Designing Women S2 E3 - Lucy & Ethel Host a Dinner Party

Hooray for an Anthony Bouvier episode! This time, he finds himself a lady friend and cooks up a scheme to have her and her parents over for dinner, while making them think he’s wealthy and successful, as one does. Unfortunately, his lady friend’s daddy isn’t super into the whole thing and he cooks up a little scheme of his own to get rid of Anthony. (Hint: This scheme is adorable and cries a lot. And wins over Anthony’s ever-lovin’ heart.) Oh, did we mention we finally got his origin story?

And hang tight for "Extra Sugar" where we dig into a teeny reference to Tuxedo Road here in Atlanta.

Here are a few links you can explore if you’re hoping spend beaucoup moola on a mansion in this frou-frou neck of the woods and want to learn more about it (or if you just wanna know what Marvel movies were filmed in the ATL):

• https://www.buckhead.com/neighborhoods/tuxedo-park/

• https://www.atlantamagazine.com/homeandgarden/these-are-the-neighborhoods-celebrities-stay-in-while-filming-in-atlanta/

• https://www.buckhead.com/the-forgotten-history-of-buckheads-tuxedo-park-neighborhood/

• https://gov.georgia.gov/governors-mansion/history

• https://www.georgia.org/filmography

Come on, let’s get into it!

Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts.

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Transcript

Salina: Hey, Nikki.

Nikki: Hey, Salina.

Salina: Oh, okay.

Salina: That was excitement.

Salina: So we're here for season two, designing Women episode three.

Salina: Oh, also, hello, everyone else.

Salina: We just get so caught up with ourselves.

Salina: We're so selfish.

Salina: Okay, so we've been doing the thing with the Proust questionnaire.

Salina: If you'll, I don't know, refresh yourself, refresh your memory from the last time we met.

Salina: So I got a couple of questions for you.

Salina: Okay, and just real quick again, proust survey guys, if for some reason you haven'tuned into the last ones, it's just a dinner party game and you ask questions.

Salina: And it was popularized by Proust when he was still with us, god rest his soul.

Nikki: I'm sorry I broke that to you in the last.

Salina: We'Re getting to know each other, getting to know ourselves, and we hope that you're playing along from home.

Salina: All right?

Salina: And with that number five, which living person do you most admire?

Nikki: Oh, my gosh.

Nikki: Which living person do I most admire?

Salina: It's a toughie it is really tough.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: I don't even know what I'm going to say, to be honest.

Nikki: I have three options.

Salina: Okay, well, let's hear them.

Salina: I'm going to take one, but I.

Nikki: Feel like this is very similar to the conversation we had around the person you'd most like to meet who's dead or alive.

Salina: Right.

Salina: Except this person needs to be alive.

Nikki: Maybe I don't have a lot of range.

Nikki: I always admire the President of the United States.

Nikki: Okay, well, good point.

Salina: Every single time.

Nikki: Let me clarify.

Nikki: I don't admire necessarily their politics.

Nikki: I don't necessarily admire their stance on.

Salina: Things they got there.

Nikki: Let me clarify.

Nikki: I admire how they got there, the amount of confidence it takes to put yourself out there over and over and over again and lean into things as if they're pure fact, even if you have no idea.

Nikki: And I think this applies not just to certain presidents who had proclivities toward the false, but every president.

Nikki: They have to go out there with a level of confidence and deliver a talking point, and it may not even be completely true, and they have to do it.

Nikki: I also admire their ability to maintain the so, but my actual answer, I think honestly, is Taylor Swift, and that feels like a weird answer, but I've.

Salina: Been yes, explain yourself.

Nikki: I've been thinking about her a lot lately because she is in the process of re recording and re releasing all of her old albums because someone took control of her musical catalog that she did not respect, admire and did not think could do her library justice and felt actually like it was a little bit of a vindictive reason that that person took control of her library.

Nikki: And it just irked her that this person was going to make a ton of money off of her.

Nikki: And it's her music, it's her art.

Nikki: And so what she did is she took it on herself to rerecord all her old albums, so now she owns them and she gets to go back and make production choices and vocal choices she didn't get to make in the first place.

Nikki: So that's sort of like thing.

Nikki: One, this commitment to a thing and seeing it through and doing it because she feels like something really shady was done.

Nikki: Two, she's an amazing business person.

Nikki: Like the way that she has approached her career.

Nikki: The flip of all of this is that she started wealthy.

Nikki: Her family is wealthy, so she started from a place of means.

Nikki: So she was obviously not self made in really the main sort of way.

Nikki: So I struggle with that balance a little bit.

Nikki: But on the flip of it, she's made gobs of money by making very strategic choices.

Nikki: She does amazing things with her promotion on social media.

Nikki: This last week last week or maybe two weeks ago released a version of a song in her catalog, her own version, ahead of schedule because it blew up on TikTok and everybody was using it.

Nikki: And she didn't want them using the old one because every time they use the old one, these people she doesn't like got credit for it.

Nikki: And she didn't like that.

Nikki: So she just released it off schedule.

Nikki: It was unexpected for anyone, but she did it because she's plugged into what's happening online.

Nikki: She's plugged into what's happening in the Zeitgeist and in culture and she did it.

Nikki: I just think that's so admirable again, takes a ton of confidence to do that.

Nikki: All the people I admire have a lot of confidence.

Nikki: Kate Middleton also is on my list.

Nikki: They just got confidence.

Salina: I think this has got to be the hardest question of all time.

Salina: I don't know, I just think maybe like a Jane Goodall or something.

Salina: Like know just somebody that they just want to put good in the world.

Salina: They just want to do good and like, they're not really caught up in look, there's nothing wrong with making money and I totally believe that.

Salina: Everybody you put something out into the world and there's value to that and so I totally get that.

Salina: But there's just something about the people who are out there making the things happen standing up for a group of people or animals or anybody who's doing that.

Salina: And they're not as focused on money and they're not as focused on fame necessarily.

Salina: I think about anybody like Malala that's putting herself in real danger.

Salina: Those are the kinds of people that I have such a level of admiration for.

Salina: I'm just not sure that I can just think of one person that threw myself with my own question.

Nikki: I know that's a really tough question, especially to answer in the moment.

Nikki: And I think it does say something.

Nikki: I have this weird fascination with it's.

Salina: Everybody does.

Nikki: I know it's toxic and I know it's not good, but I am fascinated by that life.

Nikki: Again, to go back to my answer.

Nikki: Taylor Swift owns, like, two jets.

Nikki: Could you imagine?

Nikki: Could you imagine?

Nikki: And I'm just fascinated by that.

Nikki: I just want to talk to that person.

Nikki: I just want to walk in their shoes for a day.

Nikki: Just to know.

Nikki: Just to know.

Nikki: But now I wish I had given your answer, if I'm being honest.

Nikki: And I think I just revealed something really bad about myself.

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: I don't think so at all.

Salina: I am also very preoccupied.

Salina: I listen to a podcast.

Salina: They do different interviews.

Salina: They have ones where they interview experts, but they interview a lot of famous people.

Salina: And I find myself being like, I don't know who this expert is.

Salina: So I'm just like, cool.

Salina: Will Ferrell, what does he have to say?

Salina: And you just sort of are curious about people who reach kind of like this level of just like, you're saying two jets.

Salina: What do you do with that?

Salina: Like, this unfathomable status?

Salina: And then sometimes I think it's really interesting just to hear, like, I'm thinking of like, is it people who does the they're just like us.

Nikki: Yeah, whatever.

Nikki: They're getting milk.

Nikki: They're just like us.

Salina: They're buying milk know?

Salina: But it is kind of interesting when you do like, you're like, we can't possibly have anything in common.

Salina: And then you're like, oh, we have.

Nikki: Things for sure you do in common.

Nikki: I think that's what I need to know.

Salina: I will tell you someone too, also, that I really admire who is famous, but Jane Fonda.

Nikki: Oh, yeah.

Salina: What a woman, right?

Nikki: Again.

Nikki: Oh, my gosh.

Nikki: The confidence, the drive.

Nikki: And I also have a real thing with success.

Nikki: Like successful women.

Nikki: I would love to meet every hugely successful woman in the whole world.

Nikki: And I know there are ranges of what success is.

Nikki: I'm talking about like, top of their game, over and over and over again, successful.

Nikki: I'd just love to sit down with that person and talk about it.

Salina: Yeah, I just would.

Salina: Jane Fonda, we'd love to talk to you anytime.

Salina: If you've ever seen Jane Fonda in five acts or you have not seen Jane Fonda in five acts, it's a documentary.

Salina: Oh my gosh, I laughed, I cried, I cried.

Salina: I cried some more.

Salina: I mean, when they made Nine to Five, you'll like this, we got a Dolly connection.

Salina: They gave every dollar away.

Nikki: I feel like I knew that.

Salina: Hold on a second.

Salina: Definitely for her exercise video, they gave every dollar away.

Salina: I think they gave probably a significant portion for Nine to Five was all about helping women in the workplace.

