Bernice gets a nose job (we mean rhinoplasty, sorry Julia!). No one nose knows how to tell her it’s…not great. Everyone is faced with the age-old friendship question: Is honesty REALLY the best policy? Absolutely, but you better have an extra Cadillac to sell.
Come back on Thursday for an all-new “Extra Sugar” about, you got it, plastic surgery!
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: And hey, y'all.
Salina: Welcome to Sweet Tea & TV, where we have our cough drops lined up in front of us.
Salina: I'm, like, not kidding.
Salina: I'm unwrapping them so I can just grab them really easily.
Nikki: It's that time of year.
Salina: Zyrtec on deck.
Nikki: It's that time of year.
Nikki: It's either that we both have a cold or that we got new noses and that they just haven't fully settled in yet.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: Well, that's a good transition.
Salina: I like it.
Nikki: It is the time of year for colds, but it's also the time of year for designing women.
Nikki: Season five, episode 16 the Emperor's new nose Bernice decides to have plastic surgery.
Nikki: When the surgeon botches the job, the women have trouble telling her to her face because they're afraid to hurt her feelings.
Nikki: Air date February 4, 1991 tomorrow oh, yeah.
Salina: Wow.
Salina: We're really tracking.
Nikki: We sure are.
Nikki: We're calling this one one fine looking woman.
Nikki: It was written by Tom Bray and Michael a.
Nikki: Ross.
Nikki: So Salina's notes here remind me that this writing duo last directed, season four, episode 22, it's a wonderful life.
Nikki: That's the one where Charlene thinks Bill is having an affair.
Nikki: And it was also the first episode they directed.
Nikki: And then Ross was galen king from Nashville bound in season one and Stan the car salesman in season four.
Nikki: Man, that's a lot of trivia right there.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: I didn't even talk about how his marriage to Markey post, but I was thinking about it.
Nikki: I think I've heard that somewhere.
Salina: Yeah, right here in this room.
Nikki: And this episode was directed by David Trainer.
Nikki: Also might be a familiar name by now.
Salina: One would hope so.
Nikki: General reaction.
Nikki: Salina, what do you have?
Salina: If Bernice is in the episode I'm pretty much in.
Salina: That's my first reaction.
Nikki: This was one of the few episodes I remember from, like.
Salina: Uh huh.
Nikki: I can actively remember her prosthetic nose, and I could never have told you what episode, what season, anything like that.
Nikki: But I definitely remembered Bernice's nose, and I feel like there's something to that.
Nikki: This episode really sticks with you.
Nikki: Like a bad nose, like a bad foreshadowing there.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I think another thing that was kind of circling for me was thinking about Dixie and how she might have reacted to this one, because we know from different sources, including her own lips, that she had received plastic surgery between seasons one and two.
Nikki: I thought about that, too.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And then, like, some of the lines she was having to deliver about, like, it's okay.
Salina: To be a woman over 50.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Natural beauty and whatnot.
Nikki: Well, she just had that whole episode about her being a lounge singer.
Nikki: So in thinking about her and LBT's arrangement, I know it was more political statements that if she had to make a big, grand, liberal political statement, then she got to sing.
Nikki: Maybe there was some trade off between these two episodes.
Salina: Could be.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: Yeah, I could be reaching.
Salina: There's a part of me that feels like it's just, like, an unfair line to give someone, but I guess it is acting.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: My last general reaction was that this episode was up there with Gilmore girls in terms of pop culture references, I just feel like I could not keep up with them.
Nikki: We'll talk about a few of them in references, but, boy, they just kept coming.
Nikki: And sexist comment alert.
Nikki: I was surprised that happened in an episode written by two men.
Salina: You were surprised?
Nikki: I was surprised.
Salina: Eyes don't blink or blink a lot.
Nikki: No, I was really surprised because I think we think about women being so tuned into pop culture and into all of the latest celebrity goss.
Nikki: And so it just surprised me that this wasn't an LBT written episode or.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: It's interesting.
Salina: It's possible.
Nikki: I also have the Gilmore girls lady whose name is escaping me right now, Amy Sherman Palladino.
Nikki: Palladino in my head.
Nikki: Like, she's buried in my head as the only writer of all things pop culture in sitcoms or, like, tv shows.
Nikki: So it's also possible that I'm just, like, unfairly making a huge, sweeping assumption.
Salina: No, I don't think so.
Salina: It sounded like I didn't mean it, but I do.
Salina: It's the cold, Nikki.
Salina: It's the cold.
Salina: I don't even know what's happening right now.
Nikki: You do look a little glazed over, to be honest.
Salina: I'm, like, trying to pep it up, but my body's just like, you're lucky to be here at all, okay?
Salina: Me, not you.
Salina: You're probably not lucky to be here.
Salina: Sorry about that.
Salina: I just thought that this episode kind of raised a good question, and maybe it's, like, an eternal question, which is, like, when are we supposed to be, like, a good friend?
Salina: And then when are we supposed to just be nice?
Salina: And I know we've talked a lot offline and here about nice versus kind and all of that, but I think this episode is probably a good example of when that latter choice can get you in trouble.
