We learn two major lessons: 1) Designing Women boyfriends don’t often make it (RIP Reese, who IRL was settling in on LBT’s other show Evening Shade) and 2) you will finish the burger Julia made you – come hell, high water, or several broken vases.
Her unique parenting style inspired this week’s Extra Sugar was a perfect excuse to bust out the Amy Vanderbilt etiquette handbook that Nikki bought after she was first referenced in season 3. Yes, yes, we’ll talk etiquette, but also about Mrs. Vanderbilt, AND what would go in our updated guide.
A couple things we read pulling this piece together:
What was Mary Jo talking about when she referenced Kathy Lee Gifford in Julia’s face going, “In the Mornin’, In the Evenin’”? Well, this ancient Carnival Cruise commercial, o’course!
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: You're so good.
Nikki: I always almost forget to unmute us.
Nikki: Almost every time.
Nikki: That's okay.
Salina: That's all right.
Nikki: Happens.
Salina: Always forget to say, hey, Nikki.
Salina: I'm, like, down here looking at my phone.
Nikki: Gnarly noodles and whatnot.
Salina: Gnarly noodles sounds good.
Nikki: I think you're searching for, uh, no.
Salina: We'Re definitely having chicken tonight, and I'm really sad about it.
Nikki: Like, grilled?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Oh, that's what happens when you don't cook the chicken till later in the week, because everybody was just eating whatever they wanted at the beginning of the week, and that everybody is me.
Salina: But you all didn't need to know about that.
Salina: That's just part of the big circle of eating.
Nikki: Nicely done.
Salina: I was going to say the big.
Nikki: Circle of your grocery list.
Nikki: We've come full circle.
Nikki: Okay, so this episode, designing women season five, episode 21 the Big Circle the designing women online summer, you've just switched from Hulu, wholesale or IMDb.
Salina: Can't trust them anymore.
Nikki: Can't trust them.
Nikki: Everyone is devastated over the sudden death of Reese, especially Julia, who's also forced to contend with the taking in and caring for the insufferable little Randa Oliver.
Nikki: Air date April 8, 1991 we're calling this one Julia's parenting 101.
Nikki: It was written by Pam Norris and directed by David Trainor.
Nikki: In terms of general reactions, Salina, where shall we start?
Salina: Well, I guess I'll short with.
Salina: I can't keep that voice up for very long.
Nikki: That's my NPR voice, by the way.
Nikki: Well, my british NPR voice.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: So here's the thing.
Salina: My first general reaction is a question, because I just wanted to know.
Nikki: So is mine.
Salina: Oh, wonderful.
Salina: I wonder if we had the same question.
Nikki: Sandwiches.
Salina: I would like a sandwich.
Nikki: We finish each other's sandwiches.
Salina: Oh, never mind.
Salina: Okay, carry on.
Salina: That's from something, isn't it?
Nikki: Frozen.
Salina: Oh, that's right.
Salina: Sorry.
Salina: I probably don't have as many logged hours on frozen.
Nikki: Haven't seen it that many times.
Salina: What did you think about the choice to handle Reese's death this way?
Nikki: My first general reaction is, why does the show insist on getting rid of men so abruptly?
Nikki: We had Dash disappearing into the night.
Salina: It's because we hate men.
Nikki: We hate men.
Nikki: Dash disappeared in the night.
Nikki: JD dropped off a fertility watch and skeeted out of town on fumes.
Nikki: And now, poor Reese.
Nikki: She's going to go.
Nikki: We haven't seen him in forever.
Nikki: I didn't even look back to the last time we'd seen him.
Nikki: We haven't seen him in forever.
Nikki: He shows up just long enough to die.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: And doesn't even show up.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay, so you didn't love it.
Nikki: Didn't love it.
Salina: Okay, well, I'm about to do a whoopsie daisy on.
Nikki: Uh oh.
Nikki: You loved it.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: If we have to talk about Reese, you might as well be dead.
Salina: I think it's a little.
Salina: I love how Brooke.
Salina: So it's a little abrupt, but I think I'm mainly grateful.
Salina: And here's why I'm grateful.
Salina: They didn't take us through this whole thing, especially since we already went through all of these beats with his heart attack episode back in season two.
Nikki: That's what's so annoying about the whole thing.
Nikki: We already had to do the emotional crap, and he didn't even die back then, so now he's going to die and we're just going to rip off the bandaid.