Salina: And there is so much pressure on women in the workplace.

Salina: I think some people really understand.

Salina: I think others really don't.

Salina: And so just the barriers that they were breaking down.

Salina: I just have so much love for her.

Salina: So I think that is someone else that I really want to throw in that pile as well.

Nikki: Gosh darn it.

Nikki: Well, now I'm going to have to add Dolly because she also is a very philanthropic person and a massively successful person.

Nikki: And to put those two things together, one of my like the saying I say all the time lately, because the world is so dark, it's so easy not to be an a hole, especially for wealthy people for like a penny in their mind, they could change someone's entire life.

Nikki: Like occasionally you hear a story about Taylor Swift where she paid someone's student loans.

Nikki: To her, it was nothing.

Nikki: She owns two jets.

Nikki: So that was just she didn't go shopping today.

Nikki: She paid off a person's entire student loans.

Nikki: And that is like on the far end of what I would expect from a celebrity.

Nikki: They could stop by a middle school and sign some autographs and change that entire school's lives.

Nikki: And I just don't understand why celebrities are as aholy as they are.

Nikki: Because it's so easy not to be.

Nikki: Sorry, I jumped on a soapbox with your question.

Salina: No.

Salina: And I'm like, I'm going to throw one more in there.

Salina: I'm just going to say we didn't really talk a lot about men.

Salina: Of course you talked about president, so those are all men.

Nikki: That's true.

Salina: So check mark.

Salina: And I'm going to move on to our next question.

Salina: We do have an episode to talk about.

Salina: You're liking this proof survey?

Nikki: I do, although I'm not sure I feel good about myself in that last one.

Nikki: Carry on.

Nikki: I'm going to tell you I'll continue this introspection.

Salina: What is your greatest extravagance?

Salina: Oh, I'm like define extravagance.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: What does that mean?

Nikki: I am not a particularly extravagant person.

Nikki: Again, see aforementioned answer that I am not rich nor famous.

Nikki: My greatest extravagance, all I can think of is that I get my hair done and like do or die.

Nikki: I get my hair done during COVID as long as they were still wearing masks and I was still wearing masks, I got my hair done.

Nikki: I just do it.

Nikki: I do it all the time on a schedule.

Salina: Self care, ma'am, that's important.

Nikki: But, you know, that's my only self care, non negotiable.

Nikki: Everything else, I'm like, oh, God, I should get a massage like once a month.

Nikki: Why don't I do that?

Nikki: And then I don't because it's another thing to do.

Nikki: So my hair, I think, is just like my one.

Nikki: I've been on a schedule for years now and I just always do it.

Nikki: But that doesn't feel like the right answer.

Salina: Yeah, I don't know.

Salina: Well, I mean, there isn't a right and wrong answer.

Nikki: Yes, there is.

Salina: Well, I think we're sitting in mine.

Salina: So we're in my closet because we turn one of our bedrooms in our house into a closet.

Nikki: I was going to say it's probably bigger than the bedroom I had for most of my childhood.

Salina: So that's my extravagance.

Salina: That's probably one of my bigger ones.

Salina: And what we're doing right now, I think, is the other one.

Salina: This podcast has been quite the extravagance because when I think of extravagance, I think of like, you could probably define it one way, but I think that's.

Nikki: Why the question is worded.

Nikki: The way it is is because you can take it however you want.

Nikki: I think your mind goes to a money extravagance, but it could be anything.

Salina: And it's not necessarily first of all, there are people who have lots more clothes than I do.

Salina: I think it's more of like and this has been over years and years and years.

Salina: It's just more like where I've decided to center so much energy.

Salina: And when I think about another place where I put a lot of energy, it's been in this podcast, and it feels extravagant.

Salina: Extras at the top.

Salina: It's actually my nickname, so I think that's mine.

Nikki: I think we need more extravagance in our life.

Salina: Yeah, I'm glad that you're getting your hair done, but we're going to have to put some more extravagance.

Nikki: I know I got to work on that.

Salina: So we got some things to think about, people that we admire and how we can inject a little bit more extravagance into our lives.

Salina: What's everybody else thinking of?

Salina: Tell us.

Salina: We want to hear about your extravagances.

Nikki: It's hard to move on from that because I feel like there's so much I just learned about myself.

Nikki: I, like, envy wealthy, rich people.

Nikki: And my one extravagance is getting my hair done sometimes.

Salina: Well, let's just get you a private jet.

Salina: Come on, Taylor, you have two.

Salina: Just give us one, man.

Nikki: This is what I'm saying.

Nikki: Can someone just come pay off my mortgage?

Nikki: And then it takes us to the conversation about the one percenters, and it just gets complicated.

Salina: Well, let's go into something that's not complicated.

Nikki: And yet it is somehow.

Nikki: Season three, episode Three season two.

Nikki: I was like, uhoh, anthony Jr.

Nikki: The Hulu episode description is Anthony's fabrication of a pedigree family to impress his girlfriend's parents is shattered when an uninvited dinner guest informs him that he is the father of her son.

Nikki: IMDb says after Suzanne is in a car accident, she decides to become more charitable.

Nikki: However, her idea of charity is helping Anthony make himself look more well off than he is.

Nikki: To impress his girlfriend's wealthy parents, she lets him use her house.

Nikki: But no one is prepared for the shock when a woman comes to the house claiming that he's the father of her baby.

Nikki: That is a long description.

Salina: It is, but, you know, I like these two together because I think it actually covers most of the bases.

Nikki: The reason I was laughing at the beginning of IMDb is Suzanne in a car accident is almost an afterthought to this entire episode.

Salina: I mean, it is kind of the catalyst.

Nikki: It's the catalyst, but then I just quickly forget what happened.

Salina: Well, because Anthony is obviously the centerpiece of this episode.

Salina: And she's definitely the B plot, so that makes sense.

Nikki: So this one, aired on September 28, 1987, was written by LBT.

Nikki: It was directed by David Trainor.

Nikki: Salina tells me this is the first of 63 episodes that he directs.

Salina: Well, in all fairness, IMDb is telling us so.

Nikki: He also directed some of my favorites, boy Meets World, Grace Under Fire, which I have not seen in years.

Nikki: But my mom used to love that show, and I've watched it, and I really do like it.

Nikki: That 70s Show, I watched that for a period of time.

Nikki: And The Ranch, which I feel like is supposed to be a problematic show, but I actually really like it.

Salina: I haven't really watched it.

Salina: One of the reasons I capture both that 70 Show and the Ranch.

Salina: In addition to David Trainor, the other common denominator there is obviously Ashton Kutcher.

Salina: Kutcher.

Nikki: And Danny Masterson.

Salina: And Danny Masterson.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: Did he get to finish up The Ranch?

Nikki: No, he didn't.

Nikki: There's a story there, people.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: Go look it up.

Salina: Right.

Salina: Look it up yourself.

Salina: So David Trainor, I just thought it was interesting because my very naive understanding of television shows, I want to be very clear about that because I never want to sound like an expert when I'm not.

Salina: But is that usually you have a lot of guest directors that come in.

Salina: It's highly unusual to have the same director throughout.

Salina: I mean, how many directors have we seen?

Salina: Like, a ton already.

Salina: Right.

Salina: And he, I think, directed every single episode of that 70 Show.

Nikki: Oh, wow.

Salina: And he directed every single episode of The Ranch.

Salina: And the reason I just think that's interesting is because in the tie into Designing Women, you can kind of see that he's sort of starting that path of being that involved in one show versus directing lots of different shows.

Nikki: You left off that he also directed Sabrina the Teenage Witch oh, I'm sorry.

Nikki: And hot in Cleveland.

Salina: I'm sorry.

Nikki: Oh, my gosh.

Nikki: He's done so much.

Salina: He's done a lot.

Nikki: Yes.

Nikki: All right, so we'll jump right into general reactions yeah.

Nikki: To the episode.

Nikki: My number one reaction to this entire episode.

Nikki: Of all the things we learned in this episode.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: Did we finally get the explanation of Anthony's unfortunate incarceration?

Salina: We did.

Nikki: We did.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: That's a good call.

Salina: I think we absolutely have to talk about that first.

Nikki: So that is building up.

Nikki: We are a whole season of a show, three episodes in.

Nikki: Of the handful of things we know about this character, three of them involve his unfortunate incarceration.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: So what we find out is that his friends decided to rob a liquor store but didn't tell Anthony.

Nikki: So he got caught holding the getaway car and was arrested in connection to this crime.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: But then he ended up getting released when the judge overturned his.

Salina: Can.

Salina: Let's just go ahead and talk about it.

Salina: For Our lady loves.

Salina: What this means is they never knew.

Salina: And we know that because we never knew.

Salina: And the whole bit of it is that they really kind of get called on the carpet because they never asked and they just sort of judge the.

Nikki: Whole time, very quietly.

Nikki: But is a constant undercurrent.

Nikki: And it's not just Suzanne who know.