Nikki: The being nice, you mean?
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: Trying to make her feel good because you want her to feel good.
Nikki: But this crossed the line from, like.
Salina: Spinach in your teeth, I think is exactly used.
Salina: Yeah, some other examples, but that was.
Salina: The back of your dress is caught in your pantyhose, which you've literally watched.
Salina: Happened to me before, so you didn't have to tell me because the man behind me told me.
Nikki: The good news was, I didn't even notice.
Nikki: I wasn't looking at your behind.
Nikki: Well, I feel like we've had this conundrum before.
Nikki: This seems like the sort of thought that should have occurred to me while I was watching the episode.
Nikki: I feel like we've had this conundrum on this show before, being a good friend and pointing something out to someone.
Nikki: But that is an eternal.
Nikki: You said it was, like, an eternal question.
Nikki: It's an eternal challenge of mine.
Nikki: I never want to be the person that makes someone feel uncomfortable.
Salina: Yes, but I'm.
Salina: I mean, I think I'm going to tell you.
Salina: If you have a booger in your nose, I'm just going to do it.
Salina: You just need to know.
Salina: It'll be awkward for a second, but you can get it out of your nose, and then we can move on with our day.
Nikki: I think the other complication of this one is Bernice never gave away that she was feeling any kind of self conscious about her new nose until it was pointed.
Nikki: So, like, my first reaction is always to say, what do you think, Salina?
Nikki: Like, how do you feel about your sweater?
Nikki: Does it make you feel good?
Nikki: And then if you said, like, oh, my God, I've never felt better about myself.
Nikki: And it wasn't, like, egregious.
Nikki: I can't say anything.
Nikki: You feel great.
Salina: Well, also, it's not permanent, but it is.
Salina: If someone has an ugly sweater, you can just change your sweater.
Salina: If you have changed your nose, you can change your nose again.
Salina: You can.
Salina: So we saw it's expensive, and it's not, like, something you can do in a day.
Salina: So I don't know.
Salina: It's a tough call to make.
Salina: I think you just have to per whatever the event is kind of figure out on the fly.
Nikki: I think if Bernice had told them, we wouldn't have an episode if Bernice had done this.
Nikki: But if Bernice had told them, when she first got that, when they took off the bandage, I gasped a little bit.
Nikki: They would have been like, yeah, it's a little piggy.
Nikki: Like, they would have had the opening they needed to tell her, like, it's not your greatest look, but she seemed to indicate she was really happy with it.
Nikki: And so who are they to crap on her parade?
Nikki: Maybe she was really happy with it and it's not conventional, but Bernice isn't conventional, so she's happy.
Nikki: But then once Bernice kind of shared with them that she had been feeling self conscious, that opened the door for them.
Salina: Right.
Salina: All right, well, talk to you later.
Nikki: Was that your last general?
Salina: It was.
Nikki: I had a couple of cut line strays that I wanted to mention at the beginning of the episode.
Nikki: Charlene wanted to watch the 05:00 news, and they were talking about the segment on nanny violators.
Nikki: We just had, like, an od unnecessary cut, which would have made the transition to the toilet bowl discussion a little cleaner.
Nikki: Not the end of the world, not like, ruin the episode for me.
Nikki: But I feel like didn't understand why they made this cut and it didn't even save time.
Nikki: So they say it's a piece about nanny violators.
Nikki: Well, it's over now.
Nikki: What they cut was good.
Nikki: Now they're showing a toilet throwing contest where Julia then says, oh, my word, they're chucking toilet.
Nikki: It's it.
Nikki: In the episode as we watched, it goes from nanny violators is over to now they're chucking toilet bowls.
Salina: Is that really the term they were using, nanny violators?
Nikki: Yeah, it's that, like, several times.
Salina: Okay, it's not untrue, but also, it's just like.
Salina: I don't know, it just makes me real sad all of a sudden.
Nikki: Sorry to do that to you.
Salina: It just sounds like an assault.
Nikki: Then there was also a.
Nikki: Another in that same area.
Nikki: They asked Bernice her opinion of how much a toilet bowl weighs.
Nikki: That part was cut.
Nikki: Her response wasn't really as funny as I think it would have been coming from Bernice.
Nikki: She just said, like, excuse me.
Nikki: So it was like a reasonable cut.
Nikki: But the first part, the transition from they're chucking toilet bowls to asking Bernice how much she thinks a toilet bowl weighs.
Nikki: It just would have been funny.
Nikki: Like, if you're going to talk about throwing toilet bowls, give us the whole joke.
Nikki: Don't just give us this random, like, why are they throwing toilet bowls?
Nikki: What's happening?
Salina: Yeah, I felt weird for the.
Salina: Even that even that is, like, weird for the news.
Nikki: Very.
Salina: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
Nikki: Yes, indeed.
Salina: The whole thing are they used tolla ball.
Salina: It doesn't matter.
Nikki: I did try to look into it to see if this was like a thing, like a 91 thing or like a southern thing.
Nikki: Actually, I think it was Scotland where I found it the most, I think.
Nikki: I didn't write it down, but I did look into it.