Salina: Well, but at least we didn't have to sit in the hospital.
Nikki: I guess that's true.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So I thought the setup felt realistic.
Salina: I mean, she's still very sad and somber.
Salina: It's like death makes you feel quiet and small.
Salina: And I thought that was captured pretty well.
Salina: The people around you, they just want to make you feel better, but the only thing that could do that is time.
Salina: So I thought all of that felt real.
Salina: So there's that.
Nikki: I think you're right.
Nikki: I think you're probably right.
Nikki: This is probably the way to have done it.
Nikki: It's just coming right on the heels of JD having just left.
Nikki: In that way, everything just feels so abrupt.
Nikki: And these women can't have all of Suzanne's love interest die.
Nikki: We don't even get to meet any of them.
Salina: They're 112 to start with, except Dash.
Nikki: So, yeah, I don't know.
Nikki: I think you're probably right.
Nikki: That probably was the way to deal with.
Nikki: It just is the way all of them have been handled.
Nikki: So we did get the return of Suzanne, the problem solver jumping in at the time of a crisis, being Scarlett O'Hara, which is kind of a through line for the whole series.
Nikki: Honestly.
Salina: She'S just the hero of the.
Nikki: No, I just mean, not constantly.
Nikki: That's not the right word.
Nikki: But consistently have gotten show storylines, words coming slowly, but lines where she comes in and she's the hero.
Nikki: I think even when Reese was in the hospital last time, she was a hero.
Nikki: So it's consistency in her character.
Nikki: When we were recently talking about inconsistency.
Salina: Right.
Salina: She's selfish, but she steps up when she needs, actually cares for.
Salina: Yeah, I was going to say, too, like, just thinking about the plot of this episode and how we felt about it.
Salina: What is interesting to me is this one isn't so much like an A and a B, so much as it's almost like what I would call a dissolved plot.
Salina: So where Randa really takes over as soon as she arrives, and then we're just there, and we're not really focused so much on this anymore.
Salina: We're focused on Randa.
Salina: And I think that was the right call.
Salina: I'm not sure a 22 minutes sitcom is the place for us to deal with a person's death.
Salina: Not for the full 22 minutes.
Salina: Not in a sitcom.
Salina: That's not what I go to sitcoms for.
Nikki: Dan died in Roseanne.
Salina: That's a horrible, horrible episode.
Salina: But it is a distraction that makes Julia start to emerge from those early stages of grief, and it makes a ton of sense and is less punishing for the audience.
Salina: If that's true, it makes you and everyone else feel better.
Salina: He went to a better place.
Salina: It was called evening shade.
Nikki: Yeah, that's true.
Salina: So he had a job.
Salina: Our Mark Twain impersonator had a job.
Nikki: Finally.
Salina: My last general is that this is actually the episode I was thinking of when we first met Randa earlier in the season.
Nikki: Oh, okay.
Salina: It was this scene and the scene at the table that I was thinking of.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And even as, like, a little girl, I hated her.
Nikki: She's really obnoxious.
Salina: She's tough.
Salina: She was tough.
Nikki: She's tough.
Nikki: I have two more generals.
Nikki: One, I almost got weepy when Julia was giving her big circle speech.
Nikki: Julia almost made me cry.
Salina: She almost broke you, where she talks.
Nikki: About when you're left behind.
Nikki: The days stretch in front of you, and nothing interesting could possibly ever happen.
Nikki: You meet new people, but they couldn't possibly take the place of the ones who are gone.
Nikki: When something good happens, it causes pain, because you can't share it with the one who's gone.
Nikki: You shunt share it.
Nikki: It was just beautifully written.
Nikki: I thought it was really beautifully written.
Nikki: I agree.
Nikki: My last general reaction was the irony of Julia having concerns about a verbally abrupt governess was really funny with me.
Nikki: Funny to me, given how physical Julia was with Randa the entire episode, like, tackling her in the dining room, and she was worried this other governess was too short.
Salina: She's the other governess.
Salina: Is Julia also a governess?
Salina: Is it weird that even in 1991, was the word governess in full use?
Salina: I have a lot of.
Salina: Was it not a tutor.
Nikki: I think it was rich people speak.
Nikki: I think they were trying to imply that was the rich.
Salina: I wouldn't have known.
Nikki: Because Charlene has a nanny.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Randa's family has a.
Salina: Think I.
Salina: Okay, so one, what you're saying is quite valid.