Salina: No, she's just more overt.

Nikki: She's overt about it.

Nikki: But Julia, this whole time has been operating under this mode that she's giving this poor kid a break.

Nikki: He did something.

Salina: Think I think she says something along the lines of, I just assumed he did whatever they said he did.

Salina: Which is this thing that you sort of just got, like, whatever the authorities say.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: And obviously there's a racial undertone to all of that.

Nikki: And Julia had her own run in with the law in season one, where she was basically framed for something she didn't really super have a clue about what was happening.

Salina: Yes.

Salina: And I think that's kind of what LBT.

Salina: Is trying in her own way to show us.

Salina: But Julia did not get in any right.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: And Anthony did.

Salina: And that's our justice system, guys.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: So that's not all of our justice system.

Salina: But that is something that obviously has been on, I feel like, the country's mind of late.

Salina: But it's been on a lot of.

Nikki: Minds before a really long time.

Salina: Right.

Salina: So, real quickly, too, I want to say that we learn other things about him while we're on this.

Salina: He doesn't know his mom.

Salina: He mentions that in his background.

Salina: I almost said he doesn't have a mother.

Salina: Clearly he has one.

Salina: I think he says, like, something along those lines.

Nikki: Oh, I missed that.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: And he says he doesn't know who his father is and his siblings are scattered all over.

Salina: This is all when he's, like, asking to basically adopt them kind of as his family, the Designing Women, for when his girlfriend and his girlfriend's wealthy family is supposed to come over for this whole set up just to show how this is in opposition to everything else.

Salina: What he's told his girlfriend's parents, who are very well to do, is that he's in sales and distribution at Sugar Bakers, that he's studying to be a decorator.

Salina: That his family's from Virginia, where they made most of their money in coal.

Salina: His parents are retired and living in Spain.

Salina: Julia is his godmother and invited him to Atlanta to learn the business.

Salina: And he's living in Suzanne's guest house driving one of the servants cars because his Mercedes is in the shop.

Salina: So that's sort of what he set up and told his girlfriend's parents.

Nikki: So all of that feeds into the other big theme of the episode, which is this dichotomy of wealth and not wealth, basically wealth and class, how those things fit one another.

Salina: And it's the third episode in a row.

Nikki: Yes.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: We're three episodes in and in every single one, we are looking at issues of wealth and not wealth.

Nikki: Interesting.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: So there's such little overlap between people who don't have a lot of means and people who do.

Nikki: So little overlap that people are inventing entire stories to make themselves seem palatable to the other half.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: Anthony's developed this entire backstory just to fit in with Savannah's family.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: Trying to figure out how to break this one down.

Nikki: So the story is that Savannah's father has led Anthony to believe he doesn't think she's good enough for him.

Nikki: This is what kind of leads him to develop this whole story.

Nikki: They're part and parcel to one another.

Nikki: Her father takes him into the library at the first dinner together and says, basically like, I don't want you to get hurt physically right.

Salina: By my bodyguard.

Nikki: Physically hurt.

Nikki: And so Anthony needs this man to believe that he's worthy of Savannah.

Salina: We don't really know what order the lie came in.

Nikki: That's true.

Nikki: That's true.

Nikki: But Anthony needs so this is why he drafts the Designing Women to help him, because they are of means, and they do have some class whether their business is struggling or not.

Nikki: Obviously, Julia and Suzanne sit in a certain stratosphere right.

Nikki: In Atlanta.

Nikki: Yes.

Nikki: So he thinks it'll be more palatable to invite these people to Julia's house than to admit what his situation is.

Salina: I'm just going to say one thing because I do think it is central to it's.

Salina: Suzanne's.

Salina: Because he stays.

Nikki: Sorry.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: I mean, to imply someone one of the two sugar bakers he's invited.

Nikki: So he brings them to Suzanne's house and tells this whole lie, which I think the father sees through pretty immediately.

Nikki: But the father has hired someone to tail Anthony, which we find out later in the episode.

Salina: Something about that pi just really gives you so much know.

Nikki: So we find that out later in the episode.

Nikki: But because of what he found, he sets into motion a series of events such that this woman barges into this dinner party at Suzanne's house and claims that Anthony is the father of her baby.

Nikki: And Anthony immediately says, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Nikki: But no one believes him.

Salina: Right.

Salina: No one believes him.

Nikki: They don't believe him at all.

Nikki: And I guess they're sort of just like, maybe you forgot, or maybe you're lying, right?

Salina: Or maybe you really didn't know, or whatever.

Salina: But no one is on his side.

Nikki: And we don't really get a sense for what Savannah's thinking of all this.

Salina: We don't get a lot of Savannah at all.

Nikki: She has just a couple lines, right?

Salina: Savannah being the girlfriend.

Nikki: Right.

Nikki: So we have no idea what Savannah thinks.

Nikki: But the rest of the dinner party is in disarray, like what has just happened?

Nikki: And then it leads to this subsection of the episode where Anthony is becoming a father to this baby.

Nikki: Do you get the sense Anthony starts to believe maybe he's the dad.

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: For me, I think the only thing I knew to take away because it's 22 minutes, we covered a lot of ground in this episode.

Salina: This is definitely one of those episodes where I just felt like we were bouncing around a lot.

Salina: And the only thing I knew to glean from this was more like.

Nikki: And.

Salina: I'm putting some of this together now, like, what did I just say about his background?

Salina: He didn't know his mom, and he didn't know his dad.

Salina: And his siblings were scattered all over the place.

Salina: There's probably not much more that's important to Anthony than home because he probably always wanted one that was, like, calm and whatever.

Salina: Everybody considers this standard, quote, unquote.

Salina: And I think the whole idea of, like, who cares if he didn't know her or not, that's a real baby, right.

Salina: And she's a real human.

Salina: And he wasn't going to set them out in the street, which is basically where she said she was headed because that part wasn't a ruse.

Salina: I think her parents, probably her parents really weren't taking her back in because of this baby.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: Which is kind of sad.

Salina: That Savannah's father I don't remember his name, but that he was going to take advantage of, so but I think.

Nikki: In his mind, he was helping support her.

Salina: Absolutely.

Nikki: He was giving her the means to her end.

Salina: I totally think that he saw it that way as well.

Salina: So to me, it just makes me love Anthony more.

Salina: That's what I learned.

Nikki: Absolutely.

Nikki: So that was another big theme of this episode to me was I think we're learning a ton about Anthony in 20 some OD minutes, we finally learn this massive backstory that has followed him this whole first season and into the second.

Nikki: Yeah, we learn his familial backstory and we learn that he does seem to be family man and or altogether just a really darn good person.

Nikki: I mean, honestly, just the amount of step up and take it on sort of thing that he does.

Nikki: And I think he also just loves I mean, who doesn't love a baby?

Nikki: Even the terrible parts he seems to kind of really relish in, which I thought was really sweet.

Salina: It was sweet.

Salina: And I think, too, I think he said this at the end of the last episode, but it feels worth repeating in this episode is that this is our first Anthony centered episode.

Salina: You want me to say episode again?

Nikki: Episode.

Salina: Episode.

Salina: Episode.

Nikki: Oh, thank you.

Salina: But I say that because it's just a big deal.

Salina: We have talked numerous times.

Salina: I want to say, like 19 times, saying Anthony was the best part of this episode.

Salina: We only got to see him for five minutes.

Salina: That's a darn shame.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: So just wanted to step back and say, how cool is it that we're finally doing all the things that we haven't done up to this point.

Salina: He is being solidified as a member of this cast with this episode, I think, and we just know that he's hanging around, and that's exciting.

Nikki: I think the last big thing for me to talk about is also the hardest part for me to talk about because I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

Nikki: But it's the entire story of how it comes out with what Savannah's dad has done to Anthony and how all those chips fall and how the story falls together.

Nikki: So, as I mentioned earlier, it turns out he hired a Pi.

Nikki: To follow Anthony.

Nikki: So he knows all of Anthony's dark secrets of which is the fact that Anthony doesn't really have any dark secrets.

Salina: He's just.

Nikki: Then so the man's like, I don't really care that he was in jail.

Nikki: He didn't do anything wrong.

Nikki: It's the fact that he has no money and he has no future.

Nikki: What is he?

Nikki: He's just a delivery person.

Nikki: He's not good enough for my is what that's what sent him to bring this woman to Anthony to claim that she's the mother of Anthony's baby.

Nikki: And Anthony hasn't stepped up.

Nikki: And I just don't know how to break apart all those pieces except focusing on the class wealth commentary.

Nikki: And it just bothered me so much as I'm watching this episode, I'm like, this man knows nothing about Anthony except that he fell on some really hard times not of his own making and deems him not good enough for his daughter.

Nikki: And it's kind of a big twist that you find out that that's actually not the thing that bothered him, was that he was in jail.

Nikki: It's the fact that he's poor.

Nikki: And that's the twist.

Nikki: And I'm not sure what to make of that part of my read of the episode.

