose: “Then please go, for me. I'll feel better knowing this
thing is finally over with.”
Blanche: “Well, since you put it that way but only as a
personal favor to you, honey. Well, I guess I'd better go get dressed.”
Rose: “Thank you, Blanche. Can you believe that backstabbing
slut??”
Critique:
Holy moly, even if this is a Rose-centric episode, this half
hour BELONGS to Blanche Devereaux. I think Blanche is funnier during her droughts
than she is when she’s got men clawing for her attention. It’s not unknown that the character of Rose
became dumber and dumber as the series went on. She was always prudish and naïve
but by Season 5 she became borderline mentally deficient. The stupider Rose is
the more fun we have. That is played to the hilt here. It’s all in good fun. There’s some really
funny dialogue here, much of which has become all-time classic GG lines (“He’s
not dead. He’s missing!”). And then there’s the introduction of Miles, one of
the most polarizing GG characters. Personally, I think he’s delightful. I love
the Miles episodes. Are we supposed to buy that he’s actually in the Witness
Relocation Program? Not really. Does it suck that he “lies” to Rose. Sure. But
I think setting the terminally naïve Rose up with a brilliant college professor
just makes sense to me. A final note: while I don’t like to judge people based
on their appearances, Bea Arthur looks particularly horrendous in this episode.
I wonder if the producers finally realized that Dorothy is supposed to still
have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? GRADE: B+
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