Whoa buddy. This is almost more than our little Southern hearts can handle. The tears, they are a’ flowin’. We’re switching decades. Charlene is having a gosh darn baby. Dolly Parton shows up. They’re talking about Steel Magnolias. We meet the sweetest woman who ever lived. Did we mention it’s a two-parter?!
Patreons can come back later this week for a Patreon-exclusive potpourri-style Extra Sugar because we just don’t have time to cover it all! If you want to join the club, check out our Patreon page!
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Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Selena.
Salina: Welcome back, everyone.
Salina: You don't know.
Nikki: It's been a minute.
Salina: Yeah, it's been a minute behind the scenes, but here we are.
Salina: It's been a month, I think so, yeah.
Salina: How the time goes by real slow and fast.
Nikki: It's true.
Salina: It's my favorite thing.
Salina: Favorite thing in the world.
Salina: Well, I want to get one really quick housekeeping note out of the way and then I've got questions for you.
Salina: And then we've got two episodes to cover today, so there's lots to do.
Salina: But I just wanted to let everyone know that we have a YouTube channel now.
Salina: All you have to do, if you want to hear us on YouTube instead of on your podcast platform of choice is Google sweet Tea and TV.
Salina: Well, don't google it.
Salina: I mean, you can I think you can.
Salina: Sweet tea and TV.
Salina: You can search it in YouTube.
Salina: You can run around outside and go, hello, sweet DCD.
Salina: Whatever you need to do, I might do that today.
Salina: We're also very slowly uploading things that we have uploaded to social media in.
Nikki: The past.
Salina: That sort of are bringing in like the extra sugars and different segments like that.
Salina: Everything takes time.
Nikki: And we've been adding the transcripts to old episodes on our website in case that's, like, some people, I think, just like to scroll through things or like to read things instead of hearing them, maybe.
Nikki: Or if you know of anybody who just can read instead of listen, they're there.
Nikki: We're adding them slowly.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Or just like probably see our names misspelled.
Salina: I'm just guessing.
Nikki: I've been fixing those manually.
Nikki: I'm so sensitive about misspelling people's names.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I mean, honestly though, for what it's worth, as long as they don't spell my name like Brenda, which is just a little far off.
Salina: Yeah, you do what you need to do.
Nikki: It's S-E-L of course.
Nikki: An A.
Nikki: It's the only one that exists that doesn't bother you?
Salina: Not in the transcript.
Nikki: Well, I got you covered.
Salina: It doesn't bother me when I think about you control finding 1000 versions of my name.
Nikki: It's not so bad.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: It's tedious, but it's doable.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I'll do anything for you, Selena.
Salina: That is very nice.
Nikki: I won't do that.
Salina: But I won't do that.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So I just wanted to say in case people didn't see you're, kind of like I just went to the Masters because I'm fancy post.
Salina: Nikki had a really nice whirlwind weekend last weekend for Easter and you had some things going on.
Salina: Staycation masters again.
Salina: Easter.
Salina: And so I just wanted to know, besides the love, your eternal love for your children, your husband and your family, that's a given.
Salina: What were your top three things?
Nikki: That's a great way to ask that question.
Salina: What were your top three things?
Salina: Outside of those obvious things?
Nikki: Barring those people?
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So we decided my kids had spring break.
Nikki: My son only sort of has spring break because he's technically in pre K at a daycare, so he still could have gone.
Nikki: But my daughter was out of school, and we just didn't really get it together to plan a trip somewhere.
Nikki: It becomes a lot to try to plan a trip every time they're out of school.
Nikki: And then if you're not planning a trip because we remote work for the most part, it feels kind of silly to be away from work.
Nikki: And if you do take time off and just stay at home, I end up just doing crap around the house and not really enjoying myself.
Nikki: So I just floated the idea of a staycation.
Nikki: I kind of thought Kyle would shoot it down.
Nikki: Like, I kind of thought he would say, that's kind of a waste of money, right?
Nikki: But he was like, that sounds great.
Nikki: Let's do it.
Nikki: So we stayed at the Westin in downtown, and I've never stayed there before, so that was an experience.
Nikki: We booked a Skyview Room, so we were on the 69th floor, so we had to take, like, the express elevator.
Nikki: I see your face about the floor.
Nikki: We had to take the express elevator to get there.
Nikki: And my kids loved that.
Nikki: So I think that the hotel experience was a lot for them in terms of just really exciting, which was something going into this trip.
Nikki: I knew I had told my husband, they just want to stay at a hotel and go in a swimming pool.
Nikki: That's what they want.
Nikki: So I would say that was a top moment for me.
Nikki: It's just kind of watching their reaction to a hotel.
Salina: Well, they're new, right?
Nikki: Right.
Salina: I mean, basically, they're still brand spanking new to the planet.
Salina: And why not take advantage of the things?
Salina: Like, everything is going to be a new experience for them.
Salina: Everything is going to be exciting and that's cool.
Nikki: It was so funny.
Nikki: My son, who is five, his touchstone for a hotel, is home alone.
Nikki: Two lost in New York.
Salina: Same.
Nikki: So he walked into the hotel room.
Salina: It's a plaza.
Nikki: And he goes, Where's the other rooms?
Nikki: And I was like, what do you mean, where's the other rooms bud?
Nikki: And he goes like the other rooms.
Nikki: Like, the sitting room and all that.
Nikki: And we were like, this is it.
Salina: He really speaks my language, that's fancy kid.
Nikki: He's like, what's happening here?
Salina: You're going to have to show him.
Salina: Oh, gosh.
Salina: The movie with John Candy?
Salina: No, John Goodman.
Salina: Where he becomes King ralph becomes a king and he's in the bathtub and he's eating all the foods around the tub.
Salina: Like, that's my kind of just a dream.
Salina: Yeah, basically.
Nikki: Well, we did get pizza that night because we were getting into town kind of late.
Salina: Is this your number three?
Nikki: This is number one.
Nikki: Staying at the west?
Salina: No, I thought you were I was still on number one.
Nikki: Slow down.
Salina: I thought you were going to go three to one.
Nikki: Three to one.
Nikki: Oh, I'm not putting these in a particular okay.
Nikki: That wasn't in your direction.
Salina: I know.
Salina: Bad direction.
Salina: Giver.
Nikki: But we did let them get pizza that night because we were getting in late, and we let them eat it in bed, which was a thrill for them.
Nikki: Number two, we went to Duck Donuts.
Nikki: Do you know what this is?
Salina: I think I've heard of it.
Nikki: They make the donuts fresh while you're standing there.
Salina: Love it.
Nikki: They have a menu of choices you can select, but it's huge, and then they top them while you're there.
Nikki: So they give you the donuts, and they're still warm when they give them to you.
Nikki: Fresh out of the downtown.
Nikki: It's in buckhead.
Salina: Okay, that sounds more right.
Nikki: Yeah, it's in Buckhead.
Nikki: They're North Carolina based, I think.
Nikki: And I didn't know they had moved to Atlanta.
Nikki: And I was googling one morning, just like, where we could grab a quick breakfast, and it popped up, and I was like, well, I want to try that, because I knew people had tried it and loved it.
Nikki: So that was a top for me, I think.
Salina: Flavor.
Salina: At least one flavor.
Nikki: Number three, and feel like I forgot something.
Nikki: But we did that on the way to the Lego Discovery Center, which was another top.
Nikki: If you have small kids flavor.
Salina: I need a flavor.
Nikki: Flavor.
Nikki: Oh, sorry.
Nikki: We did S'mores.
Nikki: I might have a picture of all the flavors to remind me, I think, because Kyle said, do you want to get a picture of the receipt so you can tell Selena we had to have Kyle vanilla.
Nikki: Oh, he is, like, totally on his podcast husband.
Nikki: The whole trip, he was reminding me of things.
Nikki: Vanilla Easter confetti.
Nikki: So it was, like, vanilla donut with, like, Easter E.
Nikki: Colored sprinkles.
Nikki: Chocolate Easter confetti.
Nikki: Cinnamon Sugar Classic Lemon Bar.
Nikki: Very nice.
Nikki: Glazed easter confetti.