Nikki: I'm not sure if that's what LBT.

Nikki: Intended.

Nikki: And then I'm not sure what that says about race, if anything.

Nikki: That to me, the big twist was that he's not worried about him being a convict.

Nikki: It's the fact that he's.

Salina: Think in that particular framing, I think what it says in a certain way is like, he's not surprised by Anthony being falsely accused for something.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: Because that's an experience that he's very familiar with, unlike a Julia who has always seen something through, like these rosy colored glasses, because she doesn't get pulled over.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: She doesn't have the no one looks at her and thinks, uh oh, this is a threat.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: So I think I see that side of it.

Salina: I'm going to go ahead and skip down into what I didn't like because it feels relevant to this part of the conversation about the episode.

Salina: Are you okay with that?

Nikki: Sure.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: Going to get some consent.

Nikki: Was it Savannah's?

Salina: Dad?

Nikki: In general?

Nikki: He's on my list.

Salina: Consent.

Salina: Some of this is playing like a country song for me.

Salina: I'm thinking of like, an old tricia.

Salina: Yearwood song, the one where she's like, she's in love with the boy.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: And the mom looks at the dad and she's like, you were exactly the same.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: Like, I feel like we got that.

Salina: But in this episode, isn't one of.

Nikki: Your least favorite traits in people, the fact that they can't see themselves, in themselves?

Salina: It's very bothersome.

Nikki: Unaware.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: I'm so glad that they had the woman around to remind him.

Nikki: Perfect.

Salina: So this was my struggle, is that I felt like the aim here in the show was to do a good thing.

Salina: We'd spent a lot of time even you and I have had questions.

Salina: I'm just going to go ahead and say it.

Salina: We said last season when that one episode happens and the role Big Blue, and we were like, oh, my gosh, is Anthony a criminal b******?

Salina: We haven't known it this whole time because there's no reason that Big Blue rolls tonight means anything but something criminal, right?

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: That can't mean dog grooming services.

Salina: And it turns out I think it was a dog grooming service.

Salina: It wasn't an underground poker tournament.

Nikki: He's just unconventional.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: So trying to do a good thing with this episode, and I think we did do a good thing.

Salina: We showed that there's been a lot of probably unfair assumptions made about Anthony for me.

Salina: At the same time, we also wound up creating other problems, because I feel like in the execution, we wound up introducing these other negative stereotypes, like an absent father, or the mom who didn't know who her child's father was or was having to track down her child's father, and all these things that just create these other issues.

Salina: Just to clear up one issue.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: Then I don't know if you've noticed this or not.

Salina: There's not a lot of African American characters on this show.

Salina: Right.

Salina: And the person who clears Anthony's name, who's Savannah's dad is, also wound up being played as a little bit of a like I think they soften his character.

Salina: When the mom comes in and says, this is exactly who you are, and he opens up to the idea of them dating or whatever, I think that's where we're left at the end.

Salina: But at the same time, we don't know him.

Salina: This is the first episode that we've met him.

Salina: And so it does feel a little villainous to pay someone to come in and lie.

Nikki: It feels a lot villainous.

Salina: Yes.

Salina: I am definitely underplaying that.

Salina: It does.

Salina: It feels a lot villainous.

Salina: So I feel like trying to do a good thing, some missteps to get there.

Nikki: I do wonder to that point, and I hear what you're saying, I wonder, though, if there is some value in it not being like a white savior complex.

Nikki: So of this entire time we've thought this thing about Anthony, is there value?

Nikki: I don't know.

Nikki: I won't say.

Nikki: Isn't it?

Nikki: Is there value in it not having been a white person being the hero here to reveal that information.

Salina: You mean like a blind side?

Salina: Yeah, sure.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: So I don't know.

Nikki: Again, to your point, like a mixed bag of good and bad.

Salina: Well, that's one of the things that's in my, like category.

Salina: I love the fact that the dad's the one that pointed out the hypocrisy.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: And he was like also, you were all lying to me last night, by the way.

Salina: So while you're over there judging me for hiring a pi, you guys were all lying, making stuff up, and also, you never even thought to ask this man what really happened.

Nikki: Yeah, right.

Salina: And so I thought that that was really good because I always really like it, especially when Julia gets taken down a peg or something, because she's kind of nice.

Salina: She sits on a pretty high horse.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: I'm like, did that help?

Salina: I don't know if that helped or not, but we talked about it.

Nikki: I have a stray observation.

Nikki: I think we barreled right through them, and it feels kind of silly to bring it up now, but I don't think so.

Nikki: Suzanne's house is different, maybe.

Salina: Yeah, because it's Monet's house.

Nikki: Oh, okay.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: That's in my stray observations.

Salina: So we learned in some trivia that when we watched the episode with Monet monica Charlene's high school madam friend, that that house was going to go on to eventually be Suzanne's house.

Salina: I think this is the first time that we have seen the downstairs as Suzanne's house, and it be Monet's house.

Nikki: Oh, man.

Nikki: I think you just, like, beautiful minded me or something.

Nikki: I think I lost the thread.

Salina: Did I square?

Salina: Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square.

Nikki: You did.

Nikki: I'm going to have to rebuild I won't make you do it again.

Nikki: I'm going to rebuild that narrative later in my head.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: But, yes, you did notice something different.

Salina: Because it was different.

Nikki: Perfect.

Salina: That's the bottom.

Nikki: That's what I needed to hear.

Salina: Okay, what other stray observations did you have?

Nikki: Suzanne is wearing a royal blue dress at the first, like, when they come over, it's beautiful.

Nikki: That's it.

Nikki: That was really lovely on her.

Salina: She does look really nice and blue.

Salina: Are her eyes blue?

Salina: I think they are.

Nikki: Oh, probably.

Salina: She seems very Liz Taylor y.

Nikki: Seems like a blue eyre.

Salina: Yeah, blue eyre.

Nikki: And Mary Jo is a lightweight again.

Salina: Yeah, but they cut out some of those lines.

Salina: We'll talk about it.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: You get enough of a flavor to see she's a little loopy.

Salina: I miss it until I read the cut lines.

Nikki: Did you really?

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: I don't know how I did.

Salina: Maybe I'm just thinking that's, like, part of her personality now.

Nikki: Oh, yeah.

Salina: Girl had three rum balls, and she's laying in the floor.

Nikki: She's out of it.

Salina: Get off the floor, Mary Jo.

Salina: Anyways, she's 100 pounds.

Salina: I bet you she's not even 100 pounds, actually.

Salina: So other stray observations.

Nikki: That's all I got.

Salina: All right.

Salina: I have something about Suzanne.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: That car wreck that she gets in, she says once she's back in the house, she was pinned in her car for 15 minutes.

Salina: What happened?

Salina: I mean, she was like, what, 5 seconds from the door?

Salina: I'm just saying.

Salina: I didn't really follow that one too well.

Nikki: So while we're there, actually, this probably should be a stray observation.

Nikki: Julia told Suzanne to go lie down upstairs after her wreck.

Nikki: She trying to off Suzanne.

Nikki: She just go take a nap.

Nikki: Let your brain rest.

Salina: Let me tell you a real quick zybar.

Nikki: Okay?

Salina: So I'm going to call out a couple of my friends right now, as one does at our 30th birthday.

Salina: Like, my friend and Ashley.

Salina: Yeah, Ashley, my best friend and I, we shared a dirty 30 together.

Salina: We can't have anything of our own.

Salina: It all has to come together, which is good for me because I don't really like that much attention.

Salina: So we decide to have a Slip and Slide.

Salina: I guarantee you the Slip and Slide was more for Ashley than for me.

Salina: It was a big weekend, so there was a lot of drinking going on.

Salina: And the Slip and Slide ended in a game of Flip.

Nikki: Hmm.

Salina: Like all slip and slides do.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Two of my friends, including her, hit their head on the Slip and Slide.

Nikki: Oh, my.

Salina: And then they're back inside, and I'm like, okay, all right, well, I'm going to go take a shower.

Salina: I come back from the shower, they're both napping.

Nikki: You left them alone after a concussion.

Salina: There were twelve other people in the room.

Nikki: You were the not drinker and I.

Salina: Was the not drinker.

Salina: But I came back in the room after taking a shower, and I was like, hey, where's Alyssa?

Salina: Where's Ashley?

Salina: And they were like, they're napping.

Nikki: And I was like, resting off their head injuries.

Salina: Napping.

Salina: I was like, you guys have one job.

Salina: I was like, why would you let people who are concussed potentially go take a nap?

Salina: Spoiler alert, they're alive.

Nikki: Good.

Salina: So all is well.

Nikki: And I feel like this is a more, you know, moment.

Nikki: If you didn't glean.

Nikki: Don't lay down after you have a concussion or potential concussion.

Nikki: Don't rest your brain.

Salina: There's been so many lessons learned in this season so far.

Salina: Don't take off people's pants without consent.

Nikki: Yeah, right.

Salina: Without consent and knowledge.