Nikki: Did you have any other strays?
Salina: Oh, I had a few.
Salina: Julia can't believe what they called the news then.
Salina: Boy, would she be upset today.
Salina: Suzanne's rich enough to buy two cadillacs, but a few episodes back, she broke down and shared the laundry list of things she was going through.
Salina: Given her money problems, we could probably split hairs over whether or not only being able to wax up to your knee is the biggest problem in life.
Salina: But still, we have this conversation since the appearance of Reggie McDawson, which is like, is she?
Nikki: Isn't she?
Nikki: Isn't she?
Salina: What's happening?
Salina: And then will someone please tell her how many waxes she could get for the prices of a Cadillac since she decided to buy two?
Salina: I mean, it works out to the episode's favor, but I'm just saying you could definitely wax up to the hip for the price of a Cadillac a few times.
Nikki: So I didn't think about it too much because I thought it was that she traded her mercedes for a Cadillac.
Nikki: And that was part of the joke.
Nikki: You could buy two cadillacs for the price of one mercedes.
Nikki: So I don't know.
Nikki: I didn't think about it too much.
Nikki: But you make a good point.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Is she poor?
Nikki: Isn't she?
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Really important observations don't exist in this podcast.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So I think maybe this is the time for Suzanne watch before we exit strays.
Nikki: I agree with.
Salina: Go.
Salina: Do you have thoughts?
Salina: I do.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: But I feel like you and I feel like you and I are at extremes on this one because I've shared in the last couple of episodes, like, I don't see it short of that one picture you showed me where they are very clearly separated.
Nikki: So I'm mildly concerned you're going to come across the table at me on this.
Nikki: But I did write down that I didn't notice her on the fringes at all in this episode.
Salina: No, she was pulled more into it.
Salina: Keep going.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Thought she was going to hurt me.
Nikki: I had several Suzanne says sort of comments that cracked me up, especially the one that she says, I know you all think I'm selfish and shallow, but I know what's most important in life.
Nikki: Friendship.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: Looking good.
Nikki: I really like that one.
Salina: It's one of my likes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So I didn't notice her on the fringes of this episode very much at.
Nikki: But now I'm like, I'm dissecting it.
Salina: So I'm also, it's just for fun.
Salina: Someone like, fun Salina on social media was like, okay, but if we take that and it's like, what can I really say after what we do?
Salina: And we are dissecting so much of this that doesn't need to be.
Salina: But they're like, but I look back and sometimes she's sitting on that couch by herself.
Salina: And when I think about season one, episode twelve, and they laid out this whole argument.
Salina: Good.
Salina: Thank you for commenting, and thank you for wanting to play along.
Salina: But also, I literally said in the first one, I'm probably reading too much.
Nikki: In it, making the point that she's not on her own.
Nikki: Yeah, that person and I should be friends.
Salina: You probably should.
Salina: And then maybe both of y'all could get the fact that this is a bit.
Nikki: There's no such thing as fun in life, Salina.
Salina: Good Lord.
Salina: Like right in the gut.
Salina: So here's the things that stood out to me.
Salina: Again, everybody just understand this could be me overreaching.
Salina: I'm not saying I would take this.
Nikki: To court, but I think my point is I want to know for real.
Nikki: For real.
Nikki: Can LBT tell me how much of it?
Nikki: Because it is going to come up in a couple of.
Nikki: Can she?
Nikki: That's what I'm saying.
Salina: It would be wonderful.
Salina: Well, okay, so she does wind up coming into the fold, but in the cold open, they're talking about her sagging rear end.
Salina: They made like a joke about it.
Salina: So my question is poke or joke?
Salina: And that's how I was expecting her to not be in the episode.
Salina: I was, too, because they did that.
Nikki: I thought we finally got to the part where it would be obvious enough.
Salina: I would get it well, so she's not just isolated this time.
Salina: She's sitting closer to the cast in this one, which I think are both good signs.
Salina: But I also recognize the outfits that her and Mary Jo were wearing.
Salina: It looked like something I had seen earlier on in the season, and I'm wondering if they filmed these early on and then moved them around a little.
Salina: Just also, it's like something about the styling of their hair even looks like it changes a little over the season.
Salina: You know how that will happen with actors.
Salina: And it just looked more like their styling towards the beginning of the season.
Nikki: I noticed that with Charlene in an episode, even after this one, her hair was very feathery in like an almost late 80s sort of lay.
Nikki: Like it just didn't feel like the hair we've been watching this season.
Salina: So maybe you're right, because Mary Jo, I really, actually like what she was wearing.
Salina: Not that I don't usually.
Salina: She's had a real change in her wardrobe, and we talked about that.
Nikki: But she has a green sweater.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Love that.
Salina: And it's almost like a dress because it's so long.
Nikki: We have definitely seen that before.
Salina: And then Suzanne is wearing this black and pink suit, and then it's got, like, a really distinct scarf that goes with it.
Salina: And we had seen that earlier in the season as well.
Nikki: I'm looking back at my pictures.
Nikki: I keep costume pictures just to.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And I've been waffling on whether to say this or not.