Nikki: We really went in on the sprinkles.
Nikki: That was just a glazed donut s'mores, which is my personal favorite BYO Cinnamon Sugar.
Nikki: I don't know what that means.
Salina: Bring your own.
Nikki: I know, but what does that mean?
Nikki: Cookies and cream mocha.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I liked that one.
Nikki: I don't like coffee flavored things.
Nikki: Kyle loves coffee flavored things, so he always orders them, and he tried it and was like, I don't really care for it.
Nikki: I took it, and I was like, that's delicious.
Nikki: My son got a sunrise donut, if I remember correctly.
Nikki: It was maybe lemony, and it had some bright colors on it.
Nikki: I think that's it.
Salina: That's nice.
Nikki: They were really good.
Nikki: It was really fun.
Nikki: Like I said, they had a whole menu that you could choose from, and I have a video of the menu.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Nikki: So that was cool.
Nikki: I would say that was the top.
Nikki: And then the last thing I was going to mention is also food related.
Salina: Love it.
Nikki: Which is the Atlanta Breakfast Club.
Nikki: Have you heard of this?
Nikki: Yes, it's right across from the aquarium parking lot.
Salina: My mom was going to go recently.
Salina: She sent me the menu.
Salina: So you went.
Nikki: So we went.
Nikki: We've been to Atlanta.
Salina: This is a waffle concoction that I'm looking at everyone.
Nikki: So we went to Atlanta.
Nikki: We've been a few times because my husband loves to go to the Atlanta United games, which is kind of right in that same general area.
Nikki: And we've stayed in Atlanta a couple of times and every time I search breakfast this comes up and I desperately want to go.
Nikki: But there's always one reason or another we can't go.
Nikki: So this trip he was like, is there anything you just really want to do?
Nikki: And I was like, I really want to go to this restaurant.
Nikki: So we went on our way to the aquarium and the server came out and you use a QR code and get the online menu.
Nikki: But she goes, we also have a secret menu.
Nikki: And if you say the word secret menu to me, I have to know what all's on it.
Nikki: This was a secret menu.
Nikki: This is called the Dirty Georgia Chicken.
Nikki: I think there was the dirty no, dirty Georgia Bird.
Nikki: There was the dirty bird.
Nikki: Okay, I'm looking at the chicken tenders.
Salina: This is a dirty Georgia dirty chicken b***.
Nikki: Our football team in Atlanta is the Atlanta Falcons.
Salina: All in the dirty birds.
Nikki: So what I got was a waffle with a chicken tender, some bacon, an egg, a waffle on top.
Nikki: And then it was covered in like a peach syrup with sliced peaches, almost like a crunchy confectioner sugar sort of thing.
Nikki: And then like a peach butter.
Salina: It was peach butter.
Salina: Good.
Salina: I like it when they do the chicken because that reminds me public says a sub during football season.
Salina: You know, I do know y'all, if you don't know it's like the chicken tenders on a sub and it's got like a peach something going.
Nikki: I think that's right.
Salina: Yeah, it's like a peach sauce maybe.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: It doesn't sound good when I say peach sauce and chicken, but I love that kind of sweet and savory thing.
Salina: If you don't love the sweet and savory, you're not going to like it.
Salina: I don't always, but for me, peaches are a really good inroad to that.
Salina: That just works because they really kind of complement really well whatever they're with in a way that doesn't overpower.
Nikki: Yeah, I'm not the world's biggest peach fan if I'm just being honest.
Nikki: So I was a little bit skeptical.
Nikki: I think you're exactly right that the sweet and savory with peach works really super well.
Salina: It's really nice with the salt.
Nikki: Kyle got sausage and gravy biscuits, which he said were really good.
Nikki: They had a few different options of things you could get in terms of the gravy.
Nikki: Like they could make it with chicken gravy or sausage gravy.
Nikki: That was a delicious breakfast.
Nikki: We walked right in and sat down.
Nikki: We're an early bird sort of family, though, so it was like nine on a Thursday.
Nikki: When we left the aquarium later, which was after lunchtime, it was packed out, there were people waiting outside.
Nikki: Well, spring break, it was spring break week for us.
Nikki: I don't know if it was spring break week in town, but I guess other people could have staycationed, I don't know.
Nikki: But if you're in Atlanta, near the aquarium, near Centennial Olympic Park, totally worth it.
Nikki: We also did milkshakes from the yard, which is right outside Centennial Olympic Park.
Nikki: Landon and I got a what was ours.
Nikki: Kyle and Carolina got a cotton candy something or other.
Salina: Fruity Pebbles.
Nikki: Fruity Pebbles.
Nikki: Thank you.
Nikki: I was imagining that.
Nikki: Yeah, it was like a Fruity Pebbles.
Nikki: This I knew.
Salina: I swear I didn't know the rest of this, but the Fruity Pebbles I knew.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So we had like a really nice vacation.
Nikki: We did things that Kyle and I have both done.
Nikki: We did some things that we've never done before.
Nikki: It was all new to the kids.
Nikki: We did end up going to the pool at the Weston, which I'll also give a little plug for.
Nikki: It was a really cool pool.
Nikki: They have a retractable roof.
Nikki: And the day we were staying and the day we got to go to the pool, it was beautiful outside, so they had it open.
Nikki: I walked in there with the kids.
Nikki: There was nobody else in there.
Nikki: When we got there and texted Kyle and was like, I feel like I'm on an actual somewhere else vacation.
Nikki: It was very city, rustic like.
Nikki: It felt industrial in a way.
Nikki: The way the roof it was kind of an old pool.
Nikki: I think it was built to look that way, but I think it was also old.
Nikki: You're looking sort of at a brick building beside you.
Nikki: It just looked very industrial and cool.
Nikki: I felt like I was somewhere else.
Nikki: That's nice.
Nikki: We had a really great experience at the Weston and a really nice staycation.
Salina: Oh, I'm so glad.
Salina: That's wonderful.
Salina: If only vacations could last forever.
Nikki: I know, but you know what?
Nikki: I think it was just the perfect amount of time.
Nikki: I was telling someone at work on Monday that on Sunday I kind of just paused from the weekend because we did that Tuesday through Friday.
Nikki: We did the Masters on Friday, and then we had Easter, of course, on Sunday.
Nikki: And I think I had forgotten how much we're balancing on a daily basis to have that uninterrupted time with the kids and that uninterrupted time as a family when it all kind of was done.
Nikki: I felt full instead of empty.
Nikki: Like I didn't end the vacation feeling, oh God, I can't do this anymore.
Nikki: I ended it feeling like we had stepped away and we had gotten some time together.
Nikki: So that was really nice.
Salina: That's lovely.
Nikki: I had to do a lot of laundry when we got home.
Salina: So that was three things.
Salina: None of them had to do with the Masters.
Nikki: Well, you asked about my staycation.
Nikki: I didn't count the Masters as the staycation.
Salina: The staycation and the masters.
Nikki: Now my top three things about the masters.
Nikki: No, I'm just kidding.
Nikki: I brought Selena some food from the Masters, which were among my favorite things I had there.
Salina: I'm very excited.
Salina: I saw cheese straws, chocolate chip cookies, and mini moon pie.
Salina: A mini moon pie?
Nikki: They're delicious.
Nikki: They're very good.
Nikki: Yeah, we had a really nice masters experience.
Nikki: It was very crowded this year, like, in a way.
Nikki: I just don't remember it being in previous years.
Nikki: And we got there really early.
Nikki: There was this one thing, there was this little garden gnome that was dressed in master's attire.
Nikki: And as we were walking into the tournament, I saw people walking out with them.
Nikki: And I told Kyle that's all I've ever wanted.
Nikki: I've never wanted a garden gnome.
Nikki: But as soon as I saw those people have them, that's what I wanted.
Nikki: We got inside.
Nikki: They laughed at us when we asked about them.
Nikki: They were like, those sold out like an hour ago.
Nikki: We're like, no, really?
Nikki: And already people said they had searched online.
Nikki: They were already selling for like $900 online.
Salina: It's reasonable, right?
Nikki: So we didn't get that.