Nikki: If you have consent and knowledge, you have at it.

Salina: You take their pants off.

Nikki: Gridded teeth really did it for aggressive.

Salina: And then also, if you're slipping, sliding down into flip cup and you hit your head, you just stay up now and watch an episode of Designing Women, then come join us here.

Nikki: And if you're in the non drinker, stay up with them so that you can download our podcast for them when they're not able to figure it out.

Salina: And that is Salina's sidebar, impromptu.

Salina: I did have a couple of other stray observations.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: The story opens with Suzanne showing off her new and expensive purse.

Salina: $700 today.

Salina: That would be almost one $700.

Salina: I found it very rude to drop those price tags in front of people.

Salina: I was very surprised by that.

Nikki: What do you mean?

Salina: It feels very not southern and like oh, I see.

Nikki: You mean between the women.

Nikki: Betwixt the women.

Salina: You don't talk about those things.

Salina: That's a private thing.

Salina: Well, it helps in front of your sister.

Nikki: I was going to say it helps that Julia and Suzanne were largely having the discussion because they're sisters.

Nikki: But I hear what you're saying.

Nikki: Good point.

Salina: I had a question for you, but I think I know the answer.

Salina: And I didn't even mean to loop this back to the proust questionnaire.

Nikki: Oh, no.

Salina: What's the most extravagant piece of clothing or accessory you've ever bought yourself?

Nikki: A pair of seven for all mankind jeans.

Nikki: I spent probably $125 on them, I think.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: And then proceeded to lose 20 pounds.

Nikki: And they never fit me again.

Nikki: I've never bought jeans that expensive again.

Salina: But, hey, you lost 20 pounds.

Salina: Lost 20 pounds.

Salina: How could you lose 20 pounds?

Salina: That seems like an all fair discussion.

Nikki: It was before I got married.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: So then I feel like I need to answer in kind because yeah.

Nikki: As well now that you called me up.

Salina: Right.

Salina: So mine's way worse.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: All right.

Salina: And I was super poor.

Salina: This is funny.

Salina: So this is before you were married.

Salina: So not because marriage brought you the money, but I'm just assuming you were not of me, not as far along in your career.

Salina: Okay, sure.

Salina: So I was like 20.

Salina: I bought a dress for a wedding.

Salina: I spent $400 on that dress.

Nikki: That's a lot of money.

Salina: I know.

Nikki: That is a lot of money.

Salina: I know.

Salina: I wound up wearing it to multiple wedings.

Salina: I don't even know what I was thinking.

Salina: I've never had less money money.

Salina: And I was like, I love this dress.

Salina: I'm going to buy it.

Salina: I'm going to do something for myself.

Nikki: You do weird things when you don't have money.

Nikki: That's the catch 22.

Nikki: When you don't have money, you tell yourself, I deserve this.

Nikki: I work hard.

Nikki: But actually you end up hurting yourself.

Nikki: Yeah, there's a whole financial theory behind that.

Nikki: But now that you say that, I do feel like I have to amend my answer slightly, but I don't consider this an extravagance because I was getting married.

Nikki: But we've said married so many times that I should say I had a dress picked out at David's Bridal that I really liked that was under $1,000.

Nikki: I don't remember exactly what, let's say 700.

Nikki: And I had it.

Nikki: It was fine.

Nikki: I was happy with it.

Nikki: It was fine.

Nikki: But just because you only get married once, allegedly, presumably.

Nikki: I wanted to go to an actual bridal shop, like a real deal bridal shop and try some dresses on Bridals by Lori.

Nikki: That's not where I went, but I wish I had, but I know I couldn't have afforded anything in there.

Nikki: No.

Nikki: I went to one over off Rockbridge Road in Lilburn it's been there a long time.

Nikki: And tried on a dress and fell in love with it.

Nikki: And it was about double the price of the one at David's bridal.

Nikki: And my mom had to walk next door to Subway with me and have lunch because I said, I want this dress, but I don't want to spend this much.

Nikki: And she said, let's walk next door and catch a breath, take a deep breath, chill out, had lunch.

Nikki: And long story short, I ended up buying that dress.

Nikki: And that was quite an indulgence.

Salina: Oh, I thought the long story short was going to be that you had $5 foot longs for a long time.

Nikki: That may have ended up being that.

Salina: Would have been, like, part of my plan.

Salina: All right, I'm going to have a $5 footlong that'll make me for lunch for X amount of days.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Well, wedding dresses.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: We're not going to count weding.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: That doesn't feel like it counts.

Salina: It's also difficult, and this comes back to this whole thing of, like, social strata, right.

Salina: Because some people spend, like, ten grand and higher on their dresses, so it's just like, you can spend a lot of money, guys.

Salina: That's what we're trying to say.

Salina: And now I feel like I've been really I'm like it's really rude to talk about prices.

Salina: Nikki, tell me the most expensive thing you've ever bought, and I will tell you, too.

Salina: Where's Consuela?

Nikki: Oh, yeah, man.

Nikki: Where's she at?

Nikki: Where'd she go?

Salina: She wasn't around for any of this, which felt weird.

Salina: Maybe she's visiting her brother or something, but I just felt like that was worth saying in our stray observations here.

Salina: I wanted to say that.

Salina: I just felt like I could put this in, like, three categories, but stray observation for me was so Suzanne.

Salina: The whole reason she even lets Anthony in her house to do this whole ruse is because that wreck, she makes a promise that she'll do good deeds if God will let her out of.

Nikki: This horrible life or death situation she got into outside of Sugar Baker.

Salina: Right.

Salina: This fender bender that she got into, she, like, ran into a oh, if you come out of here.

Salina: Anyways, so I thought that it was really well played, the different things that she was doing.

Salina: Her good deeds.

Salina: She gives Mary Jo all her old furs for the children, for the children at school.

Salina: Then she makes a soup that made people at a rescue mission sick.

Salina: And then Denise, the one that gets paid to say that she's Anthony's ex, she calls her a less fortunate to her face and then wants extra credit from god for putting someone up.

Salina: And I just thought all that was well, branded.

Nikki: And what about at the end when she kind of tuckers herself out, so she just hands Anthony some money, the whole thing?

Salina: I'd have taken that money too, for the record.

Nikki: Oh, absolutely.

Salina: And I have one more thing to see if you notice this.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: Do we know why Savannah's mom is in a wheelchair?

Salina: No.

Nikki: But they alluded to the fact that she had been really sick.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: Anthony says that's why she's home from Dartmouth is because her mom has been really sick lately.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: Because I would right.

Salina: That's right.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: And maybe they just wanted to make it, like, overtly obvious or something.

Nikki: Yes, I think so.

Salina: To put in that sick storyline, because I was like, well, we don't ever hear anything about this.

Salina: And I don't think they were worried about that type of representation in 1987.

Nikki: And I was like, wow, that's really progressive.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: My goodness.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: That's helpful.

Salina: That was my only other 15th stray observation.

Nikki: Well, I'm going to be honest with you.

Nikki: In our next two sections are what we liked and what we didn't like.

Nikki: We have covered every single one of mine in this discussion.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: I think we have almost all of.

Nikki: Um, but which ones are we missing?

Salina: Well, I'll be quick about it, see if it brings to light anything for you.

Salina: So I actually did like a lot of the things that Suzanne not a lot of the things that Suzanne said this, but I did think she was really funny.

Salina: Her tutelage about being rich I thought was pretty hilarious.

Salina: The two things the rich love to talk about the most is being rich and finding good help.

Salina: So I thought that was pretty good.

Salina: I love thinking about Anthony and Suzanne as Lucy and Ethel.

Nikki: Oh, yeah.

Salina: And that's who Julia compares them to.

Nikki: Can I back you up just a second to Suzanne's point, though, the things rich people like to talk about is being rich.

Nikki: That's why she brought up the $700 purse.

Nikki: She likes to talk about being rich.

Salina: That's a good point.

Salina: So you ready to rate this sucker?

Nikki: I'm ready.

Salina: What is your rating scale?

Nikki: $700 bags.

Salina: Oh, that's good.

Salina: I like that.

Nikki: What's?

Salina: Your badly executed good deeds, which feels like that was the whole episode.

Nikki: Pretty much, yeah.

Salina: And what's your rating?

Nikki: Three.

Salina: Me too.

Nikki: Oh, is that right?

Nikki: Okay.

Nikki: A three is just really sort of my middle of the road rating.

Nikki: Like, if I don't hate an episode, but I also don't love it, I'm just going to give it a three.

Nikki: And that's really how I am.

Nikki: It was sort of a bland story.

Nikki: It was a little I just didn't really know what to make of a lot of it.

Nikki: And so that made it hard for me.

Nikki: But it was a sweet enough story.

Nikki: I really liked watching Anthony come out a little bit.

Nikki: This character that this person that he is, and he wants to do the right thing.

Nikki: And as you said, he wasn't seeing the woman or his reality.

Nikki: He was seeing the baby, and he just wanted the best for the baby.