Salina: I don't have it, but even in watching the Barbara Walters interview.
Salina: So Delta Burke goes on, and she is losing weight, like, and you kind of see that happen.
Salina: And then her face almost looks a little fuller in this episode, which is another reason, which look, I mean, I feel icky saying that at all, but I'm just saying she looks more like the delta I was seeing in the beginning.
Nikki: It's funny you say that because I did notice a little difference.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: In neither place.
Salina: Is that a problem?
Salina: No, that's not for you.
Salina: That's for anyone that thinks, obviously, if you're not a longtime listener to the show, we have very strong opinions on talking about people's looks.
Salina: But if we're just trying to do Suzanne watch, then it does feel like understanding that we may not be looking at thing.
Nikki: I'm willing to give you that one.
Salina: I appreciate it.
Salina: Every now and then I can lob one in.
Nikki: You can have it.
Salina: Thank you.
Salina: Will, we like to talk about some things that we liked.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: The facework of the women when they were talking to Bernice the first time she comes in after.
Nikki: Not the first time she comes in the episode, the first time after the surgery, and they're seeing her nose for the first time.
Nikki: There was just so much polite smiling and so many tight faces.
Nikki: And then there were stunned expressions, like, just the way they were not saying anything but saying things I loved so much.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I thought it was so amazing.
Salina: This is where I really, and I've said this before, but where I think it messes me up to look at the script while I'm trying to watch because I think I missed some of that.
Salina: Yeah, I know.
Salina: I get it.
Salina: My cursory watch.
Salina: But then a lot of time, you know, I love good face work.
Nikki: That scene is worth watching again because it is just so funny.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I laughed out loud at the thought of Bernice's top secret mission before they know about the plastic surgery, potentially being riding the mechanical bull at some Atlanta club.
Salina: It's wonderful.
Salina: Like, I want to see that scene, and I think I've been robbed.
Salina: That that wasn't a scene.
Nikki: That would be great.
Salina: Charlene's commentary about Mrs.
Salina: Philpott.
Salina: Can you imagine losing your husband to your child's nanny?
Salina: I'm glad Mrs.
Salina: Philpott's 65 years old.
Salina: Of course, she did just get a new perm.
Salina: Bill's overseas.
Salina: I guess he's safe from her.
Salina: I love that.
Salina: And then Mary Jo's reaction to Bernice's post surgery digital rendering.
Salina: This is the first time she comes in before she said, well, you look very alert.
Nikki: Alert.
Salina: Bernice had some good lines on getting older.
Salina: It's h*** getting old.
Salina: Inside, I'm still 16, kissing sailors in Times Square on VE day.
Salina: You never told us you lived in New York.
Salina: I'm not sure I did, but that's what I remember.
Nikki: The way she delivers that line is really funny, too.
Nikki: Something about, like, how dare you question me?
Nikki: Is what I was reading into that.
Nikki: It's what I remember.
Nikki: Something very.
Salina: She's so good.
Salina: And then Julia says, I hope you're not being pressured by some media image of how a woman's supposed to look.
Salina: Some of the most beautiful women in this country are over 50, so we've already kind of foreshadowed this.
Salina: And Bernice replies, yeah, I've heard all that from Jane Fonda.
Salina: She keeps telling us that the aging process is natural and beautiful, and if we just keep doing those squats and donkey kicks, everything will be hunky dory.
Salina: Meanwhile, she sneaks out and gets her b**** done.
Salina: If Jane can do it, I can do it.
Nikki: I really liked when Suzanne choked on her coffee, when Bernice said she was afraid of making a pig of herself while she was eating the cookies.
Nikki: And then Suzanne saying, looking at Bernice reminds her of Noelle.
Nikki: We haven't talked about Noelle in a while.
Salina: I mean, it was sweet and.
Salina: Not sweet.
Nikki: Not sweet?
Nikki: What do we call those?
Nikki: A slap?
Nikki: You want to talk about things we didn't like?
Salina: I've got two more things I like.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Bernice telling people at Hillcrest retirement home that she got in a bar fight to explain her bandages.
Salina: Wonderful.
Salina: And then it was probably while she.
Nikki: Was riding the mechanical bowl or just after.
Nikki: Of course she can't do it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: She's pretty powerful.
Nikki: She's wily.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I thought it was really sweet that Suzanne gave her cadillac to help Bernice she already gave the funny line, and I love that line.
Salina: I thought that reasoning was even better.
Salina: And it's so in line with Suzanne's character, but it also helped bring the episode full circle, making it make sense while we're hearing this, like, two cadillacs for one Mercedes story.
Nikki: Yeah, that's true.
Salina: I like that.
Salina: I'm done now.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Nikki: I did, like, a lot of things.
Salina: All right, let me start at minute one.
Nikki: So I really hated the joke where Charlene said she thought a rhinoplasty meant they were going to add a.
Nikki: Oh, and let me tell you where that's coming from.
Nikki: Okay, so with Charlene.
Nikki: So you're telling me someone with a thirst for knowledge, like, she yearns for new knowledge or whatever she said.