Nikki: But we did get a couple of other things.
Nikki: We got a nice seat where we got to watch the tournament from where we just kind of hung out.
Nikki: We got a little bit of rain, like a smidgen of rain.
Nikki: Maybe it lasted 20 minutes.
Nikki: And then at the end of the day, we packed up our chairs because we were feeling like it was kind of getting time for us to head home.
Nikki: The weather was looking not so good.
Nikki: I don't know if you heard this, but we left because they shut the course down.
Nikki: They sounded the alarm and told everybody to get out.
Nikki: I actually was planning to make one more concession stand trip before we left, but they shut the concession stands down, too, when they shut the tournament down.
Nikki: And so we were walking to the car and they opened everything back up.
Nikki: People went back inside.
Nikki: As we were on the road to get home, I think two or three trees fell down almost right where we were sitting.
Nikki: Full giant Georgia pines fell.
Nikki: Nobody was injured, but they just completely fell right there during the tournament.
Salina: Wow.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Wow.
Nikki: So crazy.
Salina: Pines.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Hate pines.
Nikki: Pines, man.
Salina: All they do is fall over.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I was going to say something else, but they would just take us down a rabbit hole.
Nikki: We don't need to go down today.
Salina: I know there's a segue somewhere in here, but I don't have the strength.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: The segue is as a reminder for folks, we are at Designing Women season four, Episode 13, which is a two parter and for this episode.
Nikki: We're covering the two parts in one episode.
Salina: That works for me.
Salina: Perfect.
Salina: I think the good segue is the people pressure washing their driveway across the.
Nikki: Street and they started just as we started recording.
Salina: Yeah, I like, timed it up real nice.
Salina: Real nice.
Nikki: So next week folks can come back, though, because we're going to have a special companion episode where we're going to talk about Steel Magnolia.
Nikki: Can't wait.
Salina: I mean, it's literally one of the first things that I thought of when we started talking about this podcast was covering Steel Magnolia.
Nikki: Was covering Steel Magnolia.
Nikki: Well, next week is the week, but this week we're going to cover the first day of the last decade of the entire 20th century.
Nikki: Parts one and two.
Nikki: Hulu's episode description says Charlene goes into labor on New Year's Eve.
Nikki: Suzanne cheers her on in hopes of winning a brand new car awarded to the first baby born.
Nikki: I'm adding in the new year because I think that sentence was confusing otherwise.
Nikki: But the first baby born in the new year gets a new car.
Nikki: Elsewhere in the hospital, the other ladies and Anthony meet a dying 102 year old black woman who tells them of her life experience as a woman of color in the south.
Nikki: The air date on this one was actually January 1 in 1990.
Nikki: And we're calling these two babies cars and Dolly Parton.
Nikki: It was written by LBT and directed by Harry Thomason.
Nikki: And I have three pieces of trivia.
Nikki: Oh, three.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Two, which you provided in the show notes and one that I found myself.
Salina: Love it.
Nikki: So this episode is one of the only few, if not only episodes in the series that show Bernice's apartment at Leisure Land Village.
Nikki: Apparently the exterior view of Bernice's building is actually the Chicago building used for the establishing shots of Bob and Emily Hartley's apartment on the Bob newhart show.
Salina: It just really rolls off the tongue as an injury.
Nikki: And then the ladies are getting ready to go see Steele Magnolias when Charlene goes into labor.
Nikki: Steele Magnolias was written by Robert Harling, who would go on to create the television series GCB, which we talked about in our Annie Potts segment last week.
Nikki: That show also starred Annie Potts.
Nikki: So there you go.
Salina: It's a small world.
Nikki: I'm starting to feel like the Designing Women universe is, like, very small.
Nikki: There's just things that are catching my eye where I'm like, that person was on this, who was on this, and then they were on this like Hearts of Fire.
Nikki: Everyone's on Hearts of Fire at some point from the show.
Nikki: Yeah, but there are other I don't have great examples right now, but there are other examples.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: And then my third piece of trivia is that Designingwomenonline Net pointed out that Julia mentions Reese is visiting his daughter in Seattle.
Nikki: They say that either means the writers goofed or that Margaret and her family have moved because two seasons ago in heart attacks and I'll be home for Christmas.
Nikki: Margaret lived in Phoenix.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Good catch.
Nikki: Designing womenonline.
Nikki: Net.
Salina: I like the online net.
Nikki: Was it hard for you to boil down two episodes into three general reactions and stray observations, or was it kind of easy?
Salina: I'm counting mine.
Salina: I didn't hold myself to three.
Nikki: Okay, so let me ask this question.
Nikki: Was it hard to boil it down into a few?
Salina: Yeah, I think so, because I wanted to be, like, a reasonable human being and not have you give me dagger eyes across the table.
Salina: Like, beautiful dagger eyes.
Nikki: Say, everybody thinks I'm so mean.
Salina: I highly doubt that's the case.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: But, yeah, I didn't want it to be like I tried to not be like, all right, I'll just do seven.
Nikki: So you did six instead.
Salina: I did eight.
Nikki: 6.75.
Salina: And, you know, mine sometimes, like, one thought is actually eight that I can't.
Nikki: Help parse A-B-C and D.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So what do you have first?
Salina: Well, so one thing you touched on, which is that the episode premiered on January 1, which just blows my mind.
Salina: So these are like, all the things that bam, bam, bam hit me before I could even get the TV on.
Nikki: I lose track of which day of the week each of these episodes allegedly aired in the CBS schedule, at which time in the series monday.
Nikki: So this was a Monday.
Nikki: I looked it up.
Nikki: I know they moved to, like, Thursday at one point.
Nikki: When they moved back, they did some.
Salina: Ping ponging in the beginning.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: So then they got really lucky because I probably should have taken that a step further and fact checked that they usually air on Mondays.
Nikki: But I thought, oh, I wonder if they ran a special episode just on that Monday.
Salina: And then, see, guys, we're giving this a thought.
Nikki: That's what I'm 60% thought on that one.
Nikki: I got to the point where I was like, how cool they aired on that day.
Nikki: I went back in the calendar and I was like, it was actually a Monday.
Salina: Right.
Salina: But now it would just be, like, on hold.
Salina: You would just get, like, reruns or weird stuff for two weeks or something.
Salina: Or a month.
Salina: I mean, they take big breaks.
Salina: Now, my other thought was, like, in this pretv turning on phase is like, we've reached the 90s, which feels like it's a big deal and something worth just stopping and going, we've been in the long time.
Nikki: Not anymore.
Nikki: And then these 90s, baby.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: Get with it, Selena.
Salina: Get with it.
Salina: It's the 90s.
Salina: These together are also Hulu essential episodes.
Salina: So I don't think we've hit one in a while, even though I think that this season has more essential episodes than any other season.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Was the episode with Suzanne's High School Reunion, was that an essential episode?
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Which makes sense.
Salina: That she was up for an Emmy for that all that jazz.
Salina: So what was your general reaction?
Nikki: My first most general reaction to this episode is that it just was really heartfelt, super.
Nikki: So, yeah, it almost felt personal in a way.
Nikki: Like, it almost felt like there was just a lot in there about Charlene being afraid that her family members that she loved won't get to see her baby.
Nikki: There was a lot of circle of life, sort of to these two episodes.
Nikki: Sort of like one life coming into the world and one life peacefully leaving.
Nikki: It just felt like maybe there was something going on that brought us to this.
Salina: It's so funny that you say that because my actual, like, hey, I've now turned on the television and I'm watching.
Salina: This reaction was that there was a lot of things that felt very reflective and then there were a lot of things as like a viewer to reflect on, I thought.
Salina: Especially so for me anyway, in the second part that focuses so much on Miss Many, I wrote some things that were occurring to me as I was watching, but the wisdom of people who have actually lived some life, seen some things and have been here long enough.
Nikki: To understand some things, seen a century worth of things.
Salina: Exactly.
Salina: Perfect lead in.
Salina: Because it's like the passage of time, how someone like Many lived through so many big moments.
Salina: Jim Crow civil rights movement, two world wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and yet still 102 years on this Earth is just a blip on the radar.