Salina: On the other hand, I do think somehow Julia's was less cruel.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: A hundred percent.
Nikki: She's dealing with cold parents.
Nikki: And Julia, at least, wasn't cold.
Nikki: She was quite warm.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: A little hot, in fact.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: In terms of strays.
Salina: Did you think.
Nikki: Reese's daughter's letter was unusual?
Salina: I don't even remember.
Nikki: She wrote and said, julia, we met briefly, or we spoke briefly at the funeral, but my father always spoke so highly of you.
Salina: Oh, like kind of distant.
Nikki: This whole thing of Julia being Reese's best friend, but not his girlfriend.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And not his fiance.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: And not a family member.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: A little disjointed or.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah, that's a good point.
Salina: Oh, Julia dress in the first scene is absolutely stunning.
Salina: I took a picture of it.
Salina: I'll navigate to it.
Nikki: And it's black with a white collar.
Salina: With the red collar.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Can I take your picture and see you a picture?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I also saw a boom mic or a camera.
Nikki: Something in the corner over here in the dining room scene.
Salina: I still don't see it.
Nikki: You see it move into the picture and then out of the picture.
Nikki: It's definitely there.
Salina: Oh, that's amazing.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: I love those things.
Salina: It's hard to follow someone who's tackling a child to the floor.
Nikki: It is challenging.
Nikki: Speaking of that, though, Jed confirmed challenging.
Nikki: The dining room situation confuses me a lot, and I really feel like I'm owed an official floor plan of this house.
Nikki: All of these seasons later, I want to know, like, we've spent this whole time knowing there's a storeroom off to the side.
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Which sometimes is more than a storeroom.
Nikki: Maybe a bathroom behind the kitchen.
Nikki: In behind the kitchen.
Nikki: Then there's, like, the tiny little kitchen.
Nikki: Then there's, like, this observatory with the patio.
Nikki: Where is this dining room?
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It's only for headlocks and hamburgers.
Nikki: The direction that Mary Jo and Charlene were walking to get to the dining room was toward the storeroom.
Nikki: And when they showed Mary Jo in that episode with JD, there's a window right there.
Nikki: There's no door anywhere for them to get to a dining room.
Salina: Right.
Salina: And they had no money.
Salina: So how are they changing all this stuff even to what I'm saying mess up where things are on this.
Salina: What I'm saying.
Salina: Yeah, I hear you.
Salina: Should we have named it headlocks in a hamburger?
Nikki: We should have maybe a mistake.
Nikki: That would have been better.
Salina: 100%.
Salina: I had a version, if not the exact dress that Randa is wearing.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: Well, it's not like I picked it out.
Nikki: My 6th grade yearbook picture.
Nikki: I have one with a collar like that on it that actually was not the dress I thought you were going to show me.
Nikki: The dress I thought you were going to show me is the one she was wearing when she was cleaning up the broken glass the next morning.
Nikki: She looks like a doll.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So big and obnoxious.
Salina: This is like a teal dress.
Salina: And it has, like, all pink accoutrement.
Salina: I know.
Salina: We know.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Pink bow, a pink sash.
Salina: She's got the white lace hose on.
Nikki: Probably black patent leather shoes.
Salina: She's got the black patent on.
Salina: And this is exactly how my grandma would dress me for all of the times.
Salina: And depending on how igy thread good I was at the time, that's how big the fight was.
Nikki: I was going to say you either had holes in the pantyhose or not.
Salina: Oh, Lord.
Salina: I was a rough and tumble kind of kid.
Nikki: They suggested Julia go to the zoo to relax.
Nikki: Can you even imagine?
Nikki: So one, it's like the zoo, really?
Nikki: But could you imagine Julia at the zoo?
Nikki: I can't decide whether I'm imagining heels or a full on safari outfit.
Salina: Okay, well, it's just know.
Salina: How about the botanical, the zoo, which are amazing, actually.
Nikki: In my last stray, there was one cut line.
Nikki: When Julia and the new governess were talking about Randa.
Nikki: Right after Charlene offered to split a root beer.
Nikki: This was cut.
Nikki: I'm getting off schedule.
Nikki: This won't take long.
Nikki: You see, I believe in discipline, too, but I don't think it helps much to call a child a brat to her face.
Nikki: And when you say spare the rod, I do hope you're speaking metaphorically.
Nikki: So, not so pivotal to the story as with most of the cut lines.