Nikki: Plus someone who stays up to date on all things cultural and what's going on didn't know what a nose job was officially called.
Nikki: But it's a bigger issue that we're starting to lean into.
Nikki: Charlene dumb to an extent that I don't believe.
Nikki: It's different than naive Charlene.
Nikki: Now we're starting to make her dumb.
Nikki: And we'll talk about this again in a couple episodes, but we're really starting to try to make her dumb.
Nikki: And she's not dumb.
Salina: Well, they do that to, right?
Salina: Like, in one.
Salina: In something she doesn't know.
Salina: Not simple words, but words that you're like, really?
Salina: And then she'll make a kissinger joke.
Salina: This isn't the same person, is it?
Nikki: It's just, like, not to be, too.
Nikki: Whatever.
Nikki: And probably this is just me, like, loving Charlene and feeling protective of Charlene.
Nikki: But it just is kind of.
Nikki: You know what it is, Salina?
Nikki: It's lazy writing.
Nikki: It's lazy writing.
Salina: It just feels.
Salina: They feel like y'all come on the show and we'll talk about your lazy writing.
Nikki: We don't mean that.
Nikki: They feel like cheap shots to me, and it's not very good character development.
Salina: I'm so glad you said that because this is where the episode is falling apart for me.
Salina: It's not that the acting's not good, but after the surgery, I felt really cringy about the whole thing.
Salina: I understand why they made her nose absurdist.
Salina: And she walked in, and I'm going to use a reference of the time she walked in and she looked like Raquel Welch.
Salina: We might be like, where's the joke?
Nikki: She had the bone structure of.
Salina: Know that I understand.
Salina: Oh, that's why that reference was in my head.
Salina: I mean, I would also take looking at looking like a 70 year old rock hill Welch as someone would give me the opportunity.
Salina: And I'm not sure how to say this without sounding foolish, because I know this is a tv show, but, I mean, I'm doing it all the time.
Nikki: What we do, Salina.
Salina: Yeah, but there are people out there with noses that are not exactly the beauty standard, and so for me, it feels weird to be, ha.
Salina: Look at the stupid nose on her.
Nikki: I.
Salina: Not that I think that's exactly what the show was setting up.
Salina: They were struggling with it, but there was still this, like, poking, a little bit of poking, and so where they're, like, trying to play it cool.
Salina: I hear you on the facework and all that, and I need to go back and look at that.
Salina: But first of all, that scene went on a really long time for me, and then the jokes, they just weren't landing.
Salina: I mean, it could be a twisted kind of empathy on my part, and I'm happy to own that, but it was just kind of difficult.
Salina: And then I just thought the thing where she finally notices with the kid because.
Nikki: Mean.
Salina: Yeah, because maybe that you've almost had something similar happen with a kid before where they just said the meanest thing that you could, and you're like, the.
Nikki: Thing you've spent your whole life feeling self conscious about, and they called you right out the first time they met you.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And I'm not saying it's my teeth, but maybe it's my teeth.
Salina: And that was real hard for me.
Nikki: That's rough.
Salina: I hope you can make it through, Salina.
Salina: I hope you can try and make it through this episode of designing women.
Salina: Yeah, I don't know.
Salina: I just don't like poking at people.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: I don't have that many complaints about this episode, and I think even that didn't really bother me that much.
Nikki: I think mostly because Nikki's always poking at people.
Nikki: I just make fun of people all the time.
Nikki: All the time.
Salina: When I think of, like, you know, she's just like, your face.
Salina: Is this your hair?
Salina: Why'd you walk outside today?
Nikki: I don't have any complaints about this episode.
Nikki: One beef I did have was that you just said one of the scenes dragged on a little bit.
Nikki: I feel like the whole episode dragged a little bit.
Nikki: And you also pointed out that the two Mercedes subplot or the two Cadillac subplot, the one Mercedes sort of brought the whole episode full circle.
Nikki: I'm not sure I've really processed it that way, so that's helpful.
Nikki: I do think a meteor subplot could have been helpful here.
Salina: It was too much focus.
Nikki: Too much focus on the nose thing.
Nikki: Really?
Salina: Maybe they did have a subplot and it got pulled.
Nikki: Maybe.
Salina: Who knows?
Nikki: It's true.
Nikki: Yeah, it's true.
Salina: You want to rate this sucker?
Nikki: I'm ready.
Nikki: My rating scale is flop sweats at a tea party.
Salina: Oh, I like that.
Nikki: Thank you.
Nikki: I'm going to give it a 4.75 out of five.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: I think it just says something that I have such an enduring memory of the physicality of this episode.
Nikki: It's right here.
Nikki: And I'm pointing at my forehead as I was watching this.
Nikki: It's right there.
Nikki: I can just remember it very clearly watching this, Bernice's nose.
Nikki: That may have been the only thing I remembered after all these years.
Nikki: I remembered nothing else, obviously, about the Mercedes, the Cadillacs, the this, that, and the other.
Nikki: I don't even think I remember the department store scene where he called her Miss Piggy.
Nikki: And I certainly don't remember her feeling, like, bad and all that.
Nikki: But I remember the nose, so I feel like that says something.