Nikki: So crazy.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And it's like holding those two things in your head.
Salina: It's like that same deal we talk about, we were talking about at the top of the episode.
Salina: It's like life.
Salina: It's simultaneously been one moment in ten years since we were sitting in this room.
Salina: And I just think that the world is funny like that.
Nikki: And we lived through something life altering in and around that time in a once in a lifetime pandemic.
Nikki: And so in our 30 some odd years, we've lived through things like 911 and columbine, countless other school shootings, a pandemic, like a really divisive presidential election.
Nikki: We've lived through some momentous things too.
Nikki: And we're only a third of her life.
Salina: Crazy.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I will say I did have, like a mild criticism about pairing these two storylines together.
Nikki: So I just said I liked that through line of one life entering and one life leaving.
Nikki: I like that mode.
Nikki: I did feel like Minnie's life almost could have been paired with a different storyline and not felt quite so tacked together.
Nikki: Something about this felt tacked together.
Nikki: Like Julia just happens to walk by this room and see an old lady and start talking to her.
Salina: Or the idea that staff is going to be like, come on in and.
Nikki: Tell you all these personal things about her, even suspending that disbelief I just felt like maybe it could have paired better or more naturally with something else.
Salina: Did you have something in mind?
Nikki: So I was thinking about the heart attack episode, actually, with Reese.
Nikki: So maybe while Julia is there in the hospital, terrified about losing this man that she loves so much, she can learn from Minnie about what it is to love somebody and go through that time with her while Reese is recuperating.
Nikki: And then instead of that weird pairing, that episode was the one that was paired with the friend anyway.
Nikki: I think that could have been a nice put together.
Salina: I can see that.
Salina: So it just feels like a little like some imperfection and trying to be too perfect.
Nikki: I think that's right.
Nikki: And again, I'm not a show writer.
Nikki: Don't listen to me at all.
Nikki: Except to say that just occurred to me as I was watching is I felt like it almost felt a little short shrifted, to be honest.
Nikki: Mini story, and that it maybe could have been powerful in a different way.
Nikki: We got this one character on the show delivering a baby with this huge life event, and then Minnie's story was also so compelling, and it just sort of felt like tacked on the end.
Salina: Well, or to me, I almost forgot Charlene had a baby because I thought Miss Minnie's storyline was much more moving for me.
Salina: I think that's true.
Salina: In fact, until you said the thing about Charlene being worried that I forgot about all of that.
Nikki: It's the danger of a two parter, isn't it?
Salina: Yes, I think so.
Salina: And I just watched it yesterday morning, or at least I flipped through the major parts or whatever and did catch that about the family.
Salina: But I think there's really something to this about this idea, like just kind of circling back to what you're saying, like something was in the water.
Salina: And I think people were it seemed like LBT.
Salina: Or maybe just the world in general, was taking stock because the 20th century was about to come to a close.
Salina: I mean, it was still a decade off, but a decade out of 100 years is kind of crazy.
Salina: Not a lot of time.
Salina: And we get that through Miss Minnie, who talks about all the things I mean, and they real.
Salina: They were not subtle.
Salina: Anthony says, like, you are the 20th century.
Salina: But I was just going to say that for me, I was feeling very introspective about getting things done instead of having a life almost lived when my time comes.
Salina: So on the one hand, there's that.
Salina: But I thought, on the other hand, something that was coming out of this conversation with her and her getting to sit there and kind of roll through all these things, she was filling in what would turn out to be her final moments was this idea of enjoying life and not rushing through it.
Salina: It's all just such a balance, right?
Salina: That's a huge struggle for me.
Salina: I'm looking across the table at someone else.
Nikki: I know we'll have a working mom's, extra sugar in a few weeks.
Nikki: That'll I think that's probably one of the main themes.
Nikki: It's not possible.
Nikki: Balance is not possible.
Nikki: And so it's just trying to find a way that you err in the direction of actually enjoying things along the way.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And I'm wondering now if maybe I should have put this in the things that I really liked.
Salina: Her dad's quote.
Salina: That's what she says.
Salina: Like right as she goes, we ain't what we should be, we ain't what we going to be, but at least we ain't what we was.
Salina: That's what I think about this show, reflecting on it so many years later.
Salina: That's what I think about my life.
Salina: That's what I think about the things around me.
Salina: This earth, it was just so beautiful.
Nikki: It was one of my likes.
Nikki: That was one of the top.
Salina: You so beautiful.
Salina: I have to tell you, Nikki, that I have to say that I totally see where you're coming from on it being maybe a little too pitch perfect.
Salina: Nothing really works out this perfectly.
Salina: Although obviously in hospitals every day there are people dying and coming into the world.
Salina: I don't think I've ever cried as much as I cried in this episode.
Salina: I cried the whole way through.
Salina: It really in every time.
Salina: So I will tell you, like, I wrote him down, just so you know, all the times I cried.
Nikki: Billing a sob moment.
Salina: Bill and Charlene's conversation before he leaves.
Salina: He invents the push gift, I guess, and then he tells her how much he loves her.
Salina: It's like super cheesy.
Salina: But there was something about cheesy.
Nikki: I didn't like it.
Nikki: It was just so d*** beautiful.
Salina: Oh, yeah, but that was no good.
Salina: But there was something about just like I just think they have really good chemistry.
Salina: And I think also I was like, man, he's not going to be here for this birth.
Salina: And I think that got me emotional because I've not had a baby.
Salina: But I feel like if you didn't have someone there in the delivery room with you now, that that's a thing because it wasn't always a thing.
Salina: I feel like that would be really challenging.
Salina: The second Dolly appears in Charlene's dream, I cried the first appearance of many and basically everything with her cried.
Salina: Her saying those beautiful things about freedom, peace, progress, and then passing, followed by the musical cue from somewhere out there.
Salina: Cried coming out to say Charlene has a baby.
Salina: I'm in tears.
Salina: Couldn't even see through, couldn't even see the screen anymore.
Salina: Even that dumb thing in the fighter jet where suddenly he's Maverick and Top Gun.
Salina: I'm crying again.
Nikki: Are you going through something at that time?
Salina: It's happened every time I've watched it.
Nikki: It's so funny because I think the first time I watched it, I remember and I don't you have you have more cry examples?
Salina: I do.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Dolly coming in on the song.
Salina: Somewhere out there, cried Dolly taking this mini to heaven cried Cue the angels.
Nikki: I'm dead.
Salina: I was just dead.
Nikki: I think the first time I watched it, I got weepy.
Nikki: And I have this in my likes.
Nikki: In addition to Minnie Bell's comment from her dad, which brought me to tears when Dolly says, I also know that in a few hours you're going to meet the best friend that you'll ever have, your daughter.
Nikki: Then she said, you just remember that tomorrow when you meet your daughter on the first day of the last decade of the entire 20th century, you'll be meeting the person that will be holding your hand when it's your time to go.
Salina: I cried then, too.
Nikki: Oh, my God.
Nikki: And maybe because my first child is a girl and that similar thought had occurred to me, like, oh, my God.
Nikki: Those two things got me.
Nikki: I think the first time I watched the episode I was probably a little more weepy than the next time because the next time I was all business.
Nikki: I had to take my notes.
Nikki: I had to get stuff down.
Nikki: I didn't let myself live in it too long.
Salina: Well, I will say one thing about me, though, is I don't really cry that much in real life.
Salina: So I get my tears out through this kind of stuff.
Salina: Music, TV shows, movies.
Salina: That's when I cry.
Salina: Mondays, I think I don't cry as.
Nikki: Much as I should cry.
Nikki: I used to cry all the time.
Nikki: I used to have one good cleansing cry at least a week.
Nikki: I don't do it as much anymore.
Salina: That's pretty frequent.
Nikki: Again, going back to being like, all business and just trying to get things done and to check the boxes.
Nikki: I don't let myself live in it.
Salina: Now, has that coincided with being a parent?
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Just taking a guess.
Nikki: Just a random it's funny you talk about you crying so much.
Nikki: My last general reaction is that it's hilarious.
Nikki: I love thinking of you crying.