Nikki: Not so pivotal that it really matters.
Nikki: But it just adds more emphasis to, I think, this fire that Julia felt when she met that governess.
Nikki: And her worry for Rhonda.
Salina: Let me tell you what I like about the cut line.
Nikki: Tell me.
Salina: It is a.
Salina: You keep thinking they're in your know, a commitment to thoroughness, and I really appreciate it.
Salina: And you know who I really think appreciates that?
Salina: Our most passionate wing of designing women fans.
Salina: They are.
Salina: They are passionate to the cut lines, and they are really hot about the fact that those cut lines are cut on Hulu.
Nikki: It's annoying.
Salina: It is annoying.
Salina: Thank you for continuing to call them out.
Nikki: Yeah, well, I do it for you, and I do it for them.
Nikki: I do it for the community.
Nikki: I do it for the people.
Salina: Suzanne watch.
Salina: I really wish I had the ability to come up with something.
Salina: I want to come in and just be, like, have, like, a detective theme, maybe it's like the Pink Panther.
Salina: Inspector Salina, I think we just did it.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Go go gadget eyes.
Salina: Suzanne watch.
Salina: Anyways, this Suzanne watch, they didn't do her dirty, but I did notice.
Salina: And what I mean by that is they still let her be this strong character.
Nikki: They still let her show up to work.
Salina: Oh, they definitely did that.
Salina: There's a contract in place.
Salina: But they also still let her be this person who steps out of the plate and handles things for Julia, but she is pretty immediately swept away.
Salina: And then it's charlene and Mary Jo who take over as Julia's support in the last two thirds of the episode.
Salina: I think if it weren't for the off screen drama, Suzanne would have been there for the rest of it.
Salina: I also think we saw what she could do with Randa in the first part of the.
Nikki: And so they tackled each other in the fountain.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: There's a lot of tackling with this.
Nikki: Girl and a lot of fountains.
Salina: A lot of fountains.
Salina: And so it just feels like.
Salina: That feels palpably missing to me.
Nikki: I'll allow it.
Salina: Thank you so much.
Nikki: You're welcome.
Salina: And this is, of course, where I mentioned a couple of episodes that I would have suddenly where I would say, and where is Anthony?
Salina: And he's completely absent.
Nikki: Completely gone.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: He's off making double double toil in trouble.
Nikki: That's what I'm telling you.
Nikki: He's a very busy 1992 double double tinkle stinkle.
Salina: What are all these things called?
Nikki: You got it right the first time.
Nikki: You don't have to keep trying.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Want to talk about things that we liked?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So I do love episodes when the women come together to support one of them, like the loss that Julia seems to be feeling.
Nikki: I think it's really nice to know that Charlene and Mary Jo are there for her.
Nikki: Suzanne, too, to a lesser extent.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I really like that.
Nikki: I also a thousand percent identified with Julia's parenting style.
Nikki: So last weekend was having brunch with some girls, and one of them said, yeah, I'm a gentle parent until I'm not.
Nikki: That's how I feel.
Nikki: I really try hard to be really gentle, to really absorb and honor emotions until they get on my nerves.
Nikki: And then I turn into Julia.
Nikki: We're suddenly on the floor eating hamburgers.
Nikki: I get it.
Nikki: And I like that about her.
Nikki: I like it.
Nikki: I thought she was, like, so funny at the beginning of the dinner scene when she was, like, correcting very.
Nikki: The same way she would correct an adult.
Nikki: Like, very obnoxious and a little bit snotty, but talking to a kid, I really liked it.
Nikki: But then she finally just had to tackle her.
Nikki: She's the way you got to do it sometimes.
Salina: I thought it was everything.
Nikki: It was great.
Salina: So there's that.
Nikki: It was great.
Salina: I like Charlene's point.
Salina: That vacation is for reading trash.
Salina: She can help the person delivering.
Salina: Randa was funny.
Salina: They kept insisting that it was flowers.
Salina: And he finally brings her in and sets her on the table because that's what they asked.
Nikki: They wouldn't hear him out.
Salina: Hear me out.
Nikki: I'll try.
Salina: I think this is how we should start approaching work.
Salina: Oh, is that what you want?
Salina: Is that what you want?
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: We'll just do it.
Nikki: We'll do it.
Nikki: Fantastic.
Salina: Just deliver them.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: The whole.
Salina: You've already talked about that.
Nikki: I hope it's good.