Nikki: So I think I gave it some sentimental points, but also, I just enjoyed watching this episode, the slowness of it notwithstanding.
Nikki: So I felt good giving it a slightly higher score than normal.
Salina: I accept that.
Nikki: Thank you.
Salina: So I gave it 3.7 out of five.
Salina: Imaginary or real Times Square kisses.
Salina: I think this episode had a lot to offer, with Bernice just always being tops for me.
Salina: But like I said, the pacing was something for me.
Salina: And then mean spirited is the word that comes to mind for me just a little bit.
Salina: And I just don't like to poke at people's looks, even if it's not really meant to be squarely that way.
Salina: Anyways, just like anything bumping up against.
Nikki: Makes you feel uncomfortable.
Salina: Uncomfortable is a perfect way to put it.
Nikki: Fair.
Salina: You want to talk about some 90s things?
Nikki: Yeah, I have two.
Nikki: We're still talking about that car phone that Anthony's got.
Salina: It's a lot of excitement.
Nikki: We're just real excited about that.
Salina: So excited.
Nikki: And then we still got that tiny tv that Charlene sometimes watches at her desk with those big, giant plug in headphones.
Salina: So weird.
Salina: Or like this obsession with the news.
Salina: Oh, it's five.
Salina: Also, why aren't you all home?
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: I think some people do work till 530, though, and they don't.
Salina: Oh, that's right.
Salina: Well, we used to be that way.
Nikki: I definitely used to not leave the office till six or 630.
Salina: It was wonderful.
Nikki: Just the good old days.
Salina: I didn't have a tiny tv and big headphones, though.
Salina: No, just pain and suffering.
Nikki: What 90s things did you have?
Salina: Barco, Elmir.
Salina: This might be more.
Salina: Don't know.
Salina: Anyways, they're supposed to be dated references.
Salina: The episode's focus on plastic surgery as, like, scandalous kind of feels very of the time.
Nikki: I can't believe I didn't put that in here.
Salina: Well, get out.
Salina: I know this idea of these digital renderings.
Salina: I don't even know I'm calling that the right thing.
Salina: But they're like composites of computers.
Nikki: They were pretty advanced, I thought.
Salina: But is that as being an innovation would just be like, something that a five year old could do now miss Piggy and the Muppets.
Salina: The Muppets were having another heyday then.
Salina: And I would just like to say, I really big fan.
Salina: I am.
Salina: She was such a feminist.
Nikki: Did you see the Elmo news this week?
Salina: No.
Nikki: Where Elmo tweeted out, what do you call it?
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: I was going to say that anyway.
Nikki: Put out a message that basically said, how's everybody doing?
Nikki: And just was, like, barraged with people giving the status of their lives everything from the funny to the people whose football teams had just recently lost.
Nikki: But then people got really vulnerable and serious about it.
Salina: Oh, God.
Nikki: And shared what they were really going through.
Nikki: And Elmo sent a post, put out a post the next day that said, elmo learned that he should ask his friends how they're doing more often.
Nikki: Thank you so much for sharing with me.
Nikki: I'll ask again soon.
Salina: That's like that meme.
Salina: That's like, check on your strong friends.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Real worried.
Salina: Sometimes there's just, like, a little bit of silence.
Nikki: Well, check my ex account, because I've been messaging Elmo.
Nikki: I felt like he was the only one who would listen.
Salina: Only Elmo understands.
Nikki: Southern things.
Nikki: There were some oddly specific directions that Charlene gave on the phone with Anthony.
Nikki: It was at the corner of Riverside and Edgewater.
Salina: I'm on Riverside, the only Riverside I know.
Nikki: That's what I thought of.
Nikki: Well, it's not the only one in Atlanta, though, because there is one near Sandy Springs just north of the perimeter, which she also mentioned.
Nikki: So I do declare.
Nikki: Did Tom Bray and Michael a.
Nikki: Ross study a map?
Salina: Oh, my goodness.
Nikki: Because I went back the episode that they wrote in season four.
Nikki: I don't remember if it was.
Nikki: I guess it must have been that one.
Nikki: There was also something hyper Atlanta specific there, and I think I made the same observation back then.
Nikki: They really must know Atlanta.
Salina: I do really like that kind of attention to detail.
Nikki: I do, too.
Nikki: They owe it to us.
Nikki: If you're going to make a show, obviously, and I'd say that jokingly, but if you are going to make a show, obviously, somewhere specific.
Nikki: Give us a little something that makes it feel authentic.
Salina: We need an Easter egg.
Salina: We do.
Salina: I don't think we own this, but being Polite to the point of fault.
Nikki: Southern.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Anyways, where it's also Minnesota.
Salina: Nice.
Salina: He's got down with Fargo.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: It's hard.
Nikki: It's a lifelong journey.
Salina: It really is.
Nikki: What are we supposed to be?
Salina: What about references that we need to talk about?
Salina: I feel like I have a lot.
Nikki: Buckle up.
Nikki: I do, too.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I have a lot.
Salina: I almost high fived you, but we're both sick, so we can't touch.