Nikki: And then it also sort of, I think, gave him a preview of this life that I think he really kind of wants, which he would love to have his own baby.

Nikki: And maybe this is the universe's way, this is God's way, whatever he believes.

Nikki: Maybe this is the way it enters my life and I need to seize this moment and take it.

Nikki: I just really liked that it was a sweet enough story.

Nikki: I liked the resolution at the end that he ends up having some level of relationship with this baby even though it isn't what he thought it was going to be a couple of days before, however many days before.

Nikki: So it's a solid three.

Salina: I think that's fair.

Salina: Again, my rating scale is exactly, I think, what knocked off the two points for me, but not within the context of the show, but just within the context of the writing of the show.

Nikki: Right.

Salina: So I think that trying to do some good for Anthony, trying to bring him closer into the fold, make him more of an official character.

Salina: I love all of that.

Salina: Love Anthony.

Salina: Couldn't agree more with the things that you were saying.

Salina: I just think there were some missteps along the way.

Salina: Do we have to make other people?

Salina: I don't know.

Salina: We made them bad, though, to be honest.

Salina: I think what we learned in this is everybody's human.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: Which we already knew, but it's always good to be reminded.

Nikki: Nice reminder, in case you forgot.

Salina: Human.

Salina: Human.

Salina: And that's pretty much it.

Salina: Combination of either 80s Southern or unknown.

Nikki: References for you, Little Richard.

Salina: Oh, okay.

Nikki: And I'm not sure why he's here except to say we talk about the sometimes like we just did in, I think, the last episode with Desi Arnez Jr.

Nikki: If they're of a different time, I have nowhere else to put them, so I put him there.

Nikki: Also, he's southern.

Nikki: He's from Macon, Georgia.

Salina: I did not know that.

Nikki: I found that out when I was looking into him.

Salina: That's amazing.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: When did Little Richard come up in the episode?

Salina: Do you remember.

Nikki: When Little Richard came into the episode?

Nikki: When it came out that Suzanne was donating her furs to the elementary school and Mary Jo says half the fourth grade looks like Little Richard.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: I feel like that was worth the look up because that line made me laugh.

Salina: I can't believe I didn't remember that.

Salina: And I don't even know I can barely even remember what Little Richard looks like.

Salina: It's not like I see him all the time.

Nikki: Oh, see, he's had, for whatever reason, ingrained in my memory.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: It's the throwing off of the cape fur.

Nikki: Cape.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: Going to have to spend some time with Little Richard.

Salina: 80s things.

Salina: I did not have any combinations.

Nikki: I should say so.

Nikki: The song he was singing when he walked in the door was Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross.

Nikki: And we had a Bill Cosby reference.

Nikki: Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz you just mentioned.

Nikki: This was sort of the comparison of Suzanne and Anthony coming together to host this dinner party and having pictures taken at the JCPenney.

Salina: I had that, too.

Salina: And I said, I think it would be more realistic if it had been Ola Mills.

Nikki: You would think that.

Nikki: But actually, I believe the one family picture we have, and I believe it was a Mother's Day gift to my mom, like a formal family picture was taken at JCPenney.

Salina: Oh, I totally like pictures were taken there.

Salina: But I think when I think of think of Ola Mills, I don't know why.

Salina: Oh, maybe because Ola Mills is at the bottom of all the photos that are in my grandparents house and stuff.

Nikki: Yeah.

Salina: That was all of your references.

Nikki: All of my eighty s ones.

Salina: Eighty s references.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: So I think the reason I'm getting confused is because a lot of your eighty s ones are references I looked up or felt like we should talk about.

Nikki: Oh, okay.

Salina: So hopefully I won't mess this up too badly.

Salina: One of the 80s things that stuck out for me was having to go in person to register for college classes or just of a different era.

Nikki: Yeah, that was even probably slightly before us, honestly, in college that they went in person and registered.

Nikki: That's wild.

Salina: It is.

Salina: I'm very thankful for technology when it comes to stuff like that.

Salina: Southern things.

Nikki: Andrew Young.

Nikki: This was mentioned because Suzanne bought her purse to take to a dinner party with Andrew Young, who is I'm going to say this in present tense and now he is still alive, right?

Salina: He's still alive.

Nikki: Okay.

Nikki: So Andrew Young is an American politician, diplomat, and activist.

Nikki: He began his career as a pastor and was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Nikki: He was a close confidant to Martin Luther King Jr.

Salina: This is our second reference to him.

Nikki: Yes, that sounds right.

Nikki: Now that you say that, he was.

Salina: Also mentioned in episode 14.

Salina: I don't know if I could tell you what episode four that might be the Monet episode, actually, but I just wrote episode 14 down, so I wouldn't forget.

Nikki: He's sort of Atlanta in Southern royalty when you think of social circles.

Salina: Right.

Salina: So I have here the lake because she usually hangs out with the swanky crowd.

Nikki: He was also the 55th mayor of Atlanta.

Nikki: I cannot remember his terms, but it may have been around this time, which is part of what put him in.

Salina: That strategy, I think in the last season, she calls him Mayor okay.

Salina: I think, and it was definitely around this time period.

Nikki: I also have the Tuxedo Road Racket Club, which plays into our extra sugar for this week.

Nikki: I didn't find any proof that a club by this specific name existed.

Nikki: I don't know if you looked into it.

Salina: I looked up every single reference that they make.

Salina: Like, here's all the rich people references.

Nikki: You need to make.

Salina: I couldn't find any of them.

Nikki: So Tuxedo Road, which we'll get into in Extra Sugar, is a very exclusive neighborhood in Atlanta.

Nikki: And so it fits like the fact that it would be a racket club off Tuxedo Road, which is why I latched onto this for Extra Sugar, because it is such an obscure Atlanta reference that as someone who's lived in Atlanta for a long time, it even took me a minute.

Nikki: I was like, did she just say Tuxedo Road?

Nikki: That's a real place, right?

Nikki: And I had to go Google it.

Nikki: It's a whole neighborhood.

Nikki: We're going to get into that in Extra Sugar.

Nikki: But that was one of my references I wanted to mention here.

Nikki: And then finally Emory University, which is where Savannah was taking classes, or where Savannah was thinking about coming to college.

Nikki: She was taking classes at the community college with Anthony, but was thinking of transferring to Emory.

Nikki: It's a private university here in Atlanta.

Nikki: It is, incidentally, the second oldest private college in Georgia after Mercer University.

Nikki: Okay.

Nikki: So that was my last Southern thing.

Salina: Well, there you go.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: I just wanted to say, too, that I feel like Tuxedo Road, that is real.

Salina: I've lived here my entire life.

Salina: I think that's just such maybe a thing that if you live in that area, if you live there, you call it that, I feel like, because I think otherwise, I think that's just like over people's head.

Salina: In fact, the only reason I even know that at all is because my friends work at an orthodontic office, and it's in Tuxedo Road something office park or something.

Salina: And I was like, oh.

Salina: And it's like, I know that area.

Salina: It's a very well traveled area.

Salina: Just never knew it called by that.

Salina: I think you covered all my Southern things.

Nikki: Oh, I'm sorry.

Salina: Oh, I don't mean it.

Salina: How dare you?

Salina: No, I'm glad you took them up.

Salina: So references that you needed to look up or that you want us to talk about now that I don't have any not confusing my categories anymore.

Nikki: I don't have any.

Salina: Okay.

Salina: So I looked up Simmington nurseries.

Salina: This is Savannah's parents, like company or whatever, or business.

Salina: Not whatever.

Salina: Anyways, it's not real.

Nikki: I didn't look it up because it was his last name, and I just assumed it was like a characterization.

Salina: I don't think I caught on to.

Nikki: The fact that it was his last name.

Salina: So that was my bad.

Salina: I think this must be because of my husband.

Salina: But I caught onto the Mercedes 450 SL, which is the car that Anthony references, and it was produced from 1973 to 1980, although I did find a 2020 version for $85,000.

Nikki: Oh, my.

Salina: So there you go.

Salina: Like I said, I wasn't able to find any of those other, like, the dry cleaning place, the catering place, I couldn't find any of those.

Salina: I almost started to text my mom because she remembers things about previous Atlanta.

Salina: All right, well, cut lines.

Nikki: I just had two.

Salina: Okay.

Nikki: And they're both about something very similar.

Nikki: Suzanne shares a pageant anecdote and the only reason I'm mentioning this is because the person she's talking about so, basically, she tells this story of how she ended up assigned to a room with this very Unpageant like person who was Miss Mackinaw City, and she helps feminize this woman.

Nikki: And then it comes up later in the episode where she has a chance to ask the woman with the baby if she's from Mackinac City.

Nikki: She is from Mackinac City.

Nikki: And does she know this pageant girl that she talked about?

Nikki: The reason I'm bringing that up is I couldn't find Mackinac City anywhere in Georgia.

Nikki: I found one in Michigan.

Salina: Oh, you know what?

Salina: I think that name just sounded so something.