Nikki: No, it's funny that you say that because it pairs kind of funny with my last general reaction which is that this episode had all the makings of an almost too much silliness.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So the dream sequences sometimes are a little extra.
Nikki: But the Dolly sequence was really, really well done.
Nikki: Both when she's talking to Charlene but then also when they bring her back to escort Minnie to heaven.
Nikki: It's really beautifully done because you know.
Salina: How I feel about dream sequences.
Nikki: So the second dream sequence with them all as babies was like that was the first time in the whole episode I was like, this bridge too far.
Nikki: This is so stupid.
Nikki: I wish we could have cut this part out.
Nikki: I hated that part.
Salina: I've got thoughts.
Nikki: I hated it so much.
Nikki: But I think with Charlene, if we think about her character.
Nikki: Several of her major life events have paired with a fever dream or a flashback.
Nikki: I'm thinking about her and Bill early in their relationship.
Nikki: This is how she experiences life.
Nikki: So for me, it was almost just like, oh, it's charlene.
Nikki: Okay, that makes sense.
Nikki: Instead of, like, not another dream sequence.
Nikki: So I wasn't put off by them too much until we got to the baby one.
Nikki: But the first dream sequence was really, I thought, really well done.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Very nice.
Nikki: So all the rest of mine are stray.
Salina: Okay, I have just one more general reaction, which is we meet Vanessa, who they're introducing us to as, like, some kind of party girl.
Salina: Obviously, I can't really figure out what exactly it is that we're doing here, but I'm just not sure I like it with Vanessa.
Salina: Okay, here's some of what they have her doing.
Salina: Over the course of the two episodes, she immediately wants to have sex on the couch at Sugar Bakers.
Salina: Look, there ain't nothing wrong with that.
Salina: I mean, not necessarily.
Salina: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with sex.
Salina: I'm just saying it feels like we were drawing a certain character.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Then she wants to go rifle through, like, Julia's clothes.
Salina: She thinks Anthony's married at one point and doesn't think twice about it.
Salina: She asks for Demerol at the hospital.
Salina: I do think that they're setting us up for this kind of My Fair Lady plot that we're going to hit in a couple of episodes, but these just felt like, really strange, like, stereotypes or something to use, especially when the show isn't exactly brimming with women of color.
Salina: And I bumped on it a little bit, but I really like her.
Nikki: There was something cut.
Nikki: In addition to asking for the Demerol, there's a part cut right before they all tell her to be quiet while she's singing and dancing.
Salina: Pain?
Nikki: No.
Nikki: She's calling someone to order something in, and so she wants to order food and liquor.
Nikki: They ask the address and she says, I don't know, just look in the phone book.
Nikki: And then she tells them to send pretzels donuts, a box of condoms and a couple of six packs of beer and then ask them to throw in one of those frozen entries.
Nikki: Entries.
Nikki: And somebody says, I think you mean entrees.
Nikki: So she wants some frozen meals?
Nikki: She says, yes.
Nikki: And then she says, put him under the name Anthony Bouvier.
Nikki: He'll pay for it when you get here.
Nikki: And then tries to get his credit card number, and then she tells him to throw in some eyeliner and deodorant too.
Nikki: So in my read of that, I think that actually framed her as, like, more of a grifter than even we've heard so far.
Nikki: But I think you're right.
Nikki: I think they were trying to tee us up for what's coming in a couple of episodes with this character.
Nikki: Like the absolute opposite of the only other girlfriend we've met so far of Anthony's, how far different can we get from what's her name?
Nikki: Lita?
Nikki: How far away from Lita can we get?
Nikki: And I really think it would be Vanessa.
Salina: I really like her because I think she's just so charismatic that no matter what they have her doing, you're just kind of like she's so cute when she's, like, dancing in the hospital and stuff.
Salina: I really like her.
Salina: If you don't have the pairing of the My Fair Lady episode, it just feels something.
Nikki: And I think I'm having trouble pulling that apart because I'm now watching the My Fair Lady episode for a future recording.
Nikki: And spoiler alert, we're still going to keep covering episodes.
Nikki: But I think, yeah, she's in my heart.
Nikki: And I have read that Vanessa becomes in a lot of Designing Women fans minds, she is Anthony's girlfriend, even though she's only in a couple of episodes, and then he doesn't end up with her.
Nikki: Spoiler alert.
Nikki: So, I don't know, I think in my heart, I'm like, I'm kind of in love with her.
Salina: Yeah, I like her a whole lot.
Salina: Okay, so stray observations.
Salina: What you got?
Nikki: So I really liked Mary.
Nikki: Joe's Retelling of the Last Remaining Elderly Man on Earth.
Nikki: Taking the old ladies to church.
Nikki: This was like, way at the beginning of the episode.
Nikki: The reason I wanted to bring that up as a stray is because I'm really enjoying the non sequitur cold opens lately.
Nikki: Usually it used to be Charlene doing this for us because she would always have something she read in the newspaper or something she saw on TV the other night.
Nikki: But now we're getting more Mary Joe.
Nikki: And I just love how they take these like, I love this about comics, too, how they take these mundane experiences that I really haven't thought too much about, but then make you realize, like, Dang, I've seen that before.
Nikki: And in a past life, I feel like I have seen this little old man barely peeking over the steering wheel, driving his wife and her friends to church, for sure.
Salina: You could totally picture.
Nikki: And I know exactly what they're talking about.
Nikki: And I just think that's genius storytelling and genius writing to tap into a universal experience that people don't realize is universal.
Salina: Right down to the seatbelt.
Salina: Barking, barking.
Salina: Yeah, that was all really good.
Salina: So I was thinking about and they do like, I guess Dolly says when she's talking about Charlene's baby, who will be Olivia, she can grow up.
Salina: She can be anything she wants to be.
Salina: She could be the leader of the free world.
Salina: And I just wanted to say that Olivia can be the leader of the free world in two years because she'll be 35.
Nikki: Thanks for that.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Dolly's aggressively long nails are totally back in style.
Nikki: Oh, I don't know that they ever went out, did they?
Salina: As long as they're on Dolly, whatever you want.
Salina: Whatever you want.
Salina: But I just assume hers are really long again if they never change.
Salina: But I was like, Whoa, those are long.
Salina: And then I was like, oh, everyone's are again, except for mine.
Salina: Just nubs over here.
Nikki: I'm a former violinist, so I keep mine short all the time for the violin.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: How do we feel about Mary Joe giving Bernice a tree skirt as a Christmas present?
Salina: Well, I guess that is weird, but if it's the set up for Bernice to be running around in a darn Christmas tree skirt, I feel so good about it.
Nikki: How do you feel about giving people Christmas themed presents on Christmas.
Salina: Whatever?
Salina: Because I don't want to dump on people's on somewhat.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So for me, which is cleaner, poop or dump?
Nikki: Which one is the more polite way?
Salina: I think they're both good.
Salina: They're both solid.
Salina: I don't want to oopsie doopsie.
Salina: Maybe I shouldn't have said solid.
Salina: Anyways, I think that was a slow burn.
Salina: You just really need to know your audience, so if it's something that you absolutely know, like, this person will love this, and it's early on enough.
Salina: I've done it before.
Salina: Okay, well, this year I got you something in advance of Christmas.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: And it wasn't necessarily even your Christmas present, but I gave it to you early on so you could put it.
Nikki: On your tree and then it got broken and then you had to buy.
Salina: Me a replacement or same with you because you got me the Dolly Advent calendar.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So we literally met early.
Salina: So, like, if it's that kind of.
Nikki: That was a season.
Salina: I think that makes sense.
Nikki: You got a whole month's worth of joy out of that twitching.
Salina: I'm just watching you categorize over there.
Nikki: The other thing I wanted to point out is that when Charlene was sitting at home watching TV outside the window, did you notice how lush and green it was?
Nikki: Because they're in California and they're talking about how it's going to sleet and snow and Bill can't even get out of Mississippi or whatever because it's sleeting and snowing so bad.
Salina: I didn't I'm the exact TV viewer that they want.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh, it was good.
Nikki: Gorgeous.
Nikki: Outside.
Nikki: There are plants, like, blooming out there, and then they're like, it's freezing cold, everything's falling apart.