Nikki: Maybe now's the time to touch, though.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: Willie Nelson and the auction with something that was mentioned.
Nikki: High up.
Salina: Okay, hold on, hold on.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: I was thinking, I think that might be a juicy story.
Nikki: It is.
Salina: I'm wondering if we save it for a future.
Salina: Extra sugar and try and keep it.
Salina: How much of this story do you want to tell?
Nikki: Well, I mean, I didn't tell extra sugar is worth.
Salina: Okay, go ahead.
Nikki: Basically, there was an auction.
Nikki: They auctioned off his.
Salina: Who am I talking to?
Salina: You're going to be clear and concise.
Nikki: The part that fascinated me was.
Nikki: So it was because of IRS backed taxes.
Nikki: The fascinating part was the auction was hyper unsuccessful because his fans refused to buy anything and they took a stand.
Nikki: And so they weren't able to sell very much.
Nikki: One of the things they sold was his ranch in Texas, though.
Nikki: But a fan bought it and sold it back to him for really cheap.
Salina: Isn't that awesome?
Nikki: But there's a whole lot more to it.
Nikki: So to your point, I'll stop there.
Nikki: But now we're going to owe it to the people to give them the full story.
Salina: Yeah, and I'm not even going to share.
Salina: I think that's plenty of details.
Salina: What you shared.
Salina: The one thing I will add that's just like an aside to this is I can see why people feel that way.
Salina: Because to me, it feels like any money that he made probably went.
Salina: He just seems like one of those people, that it would have gone right back out the door to other people.
Salina: I'm not saying he didn't.
Salina: Also, maybe he spent his money a little unwisely and maybe he should have been more careful.
Salina: But I could see him being the kind of person who just like, if anybody needed it, he's like, sure, have it.
Salina: He seems to me like the person that money comes, money goes.
Nikki: I don't even know how to do my own taxes, so I glossed over the tax part a little bit and why he owed back taxes, but it did sound like there was a little bit of a story there in terms of a bad business investment.
Nikki: He was caught up in tax shelter litigation because the company that he was paying to take care of his finances got him into the trouble.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And then they held him accountable.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Sucks.
Salina: Well, at the end of the day, it stops with you.
Nikki: I think with most companies, though, you would have writers and not.
Nikki: Writers is not the right word, but maybe it is.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I'm not a lawyer.
Nikki: Language in your contract with that finance company that protects you.
Nikki: And it sounds like maybe he didn't have that because they're investing on your behalf, so they have to make good choices, or at least informed choices.
Nikki: And in this instance, they definitely did not, and they got him screwed over.
Nikki: So it's a messy story.
Nikki: It is messy.
Nikki: One of the other ones I wanted to mention was the Al Edco club, which you just mentioned, some club where Bernice was going to go mechanical bull riding.
Nikki: It felt very familiar to me for some reason, and that's because that is the exact same club Galen mentioned in Nashville bound way back in season one.
Nikki: Oh, wow.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Yep.
Nikki: So I can't find any other reference to it.
Nikki: It doesn't seem to be a real Atlanta club, but the name stuck with me, so I googled it real quick, and.
Nikki: Same club.
Salina: That is so funny.
Nikki: Isn't that weird?
Nikki: And, of course, Galen was one of the writers.
Salina: That's an Easter eggs.
Salina: Easter egg.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I like that.
Nikki: Did you find anything about the politician that left his wife to marry his nanny?
Nikki: This is what Charlene was.
Nikki: This is the whole point of the nanny violator story.
Salina: I searched for, like, 20 minutes and couldn't find anything.
Salina: And 20 minutes is my new limit.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Samesies.
Nikki: There was something about a nanny gate in politics that happened, but it happened in, like, 1992, and it wasn't sexual at all.
Salina: I think it was just, like, another confirmation for me that a lot of men cheat on their wives with nannies.
Salina: It just got sadder and sadder, and I was like, nope, I'm coming up out of this.
Salina: This is too much.
Nikki: The next one I want to talk about was Latoya Jackson in a magazine after plastic surgery.
Nikki: This was while they were waiting for Bernice to come and show them their results.
Nikki: So Latoya posed topless for Playboy in March 1989.
Nikki: She reportedly saw the pictorial as a declaration of her independence from her conservative upbringing and said it was, quote, to show my parents.
Nikki: They couldn't dictate me anymore that I control my life.
Nikki: She posed again in Playboy in November 91 to promote her autobiography.
Nikki: Unrelated.
Nikki: I ended up down a rabbit hole on Latoya during this time.
Nikki: Also very sad.
Nikki: Her independence from her family coincided with her getting involved with a very controlling, it sounds like, very abusive man.
Nikki: And some of the choices that she was making probably were not her own.
Nikki: It got messy there for a bit.
Salina: Oh, that's sad.
Nikki: I'm going to let you go for a minute.
Salina: So I need to just look up how much a toilet weighs, because they asked, nobody answered.
Salina: So I was like 60 to 80 pounds.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It's all over the place.
Salina: It was like anywhere from 60 pounds to 135.
Salina: And who knows then how much does.
Nikki: A gold toilet weigh?