Salina: I didn't even think it was in Georgia.

Nikki: Yeah, as far as I can tell.

Salina: I found three cut lines.

Salina: There was also one with Mary Jo kind of underscoring how much of a lightweight she is where she says something like, you look very handsome, Antoine, because she's so tipsy, she gets his name wrong.

Salina: And I think it's because they were like I think Suzanne has just told her, you know, you've had enough.

Salina: And then she was like, I'm fine.

Salina: Oh, Antoine, you look great.

Nikki: Poor Mary Jo.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: Poor Mary Jo.

Nikki: So next up, episode four.

Nikki: Spoiler alert.

Nikki: It is a tearjerker.

Nikki: It's called killing all the right people.

Nikki: It has proven to be very challenging for me to watch that one on repeat because it's a tough watch.

Nikki: Tough watch.

Nikki: So in the worst transition ever, we'd love for you guys to follow along with us on social media, Instagram, and Facebook at sweetteantv.

Nikki: Email sweettvpod@gmail.com.

Nikki: And I almost said we're on the web, and our website, WW sweettv.com, where you can find a quick summary of our podcast episode and a couple of extra things that we cover along the way.

Nikki: I'll mention again in this episode that if you love us, show us by leaving us a rating and review or cash.

Nikki: All right, and hang tight for Extra Sugar, where we're going to talk about the history of Tuxedo Road right here in Atlanta.

Salina: All right, well, I guess we'll see you around the bin.

Nikki: Welcome to this week's edition of Extra Sugar.

Nikki: So this week, I did a double take.

Nikki: When Suzanne mentioned Tuxedo Road, she mentioned the Tuxedo Road Racket Club.

Nikki: And that's such a blatant Atlanta reference.

Nikki: I think we just talked about this in.

Nikki: The episode.

Nikki: Even people who've lived in Atlanta their whole life maybe don't get it, but it is really Atlanta like me, right?

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: I think that's what makes it so impressive.

Nikki: I've never lived anywhere close to in town Atlanta ever.

Nikki: Like, the closest I've ever lived is 20 minutes outside of Atlanta.

Nikki: And even I got the reference.

Nikki: It took me a second because it's an obscure one.

Salina: What does that say about me and you?

Salina: I have lived inside the perimeter.

Salina: I didn't know.

Salina: You haven't lived out inside the perimeter.

Salina: And you do know.

Nikki: I think your proust questionnaire is coming full circle because you noticed that my person I would like to meet is someone of significant financial means and a lot of success.

Nikki: And you're about to learn a lot about Tuxedo Road that is relevant to that.

Salina: Lay it on me.

Nikki: So I don't think it's a total surprise I know of it.

Nikki: So for those who aren't familiar with Atlanta, like any major city, Atlanta is split up into neighborhoods.

Nikki: The major ones we talk about in Atlanta are downtown midtown and a place called Buckhead.

Nikki: There are dozens more, all with different personalities and different offerings.

Nikki: We're going to talk today about Buckhead.

Nikki: Wikipedia describes it as the uptown commercial and residential district of the city of Atlanta.

Nikki: Comprising approximately the northernmost fifth of the city, buckhead is the third largest business district within the Atlanta city limits behind downtown and midtown, and it's a major commercial and financial center of the southeast.

Nikki: So if you've ever listened to any, like, basically any rap song from the early 2000s, you've probably heard of Buckhead.

Nikki: Welcome to Atlanta by Jermaine Dupree.

Nikki: Name drops Buckhead pretty hard.

Nikki: Buckhead is a very wealthy neck of the woods.

Nikki: So Wikipedia, that same Wikipedia article I just mentioned cites several analyses placing the Buckhead zip code in the top wealthiest zip codes in the nation.

Nikki: One group reported the average household income of $280,631, which is a lot lower than I would have expected, but it's the average.

Nikki: But that's the average.

Nikki: That's true.

Nikki: The average net household worth is over $1.3 million.

Salina: Wow.

Nikki: Someone somewhere promotes it as the Beverly Hills of the east.

Salina: Someone somewhere.

Nikki: Hot take from someone from Atlanta.

Nikki: I've never called it that.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: But it is very wealthy.

Nikki: Anywho, I said I was talking about Tuxedo Road.

Nikki: So why I've gone on and on about Buckhead is because Tuxedo Road sits in Buckhead.

Nikki: Tuxedo park is the neighborhood, and it's in Buckhead.

Nikki: Buckhead.com calls Tuxedo Park, quote, the undisputed top shelf neighborhood in Buckhead with 100 years of the finest architecture on full display along the treeline streets.

Nikki: The estates here truly deserve their reputation.

Nikki: That's high praise.

Nikki: No.

Nikki: So the backstory of Tuxedo Park is fascinating to me.

Nikki: I am forever fascinated by these stories of people in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds who had the foresight to buy a big piece of property or the luck honestly, is what it sometimes ends up being, and then it turns into something.

Nikki: And this is in that vein.

Nikki: So in the 18 hundreds, tuxedo park and really buckhead generally was considered rural.

Nikki: Is that a wild thought to you?

Nikki: It is 7 miles from downtown Atlanta.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: And those would have been considered, like, the country homes of wealthy people.

Salina: Oh, I see.

Salina: Well, you said 100 years ago.

Salina: Yeah, because I'm thinking, like, well, 7 miles might be a long way, right.

Salina: Buggy.

Nikki: Certainly when you don't have vehicles.

Nikki: But it's just a weird concept to me, not having ever lived in that life.

Nikki: So the original plot of land for Buckhead was for a Tuxedo Park, I mean, was purchased by a man named Charles H.

Nikki: Black SR.

Nikki: For less than $100,000.

Nikki: He apparently was a businessman who had gone down to Florida and lost a fair amount of money in whatever business dealings he had.

Nikki: So he came back to Atlanta and found this property and decided to buy it.

Salina: Now, that's a weird turn of events.

Nikki: You lose a lot of money and then come buy more.

Salina: Right.

Salina: So I'm going to go buy a bunch of land.

Salina: So really, you know, the old story.

Nikki: I think it just speaks to how much money some people have that they can afford to lose a lot of it and still invest love it.

Nikki: So really random aside, in a similar vein of just how charmed some people's lives are, in researching this, I found an article that attributes the UGA, the University of Georgia mascot Ugga, the original one, to a UGA student in the late 18 hundreds with this exact same name charles H.

Nikki: Black.

Nikki: Oh.

Nikki: I had trouble confirming if they're the same person, but they had all the same names.

Nikki: That's a lot of names.

Nikki: Charles H.

Nikki: Black.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: Isn't that weird?

Salina: That is weird.

Nikki: Like Georgia Royalty.

Salina: Yeah, could be.

Nikki: I just felt like I needed to mention that.

Nikki: Anyway, Charles then became a builder and built a tutor home to show potential clients what he could do.

Nikki: That home is 225 Valley Road at the corner of Tuxedo Road.

Nikki: I looked it up on Google Street View, and it looks like it's kind of a Long street line driveway, so I didn't see the house.

Nikki: I can't confirm what it looks like, but it is still there, apparently.

Salina: I love a tutor.

Nikki: Over time, he built the neighborhood up.

Nikki: So I found this really charming article on Buckhead.com where I got some of these facts.

Nikki: It includes a link to a documentary about the area.

Nikki: The documentary was, like, narrated, maybe created, I think, by his granddaughter, chronicling the history of the area.

Nikki: It definitely wasn't narrated by her because the narrator had a very classic Atlanta Southern drawl.

Salina: Like Charleston.

Nikki: Like Charleston.

Nikki: Like very wealthy Atlanta.

Nikki: So I'll put the link in the show notes, but this woman talks about her childhood in Tuxedo Park, and in this part this was her grandfather, remember?

Nikki: So she remembers growing up there in, I'll say thirty s and forty s.

Nikki: The thirty s and forty s.

Nikki: Maybe.

Nikki: Bobby Jones, the legendary golfer, was her neighbor, and she talked about taking horses and carriage rides into Buckhead proper.

Nikki: Like down the streets of Buckhead.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: So Tuxedo Park has been home to some major Atlanta names over the years.

Nikki: Today it's actually the site of the Governor's Mansion.

Nikki: Okay, I'll drop a link to that in the show notes.

Nikki: And I've been there.

Nikki: Incidentally to the Governor's mansion.

Salina: We've talked about that before.

Nikki: Yeah, probably.

Nikki: Yeah.

Nikki: It's beautiful.

Nikki: It's also been the home to Robert Woodruff, who is a former chairman of Coca Cola.

Nikki: And as I just mentioned, Bobby Jones.

Salina: The golfer and also the Woodruff foundation.

Salina: Right.

Salina: So everything that has to do with the High Museum, the all of that stuff has to do with Woodruff.

Nikki: Right, okay, I see what you're saying.

Salina: The art center and all that.

Nikki: So Tuxedo Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to its vast offering of historic homes.

Nikki: So today homes in Tuxedo Park range from a million to over 20 million.