Salina: This is one of my stray observation, but it really feeds into something that you were saying, like, you expect that, hey, it's okay if it's like a dream sequence, because it's Charlene, but I thought it was interesting.
Salina: This just really felt like a throwback to I'll be seeing you again.
Salina: When Charlene first meets Bill, like, she goes into sleep into that world really weird, really great.
Salina: World War II, we called it a dream dream.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And it's interesting because this one, she does see Bill right.
Salina: Again, before she goes to sleep, she falls asleep to this really, like, 40s era song.
Salina: I just thought it was interesting that we decided to pair that up again.
Salina: And then my very last stray observation is they brought the baby out for everyone to see.
Salina: No one is family.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: I put that in 90s things.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And I didn't know.
Salina: Yeah, maybe that was a thing that happened.
Salina: But it feels like they're probably busy and they don't have time to run them out to non family members.
Salina: Or maybe that's even like well, they.
Nikki: Just don't take the baby away from.
Nikki: There's this whole thing about skin to skin contact, and for the first some amount of time, they want you, the mother, holding the baby, or the person who birthed the baby, holding the baby for a certain amount of time.
Nikki: So, yeah, I put that in 90s thing.
Nikki: So that doesn't happen really much anymore.
Salina: Yeah, just the whole that just all seemed weird to me.
Nikki: I had two more strays.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: In the scene with Dolly, charlene mentions a sister, Pat, who died.
Nikki: So I didn't recall us ever talking about her losing a sister.
Nikki: And I confirmed on Designing Women online that she died as an infant and that the show doesn't really say much about her.
Nikki: We talked so much about Charlene's family, it was just surprising to me.
Nikki: This is the first time as someone who's lost a sibling, it is strange for someone not to someone we know this well to not know that she's lost a sibling.
Nikki: But if she died as an infant, maybe that explains it a little bit more.
Nikki: And then childbirth, I just want to say painkillers are okay during childbirth.
Nikki: There was this whole this also is a 90s thing, this whole thing about Charlene basically asking Mary Joe, like, don't tell anybody I cheated.
Nikki: And that's just a really outdated view.
Nikki: And I have this platform, so I'm going to say it's okay to have painkillers during childbirth.
Nikki: That is not like cheating.
Nikki: I can assure you that childbirth, any way you have it, is not going to be the most pleasant experience.
Nikki: And if this makes it slightly more pleasant, it's okay.
Salina: That's a nice plug.
Nikki: I hated that whole part, like, oh, come on, it's not cheating.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I had painkillers both times.
Nikki: The first time, I swear to you, it didn't work.
Nikki: I can tell you what natural childbirth feels like because that's how that first one felt.
Nikki: Second one dream.
Nikki: It was a perfect I loved having my son.
Nikki: It was such an easy experience.
Salina: Yeah, well, I mean, it's like we used to wake women up.
Salina: Here it is, right.
Salina: So we've really gone all over the map.
Nikki: My mother in law was put to sleep for both of her sons when they were born, so it's different for everybody.
Salina: Yeah, but I don't know.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: I think that's really important.
Salina: It doesn't make you any less strong.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: I have said before, if I was going to have kids, I'd be like, give me everything you have.
Salina: It will be fine.
Nikki: It really and truly made the experience, having my son just as great as childbirth can be.
Nikki: It did barely hurt at all and I just felt so much less.
Nikki: I honestly thought with my daughter, I was going to die.
Nikki: That's a terrifying experience.
Nikki: And I really thought I was going to die with my son.
Nikki: I was like, this is so fantastic.
Nikki: Let's go home now.
Nikki: It's ready to be home.
Nikki: So I just wanted to say that if you choose not to have painkillers, totally fine.
Nikki: If you choose to have them, totally fine.
Nikki: It's your baby.
Nikki: This is one of the first big decisions you're going to make for your baby and just trust that your decision is the right one.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: If you hadn't said that last part, we could have clipped it and then maybe seen if we could get some ads for just painkillers.
Salina: Take them if you need them, if you don't need them and just end one for the pharmaceuticals.
Salina: They just struggle to get by.
Salina: They really feel for them all the time, for sure.
Salina: So speaking of things we like, like pharmaceuticals, drugs.
Salina: Just the drugs.
Nikki: I think we've talked about most of mine.
Nikki: Again, the whole Dolly scene had the makings of Jump the Sharkey, but it actually turned out really lovely.
Nikki: Also, the Mini Bell Award, every scene with her was amazing.
Nikki: That quote from her dad is the one I called out.
Nikki: So my only two strays.
Nikki: We haven't really talked about anthony skipping out on his New Year's Eve date to go be at the hospital with Charlene.
Nikki: I really like that.
Nikki: How much more loyalty can you expect from someone than mid 20s, late 20s man giving up his New Year's Eve date to come wait for a baby.
Salina: Yeah, that's delightful.
Nikki: And then my last one.
Nikki: Everything about Bernice sitting at home sipping eggnog was like straight perfection.
Nikki: And then her squealing into the maternity ward, like right before Charlie and delivered was or right before midnight was so great.
Salina: And she says, thanks for the ride, you turkeys.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: She is just so freaking funny.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So that was also on my list.
Salina: Just every time she appears on screen, it's going to be a golden moment.
Salina: I don't know that you would know from the very first episode that we were going to get the gems that we've gotten.
Nikki: They've played her character to its max ability.
Salina: That's lovely.
Salina: I think the other thing is also related to Bernice's.
Salina: My other like, you've caught the rest of mine, so thank you.
Salina: Is sorry.
Salina: No, it's good.
Salina: Suzanne, every time she calls Bernice your little fruitcake.
Nikki: Little fruitcake.
Salina: I don't know why, but every time it makes me laugh the way she says it, because I just think Suzanne's character is so funny anyway because they just kind of keep bouncing her around.
Salina: 1 second she's kind of like this eccentric something and the next just like very, like, almost sounds like almost what I would classify as, like an old Hollywood broad or something.
Salina: And it's like they can't decide exactly what they want to do.
Salina: But I like both of the versions are nice.
Salina: What about things we didn't like?
Nikki: I only have two things I didn't like.
Nikki: I already mentioned one, which was the baby dream sequence toward the end with all the characters as babies.
Salina: I was bad.
Nikki: It was so dumb, right?
Salina: That was bad.
Salina: Well, so I wanted to share something with you to see what you thought about this.
Salina: Alicia, it was hard for me to not watch this one I have here sorry that this was a crime against comedy and perhaps humanity.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: I think it was really bad.
Salina: I think it might be the worst thing I've seen on this show.
Nikki: It was not good.
Salina: It's up there.
Nikki: It was not good.
Salina: But it's also hard to not watch this and think about the off screen drama that's brewing.
Salina: And was this maybe LBT's way of talking through the script?
Salina: Because it feels like they're saying, you're being a baby.
Nikki: No, LBT.
Nikki: Wouldn't do that to us.
Salina: That's exactly what it read like to me.
Salina: So if it's not it's either that or she was really digging on Muppet Babies, which I don't blame her for because Muppet Babies is great, delightful, but that's what it felt like to me.
Nikki: LBT.
Nikki: Tell us more.
Nikki: The other thing I didn't like is possibly a stretch, but I was mildly annoyed at Charlene's conversation with Bill in the delivery room.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So we couldn't hear his side of the conversation, but we hear her say, I know.
Nikki: I know you are.
Nikki: So she was, like, trying to kind of comfort him.
Nikki: And I'm sure it's because he said something like, I'm just trying to help.
Nikki: I just want to be helpful.
Nikki: And I just want to say, whoever's delivering a baby, no one else gets to be defensive or need comforting in that moment than the person delivering a baby.
Nikki: He didn't need to say anything that made Charlie he should have let her hang up on him and assumed like, it was going to be okay later because she was in the middle of contractions and delivering a baby.
Nikki: And I just felt like that was such a man thing to do.
Salina: So I want to say that.
Salina: Yes, but also I read it more as like I'm trying to get there.
Salina: I know.
Salina: I know you are.