Nikki: A gold toilet, like that one you talked about in the, I think it's.
Salina: Like solid gold, right?
Salina: That's the one I want to throw 1500 pounds.
Salina: I'm thinking, I don't know.
Nikki: Phyllis Diller.
Salina: So she had a lot of surgery, and then sort of like, they're talking a little bit about her daughter.
Salina: But I pulled this from a plastic surgeon's blog post.
Salina: So according to the LA Times quote, 1970, she had her teeth straightened.
Salina: A year later, she had a complete facelift.
Salina: By 1989, she had had her teeth bonded, a breast reduction, a tummy tuck, a brow lift, a nose job, an under eyelift, cheek implants, eyeliner, tattoos, and a chemical pill.
Salina: But from what I've read, I think she was one of the very first to openly talk about her surgeries, like as early as the early seventy s.
Salina: And that was highly unusual at the time because most people are like me.
Salina: No, I just slept really well last night.
Salina: Also found myself thinking about that poem, the Barbie doll.
Salina: You read that before?
Salina: Share it with you afterwards, I guess.
Salina: But it's basically like, it's kind of like, essentially it's this idea of all these expectations that are put on girls.
Salina: And so it starts with this girl from the time that she's young and how she has these things about her body that aren't what society expects.
Salina: And then it kind of tracks down to the end of her life.
Salina: It's very sad.
Nikki: Sounds like the speech from the Barbie movie America Ferreira speech.
Salina: Yes, but I think much sounds much sadder.
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Not quite as glossy.
Salina: Little deathier.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: But let's just say that.
Salina: And I think that actually came.
Salina: I think it was like the.
Salina: Maybe 72 or 78 when that was written anyways.
Salina: And then Leon Spinks was also one.
Salina: What did you find?
Nikki: Well, real quick, I wanted to say about Phyllis Diller that actually, it sounds to me like discussion around her plastic surgeries kind of hit a fever pitch in the early ninety s.
Nikki: And just a few months after this episode, she was on the Jenny Jones show talking about it.
Nikki: And then 2020 had like a whole segment or episode on it.
Nikki: In 93, they said she had somewhere in the range of 15 procedures.
Nikki: I just feel like a chemical peel and a rhinoplasty are not the same.
Nikki: Plastic surgery.
Salina: Agreed.
Nikki: Tattooing on eyeliner, not the same as a facelift.
Nikki: So I think that it's interesting the way, how overblown that number feels, given what the actual procedures were.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And then with Leon Spinks.
Nikki: I mean, at the times.
Nikki: Yeah, right.
Nikki: And we'll talk about that in this week's extra.
Nikki: Leon Spinks was a boxer.
Nikki: He once beat Muhammad Ali also.
Nikki: I ended up a little bit down a rabbit hole in them.
Nikki: Let me explain that.
Nikki: I do not care about boxing, but he beat Muhammad Ali the greatest in the world, then proceeded to have the greatest downfall of a professional boxer of all time.
Nikki: But the bottom line was that he lost his teeth in a military boxing match, like, while he was enlisted.
Nikki: Lost both his teeth.
Nikki: So he did indeed have a really big gap in between, in the front of his mouth for a really long time until he.
Nikki: I guess he had implants or something, because the pictures I found that were more recent.
Nikki: He had a full mouth of teeth.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I didn't entirely understand the joke.
Nikki: If you saw the picture of him, I think you would spinach right here in your front teeth, covering your two front teeth.
Salina: I was like, I guess there's a couple of pictures where maybe his hair looks messy.
Salina: I'm pretty sure that's, like, a style.
Salina: Did you not see the toothless pictures?
Salina: Not toothless.
Salina: I saw a gap, and even then I was like, but it just didn't lamb for me.
Salina: That one just blew.
Nikki: Because you don't like to comment on people's bodies.
Salina: I don't even want to look at you.
Salina: I'm just like, eyes down everywhere I go.
Salina: Is that why, or you just don't want to talk?
Salina: Well, both things can be true.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: Did you have any other references you.
Salina: Wanted to talk about?
Salina: I think I'm done man, I told.
Nikki: You it was Gilmore Girls level references this week.
Nikki: So our next episode will be season five, episode 17, baby, baby.
Nikki: We'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at SweetTeaTv, TikTok at SweetTeatvpod, YouTube, SweetTeaTVv 7371.
Nikki: Our email address is sweetteatvpod@gmail.com, and our website is www.sweeteatv.com.
Nikki: If you want to support the show, please tell your family and friends about us, rate and review the podcast wherever you listen.
Nikki: Or you can visit the support us tab on our page for more ways to support the show and then come back Thursday.
Nikki: We're going to have an extra sugar all about plastic surgery.
Salina: You know what that means?
Nikki: What does it mean, Salina?
Salina: Well, it means we'll see you on Thursday.
Salina: Bye.
Salina: Wait.
Nikki: You can't do that to me.
Nikki: I don't know what to say now.
Salina: See you Thursday.
Salina: You got to say lots of southern things just real fast.
Salina: Grits, biscuits, y'all.
Salina: Bye.
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