Nikki: So, you know, affordable.

Salina: Did you look up any of the 20 million offerings?

Salina: What did one get for $20 million?

Nikki: I looked at the next person I was going to mention, who is Arthur Blank, who is the Falcons and Atlanta United owner and one of the founders of the Home Depot.

Nikki: He had a home there, and I looked it up.

Salina: So Casey and my friend Alyssa have both been there to that house.

Salina: Yeah, because they were dropping off cars.

Nikki: I wonder if it's the same one, because this one's been sold within the last several years.

Salina: Oh, it may not be then.

Nikki: So I looked that one up, and they'll say 20 million will buy you a lot of money, a lot of really nice house.

Salina: Yeah.

Nikki: One of the things about all of these houses kind of in that neck of Atlanta is they're on estate lots.

Nikki: So they're on the originals were on like 20 acres of land.

Salina: Right.

Nikki: But these are on like four and five acres of land, which inside the city is a lot of land, which.

Salina: Is like I mean, that is awesome.

Salina: It's awesome to like, if I'm going to pay $20 million for a house, I don't want to be able to toss my neighbor toilet paper through the window, you know what I'm saying?

Salina: Oh, you need some?

Salina: Here you go, buddy.

Salina: Agreed.

Salina: I want some space.

Nikki: So you would be happy in Tuxedo Park.

Salina: I do hear myself.

Nikki: Also, just be clear, kenny Rogers owned a home there.

Nikki: Oh, and I read something somewhere that seemed to indicate justin Bieber was considering a house.

Salina: So that makes sense because isn't his whatever, like the guy who say Scooter Braun.

Nikki: Yeah, he's from the name The Man Who Must Not Be Named in the Taylor Swift drama.

Salina: Well, I didn't name him because I couldn't remember his name.

Nikki: But yes, Justin Bieber has Atlanta roots.

Nikki: So, in fact, many celebs have looked at this area to put down roots, even temporarily, particularly as they've come to Atlanta to film projects.

Nikki: So Georgia has I don't know how many people outside of Georgia know this.

Nikki: This is like a huge claim to fame to those of us who live in Georgia.

Nikki: But in the last few years, georgia has become the backdrop to all kinds of major movies and TV shows because the state started offering massive incentives to the film industry and to production companies.

Nikki: So I found a filmography database which I can link in the show notes, where you can search movies, TV shows and documentaries produced in Georgia.

Nikki: And it includes over 2000.

Nikki: We could have a whole segment on Tyler Perry, who is a massive investor into the city of Atlanta and has Georgia roots.

Nikki: He has a whole Tyler Perry production studio south of Atlanta, just north of the airport, and he's filmed dozens of TV specials, movies, et cetera, in Atlanta.

Nikki: So Tyler Perry has been here for a long time, but we've also had Marvel movies filmed here.

Nikki: In fact, that same database I just mentioned, or on that same website, it sounds like Black Panther Two is currently in production in Georgia and in Atlanta, the TV show Ozark The Walking Dead and this upcoming Dear Evan Hansen film adaptation is filmed or produced or something in Georgia.

Nikki: One of my favorite Atlanta sightings.

Nikki: I don't know if you've ever noticed Atlanta when you're watching a movie, but the new National Lampoon's Vacation movie okay.

Salina: The one with Andy from the office.

Nikki: Yes.

Salina: I don't know why I'm blanking on his name right now.

Salina: I felt bad.

Nikki: I can't remember his name right now either.

Nikki: That's on the spot they go to.

Nikki: Wally World.

Nikki: Yeah, it's actually Six Flags.

Nikki: And the second it popped up on the screen, I knew it because I spent my entire childhood there.

Salina: Oh, that's funny.

Salina: I should say I get excited when I recognize it.

Salina: I should also say that I'm not always very good at recognizing it, so.

Nikki: Have you ever noticed that?

Salina: Yes.

Salina: Well, not necessarily Atlanta proper, but there's a couple of places that stranger things.

Salina: There was some places around Stockbridge where I grew up that are in the background.

Salina: So the high school that they're in is an actual school down in Stockbridge.

Salina: And I've been there before.

Nikki: That's a really good point.

Nikki: They also filmed in Gwinnett Place Mall, which is the mall of my childhood, which has never been updated since it was built in the perfect locale.

Salina: Right.

Salina: Actually, the biggest one for me, the one that broke my heart, so when all of this I used to live in downtown Atlanta for years, and all of this movie production stuff started right as I moved to the suburbs.

Salina: And I do remember there's a movie with Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds where they switch okay, okay.

Salina: That was filmed in downtown Atlanta.

Nikki: Okay.

Salina: And that was like, right before I moved away.

Salina: But then I want to say, I mean, it must have been like six or seven years.

Salina: Whenever they did Anchorman Two, there is a scene where they are literally on top.

Salina: Some of the most famous people in all of Hollywood, people that I look up to and admire, they did one of those gigantic, ridiculous fight scenes in Anchorman Two.

Salina: Some of the most famous people on the planet are standing on top of the muses on the roof deck, which is where the muses is.

Salina: The lofts I used to live in, and they were there, and they were in Woodiff Park, which was right across the street from those lofts.

Salina: I used to hang out on that roof every night for like, four years, and it broke my heart because I was like, why didn't any of that cool stuff happen when I lived there?

Nikki: It wouldn't have mattered because they wouldn't have let you on the roof with them.

Salina: That's true, but I could have at least been like, yeah, I was there the night they filmed.

Nikki: Incidentally, there are also a lot of whatever the WB is now, that TV channel, whatever it's called now, CW.

Nikki: There was a weird number of those types of shows that have filmed in and around Atlanta.

Salina: Vampire Diaries and all that, right up.

Nikki: Here in downtown Lawrenceville.

Nikki: We were out for dinner one night and there was a film crew that had everything blocked off because they were using the downtown Lawrenceville Square to film and it might have been Vampire Diaries.

Nikki: It could have been it was around Halloween.

Nikki: There were, like some zombies involved.

Nikki: I don't remember all the specifics, but everywhere you go in Atlanta now, they're filming.

Salina: Do you think that just feels like only does the outside world not realize because I feel like that is such a well known thing that so much of Hollywood has come to Atlanta, but maybe we just notice that so much just because we live here.

Nikki: I'm hoping that's the case because I'm doing this whole segment to tell other people about it, but I actually think that's true.

Nikki: I don't think people spend a lot of time thinking about where movies and TV shows are made unless they happen upon the filming crew.

Salina: Okay?

Nikki: But it all comes full circle because I've gone off on, like, a tangent about Georgia entertainment and things that are filmed here.

Nikki: But because of that, we've had a lot of entertainers staying in Atlanta, like a list sort of people, and some of them actually are choosing to stay in Tuxedo Park.

Nikki: For instance, I found in Atlanta Magazine that Vince Vaughn and Robert Downey Jr.

Nikki: Have both leased the same estate in Tuxedo Park.

Nikki: And Downey Jr.

Nikki: Was allowed to land his helicopter at nearby school soccer fields in exchange for delivering the school's commencement.

Nikki: Huh?

Nikki: Isn't that crazy?

Salina: There you go.

Nikki: So all that to say, this was an amazingly on brand Atlanta reference for a show that was neither filmed in Atlanta nor created by native Atlanteans.

Nikki: To have picked such a prestigious part of Atlanta and to have made the reference that this was like the country club, the racket club that he needed to say he was part of to get cachet with this family.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: That's interesting.

Nikki: It was so Atlanta, it felt, like, worth digging into for us.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Thank you for bringing this here so that we can discuss it.

Nikki: You're welcome.

Salina: I do have one more thing that I want to add, which I feel like the other thing that I missed out on is I did not miss waiting tables.

Salina: But that is partially how I paved my way through school, and it's partially how I misspent some years of my youth, because it wasn't, for me, just not very happy doing it.

Salina: But after I stopped waiting tables in downtown and moved to the suburbs, my friends wind up landing these jobs at places where they're waiting on Colin Firth.

Salina: And my friend told me she was like, he ordered a drink.

Salina: And she was so mesmerized by how beautiful he was in real life that he asked for something completely different.

Salina: She just makes, like, a gin and tonic, and he's like, That'll be wonderful.

Nikki: Thank you.

Salina: Because he's all British and polite, so they used to do all kinds of rap parties.

Salina: So they've met, like, Paul Rudd and what's his face that plays Darth Vader's grandson or whatever.

Nikki: I don't know his name.

Salina: Yeah.

Salina: Adam Driver.

Salina: Thank you.

Salina: Yes, we do.

Salina: All powers combined met him in real life, and she's now is like, he's is the most beautiful person that ever lived.

Salina: And you see these people in real life and it's like, whatever.

Salina: But anyway, so me just being so like, why couldn't any of this happen when I was working in downtown?

Nikki: So there you go.

Nikki: The other side of the world will never be privy to.

Nikki: At any rate, that has been this week's.

Nikki: Extra sugar.