Nikki: Maybe there was something else, maybe that she said around it then that made me feel like they were talking about La Ma's class or something.
Nikki: She said, I know we're doing it like I tried to do in the class or whatever.
Nikki: There was something that made me think that.
Nikki: But you know what?
Nikki: Maybe you're right.
Nikki: Maybe I'm a little grouchy toward Bill.
Salina: Well, get it together, Bill.
Nikki: Together, Bill.
Salina: Gather.
Salina: My only other thing is that this episode just looks so old with the bad graphics.
Salina: They like put fake Christmas lights on the outside of Sugar Bakers.
Nikki: That happens a lot.
Nikki: You know, I watch King of Queens.
Nikki: I've told you this.
Nikki: I watch it every night before I go to bed.
Nikki: They do that at Christmas time on that show, too.
Nikki: That show from like the early 2000s.
Salina: Gotten some real ones together or something.
Salina: Anyway, the establishing shots are always they're pretty bad.
Salina: It's just the era.
Salina: I get that.
Salina: But maybe it just felt worse because we actually have a lot of movement in this episode.
Salina: It is a strange turn of pace and I think maybe just having so many of them, you're just like, whoa.
Salina: But that and then the jet.
Nikki: And I remember I just wanted it.
Salina: To write Pepsi in the sky or something.
Nikki: Was the jet in the episode where.
Salina: They got married, they had a flyover of some sort.
Nikki: There was some, like, skyriding something.
Nikki: I thought it was that episode.
Nikki: Come on and marry me, Bill.
Nikki: But there was a skyriding something or other.
Salina: Maybe congrats or something.
Nikki: This was the exact same thing to me.
Nikki: It just was the exact same thing.
Nikki: And I remember hating that then, too.
Nikki: Funny.
Salina: That 90s.
Salina: Are you ready to rate this one?
Nikki: I am.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: My rating scale is Guardian Celebrities.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I'm going to give it 4.75.
Nikki: Like I said, I liked the arch of life and death.
Nikki: Arch?
Nikki: Arc.
Salina: Arc.
Nikki: I was trying to think arch and an arc.
Nikki: I like the through line of life.
Salina: Just switch it up.
Nikki: We talked about the birth of Charlene's baby, which was sort of a long time coming.
Nikki: This season.
Nikki: We got to see Minnie Bell's peaceful passing.
Nikki: I don't want that to sound like who is so exciting to watch someone die, but we got to watch this peaceful passage of life.
Salina: Yeah, I thought it was beautiful.
Nikki: I thought the humor was actually really spot on for such a long episode.
Nikki: It felt like it was still funny the whole way through.
Nikki: Like I said, my only potential beef with it was that at times it felt like a couple episodes sort of pasted together, which I think is just a byproduct of being so long.
Nikki: But all in all, I really liked the episode.
Nikki: I thought it was really well done and a nice way to kind of come into the next decade for this show.
Nikki: Love it.
Salina: I gave it 4.8 out of five.
Salina: Never ending tears.
Nikki: Just mine.
Salina: Just mine.
Nikki: Never ending who's your sob fest?
Nikki: Selena Sob.
Salina: Sad sob type stuff that happens between this and other things I've watched lately.
Salina: Still Magnolias.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: So I think with the exception of the Suzanne plotline and the weird choices with Vanessa, I just thought it was beautifully written episode.
Salina: So it was pretty much in the tops for me.
Salina: And then I've got to say that we are going to have to switch up the name of our category here because it's not 80s things anymore.
Nikki: Not anymore.
Salina: It's 90s things.
Nikki: 90S things.
Nikki: And what's more 90s than Anthony waiting on a check from Julia, which was one of the things that happened early.
Nikki: Sitting at the house after Bill left, charlene just walked over and turned the radio on and music played.
Nikki: That feels like a very 90s thing to have happened.
Salina: Yeah, sure.
Nikki: Bernice mentions the Avon Lady, which was kind of a 90s phenomenon.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: Bernice confused Vanessa for Tina Turner.
Nikki: Tina Turner.
Nikki: And then, as I've mentioned, there were lots of dated references throughout the baby delivery scene.
Nikki: So taking Charlene away for her to deliver.
Nikki: So a lot of hospitals now actually let you deliver.
Nikki: Like, they take you to a room and you deliver in that room and then stay there afterwards.
Nikki: So they took her away to a delivery room.
Nikki: All the discussion about pain relievers and, like, natural childbirth and all that felt really dated to me.
Nikki: You already mentioned the nurse parading the newborn out for all the friends to see.
Nikki: That just I don't think really happened.
Nikki: That was not consistent with my experience.
Salina: In Anthony taking a picture with, like, the old school camera.
Nikki: Oh, I didn't notice that.
Salina: He takes out, like, an 18 pound camera.
Nikki: Perfect.
Nikki: That he's going to take a film of roll a film later and drop it off at Rite Aid to develop.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Or maybe, like, directly at Kodak.
Nikki: Oh, maybe.
Nikki: Yeah, true.
Nikki: That was my last 90s thing.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I think the only other things I had were looking back at physical photographs and I don't even know the underwear plotline where Bernice is talking about the Inspector By and a person's name on the underwear.
Salina: That just like what?
Salina: I don't even know if that wasn't it wasn't once upon a time thing.
Salina: But it would just be, like a number now, like, inspect to buy for underwear.
Nikki: For sure.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I shop at Lush at the mall, which is like bath and Bodywork sort of stuff.
Nikki: And they all have an inspected by person on them.
Salina: Oh, look at that.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Not jockey.
Salina: No.
Nikki: So it's not that personal anymore.
Salina: No.
Salina: Yep.
Salina: That's it.
Salina: That's all my 90s things.
Salina: How about Southern things?
Nikki: The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce is who was giving the car away?
Nikki: Obviously, there was a Steel Magnolias reference which came out on November 15 in 1989.
Nikki: Can I just say that I never realized that came out as close to the holidays as it did.
Salina: Well, you're four.
Nikki: It's my Easter film.
Nikki: I watch it when it's coming spring every year.
Salina: Well, that makes sense.
Nikki: Yeah, it does.
Nikki: I just hadn't really ever processed that's when it came out.
Nikki: What a nice holiday gift for people in 1989.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And the last Southern thing I had was West Side Hospital.
Nikki: That's where Mary Joe said Charlene was delivering.
Nikki: As far as I could tell, there.
Nikki: Was not a West Side in Atlanta, but there is a North Side.
Nikki: And North Side Hospital was founded in 1970.
Nikki: So I wonder if that was the thing or if West Side was just a generic name.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: Feels like maybe it was just generic.
Nikki: But how odd that there was a North Side.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: LBT has shown her knowledge a time or two.
Salina: She really has the references down.
Salina: Well, we get another To Kill a Mockingbird reference, not a bawkingbird.
Salina: Jackson, Mississippi, gets mentioned.
Salina: That's where Bill is grown to due to the weather.
Salina: I think Suzanne is the one who says, well, that's a fine how do you do, very Southern.
Salina: Oh, Miss Minnie mentioned she didn't have her black IPS for New Year's.
Salina: Brownsville, Tennessee, where Miss Minnie was born.
Salina: The color Baptist churches started by Minnie's father.
Salina: I looked it up.
Salina: The first was in Savannah, Georgia, on January 20, 1788.
Nikki: Good Lord.
Salina: Well, I think the timelines probably don't add up then, but Panama Unlimited, this is a train that ran from New Orleans to Chicago.
Salina: Miss Minnie wishes that she had been on the Panama Unlimited.
Salina: And then Picneyville, Mississippi, gets a mention as well.
Salina: This is where when Minnie's recounting things about her life, she talks about her daughter.
Salina: Started a black library there.
Salina: We really covered them between the Southern references.
Salina: How about references that we need to talk about?
Nikki: Somewhere out there, which you mentioned was the song that was playing at the end.
Nikki: So that was in the 1986 film An American Tale.
Nikki: My son loves to listen to that song when he's falling asleep at night.
Nikki: It's, like, really sweet.
Nikki: Originally, it was recorded by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, but in this episode, it was recorded by Patty Linsky and Daniel Darryl.
Nikki: Finesse.
Nikki: I think I have some typos here.
Nikki: Finesse.
Nikki: Anyway, it's a beautiful song.
Salina: I love that song.
Salina: Were you an American tell person?
Nikki: For sure, yeah.
Salina: It's weird because I accidentally ran.
Salina: Not accidentally, obviously.
Salina: I'm looking at different things for preparing for today's episode, but maybe I ran by Roger Ebert's review of the movie or something, and I think he gave it like a really low he's like a thumbs up guy, maybe.
Salina: I think he gave it, like, one thumbs up or one star, whatever his rating was, and just said it was, like, way too dark for kids.
Salina: I loved it.
Nikki: We watched it all the time.
Nikki: We watched American Tale Two, the Western One.
Nikki: I'm blanking on the name now, but we watched that one probably more FIFA Goes West.
Nikki: Thank you.
Nikki: We watched that one probably more than the first one.
Nikki: I took my kids to see it because they played it on Swanny Town Center two summers ago.
Nikki: And I don't know that I'd ever watched it with them.
Nikki: My parents might have.
Nikki: My kids loved it.
Nikki: They love the movie.
Nikki: I think the dark parts go over their heads.
Salina: Yeah, I think that's true.
Nikki: I don't think they really process for adults.
Salina: Yeah, it was also like the story was brought to the guy who did it is it blues or something?
Salina: But by Steven Spielberg.
Salina: So it was like his story.
Salina: I mean, not his story.
Salina: He wasn't a mouse, but he brought the story to Bluth to make the cartoon.
Salina: And Steven Spielberg, he cranks out some good stuff.
Salina: He knows some stuff.
Salina: And actually, this was a group that separated off from Disney.
Salina: They also did The Secret of NIM.
Nikki: Which was also I don't think I've seen that.
Salina: That's dark, too.
Salina: I love The Secret of NIM.
Salina: When I was little, I've always liked darker stuff, so that might be part of it, too.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I feel like kids movies back then were dark.
Nikki: Have you ever seen the brave little toaster?
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Now that is a dark story.
Salina: I don't remember it.
Nikki: It's just sad.
Nikki: So it's like The Brave Little Toaster, those ones about the animals that get lost.
Nikki: Those are really sad movies.
Salina: I don't know, I'm just like again, this feels like me going into territory that I have no business talking about.
Salina: But I think it's okay for people to learn how to process hard emotions.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I mean, I've just Googled sad 90s movies about animals so I could figure out the name of this movie and Hold Down came up free Willy Man.
Salina: Free Willy.
Nikki: Free Willy, man.
Nikki: That's a deep, dark movie.
Nikki: And I used to watch it all the time.
Salina: Oh, my end's pretty happy.
Nikki: The land before time.
Nikki: Love.
Salina: The lamb before time.
Salina: Bambi.
Salina: Well, all of those begin with parents dying.
Salina: That was like, the thing, right?
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: They all do.
Salina: Every single one of them.
Salina: True.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So that was a thing.
Nikki: I can't find the movie now.
Salina: Something was going on with Walt.
Nikki: Anyway, we just really like to put kids through it.
Nikki: But I agree with you.
Nikki: I think it builds empathy in kids.
Nikki: And I think a kid can watch an emotional movie.
Nikki: I don't think An American Tale was dark.
Salina: Well, speaking of your reference of Free Willie, we also get a Shamoo, the well reference.
Nikki: Oh, good.
Salina: I just wanted to say that yes, Shamoo is like a stage name, so it's like performing wells sounds so terrible.
Salina: The stage name winds up being Shamoo no matter what Sea World you're at.
Salina: Okay, but there was like an original Shamoo is my point.
Salina: And she was captured.
Salina: Well, there's also Keiko.
Salina: That's a different well, I believe so.
Salina: She was captured in 1965.
Salina: The original Shamoo performed until 71 was retired after an incident surrounding a publicity stunt which was not really on the fault of the whale.
Salina: And then she died four months later.
Salina: She was only ten, which is like aggressively a younger life than it should have been.
Salina: And I just want to say this year, it's been ten years since Blackfish came out, and it's really obviously exposed a lot of what's dangerous and incredibly heartbreaking about keeping these animals in captivity.
Salina: The reason I'm bringing this up is because I just feel like that reference Shamoo in 90 feels very different than thinking about a Shamoo reference in 2023, just because I think we know a lot more now than we did then, which is really just the show.
Salina: So another reference is Vanessa herself is actually played by Olivia Brown, who, as far as I can tell, was a really big gift for Designing Women at the time.
Salina: So I just wanted to say that by this time she had starred in 48 Hours, Throw, Mama from the Train, and I think the entire run of Miami Vice.
Salina: I'm not a Miami Vice girl myself, but that was a huge show in the 80s, so I just wanted to give her a little plug there.
Salina: And then we do also get the Tina Turner reference.
Salina: I thought it might have been our first reference to her, but I look back and it's not.
Salina: However, I wanted to mention that 1989 is the year that she released the COVID of the Best on her 7th album.
Salina: So one is that I didn't think I knew that was a cover.
Salina: I just totally associate that with Tina Turner.
Salina: This goes on to be like the song that's pretty much synonymous with her and as a singer and as an artist.
Salina: And then it has a ton of commercial success as well.
Salina: It's like a worldwide phenomenon.
Salina: And then a special shout out to the amazing Schitt's Creek version.
Salina: I've linked both in the blog post because I just feel like if you want to just have a good day, you need to go watch Tina Turner.
Nikki: And then watch Shitts Creek and possibly a good cry.
Nikki: That s***'s creek scene makes me cry.
Nikki: It's so romantic.
Nikki: Same.
Nikki: Yeah, so romantic.
Salina: It's one of the most romantic scenes I think I've ever seen in a show ever.
Nikki: It's beautifully done.
Salina: And then the bill one.
Nikki: You're so dumb.
Nikki: Beautiful.
Salina: Also, for what it's worth, I do think that Vanessa is putting off some.
Nikki: Serious Tina energy, for sure.
Salina: And that's all for me.
Salina: Okay, bye.
Nikki: No, first we have to tell the people something sorry that we're going to go a little off book.
Nikki: And next week we're going to do something really inspired by these two massive references we get in this week's episode, steel Magnolias and Dolly Parton.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: We're going to do main episode about our Steel Magnolias memories and thoughts on that.
Nikki: And then we're going to do an extra sugar all about Dolly Parton, which I have to tell you guys, I really prepared for this one.
Nikki: There were books involved, so I'm all in on my Dolly Parton deep dive.
Salina: This is what we were born for, really.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Our whole lives have been leading to this moment.
Salina: So go ahead and strap in, guys.
Salina: It's going to be a long episode.
Salina: Two very long episodes.
Salina: And I was still trying to self censor.
Nikki: Like edit yourself down.
Salina: Yeah, a little bit.
Salina: And then I was like, but the people need to know.
Nikki: True.
Nikki: I know it's hard.
Nikki: So, as always, we'd love you to follow along with us and engage.
Nikki: We're on Instagram and Facebook at Sweet tea and TV Tiktokstvpod.
Nikki: Our email address is sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: Like Selena said, we're on YouTube now.
Nikki: We're on the tubes.
Nikki: We're on the YouTube.
Nikki: We're on the tubes.
Nikki: And our website is www.sweettv.com and you can rate and review the podcast wherever you listen, which is super helpful for helping other people find us.
Nikki: And then there are some additional ways to support the show from our Support US page, including a link to our Patreon page, which might be important this week because we have a Patreon exclusive, Extra Sugar this week.
Nikki: So there will be no mainstream episode of Extra Sugar this week.
Nikki: We are going to wrap up some unfinished business from this episode with our Patreon listeners.
Salina: I feel like, I don't know, add in something there.
Nikki: So if you are not a Patreon listener but you want to be, go ahead and take a look at our Patreon page and you can see how to join us.
Nikki: That's it.
Salina: All right.
Salina: Well, you know what that means.
Nikki: What does it mean, Selena?
Salina: It means we're going to see you around the still magnolias and Dolly Parton bin.
Salina: Bye.