Nikki: I hope it's good.
Salina: Oh, you know what?
Salina: I do want to tag on.
Salina: One thing, in just addition to that being wonderful is when charlene and Mary Jo show up, and they come towards the dining room and walk in on it all happening in its glorious fashion.
Salina: And Julia's screaming, I can handle this.
Salina: Just get out.
Nikki: Get out.
Salina: Which I definitely think, like, not a parent, but if I was a parent, she's somehow capturing my energy.
Salina: And then the best part is, they're leaving.
Salina: And she said, did you see what I see?
Salina: I know.
Salina: I can't believe it.
Salina: Julia's eating.
Nikki: She's eating.
Nikki: Sometimes it's the little things, because she's.
Salina: From a big family.
Nikki: Yeah, it's true.
Nikki: Charlene, not even phased.
Salina: Sometimes you just got to take them down.
Nikki: Tackle a kid.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: The acting choices by the governess were pretty great, but her appearance, the best part of that leads to some pitch perfect lines for Mary Jo.
Salina: I think it might even be, like, a series high for me.
Salina: Hello.
Salina: I'm here to collect Randa Oliver.
Salina: Oh, hi.
Salina: You must be the new governess.
Salina: How do you do?
Salina: I'm sorry, I don't shake hands.
Salina: Germs, you know.
Salina: Oh, yes.
Salina: How prudent of you.
Salina: I was just handling some salmonella this morning.
Salina: Julia the new governess is here.
Nikki: I wish I thought that quickly.
Salina: I know, right?
Salina: Actually, there's something about that I have to say that is my mom's personality right there.
Salina: It is 100,000% something my mom would say to someone.
Salina: And then you've already mentioned this, but I'll just say again just how much I really love what Julia says to Randa.
Salina: And when she talks about the big circle.
Salina: And I also like how she tells Charlene and Mary Jo just how much they mean to her, even though she's still trying to make her way through it, and she's still trying to make sense of it.
Salina: But she loves them for trying, and she loves them for everything they do.
Salina: And I think that is what's smart about the episode, again, is like she is dealing through her own circumstances, not only by helping Randa out, but also it's just helping her see, like, absence is absence.
Salina: So I thought that was.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I just thought it was a really well written episode.
Salina: What did you not like about this one?
Nikki: Nikki, I think you made some compelling arguments around the deletion of reese from the designing women universe and the way it happened.
Nikki: It's compelling, but I think it's still, in watching the episode, it didn't work for me.
Nikki: I hated that the series of men that we've lost and the way we've lost them just feels like we're cutting them all off, one after the other.
Nikki: It also just didn't feel, well, buckle.
Salina: Up, because we're about to lose half the cat.
Nikki: I know.
Nikki: And unceremoniously, which may be like, you, made some compelling arguments.
Nikki: So I will sit back and I will think on those.
Nikki: But for now, because I wrote these days ago, I will say it just didn't feel like a reasonable goodbye.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: For someone that she says meant so.
Salina: Much to her, was the most compelling argument.
Salina: The evening shade argument.
Nikki: That was the one.
Nikki: Contracts and whatnot.
Nikki: But, yeah, just someone who's been sort of a mainstay.
Nikki: I know we knew he had heart issues, but there was nothing leading up to it, and it just felt abrupt.
Nikki: So I don't think that worked for me.
Nikki: So, in general, did not like that.
Nikki: Also, do not care for Randa.
Nikki: You've already mentioned that she's a hard watch.
Salina: Yeah, I thought it's been hot takes with Nikki was softening up towards the end of the episode and also feeling like, I guess.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: I guess if your parents are aholes, then there's a good chance you're going to be an ahole.
Salina: It doesn't always happen that way.
Salina: But also, like, if your parents just will give you whatever to get you to shut up and go away, I mean, there's no choice.
Nikki: There's no other option.
Salina: It is really sad.
Salina: There's something really sad about it.
Salina: I actually only have one dislike that I felt really strongly about was the singing of the lullaby mockingbird.
Salina: Like, why?
Salina: And also, lullabies are weird.
Salina: I got to thinking about the one like Rockaby baby.
Salina: What a strange choice.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And then you'll die of scarlet fever.
Salina: They're from another time, Salina.
Salina: Just remember, things could always be worse.
Salina: Don't listen to the hype that things were better.
Salina: It's called smallpox.
Nikki: What's wrong with you?
Nikki: What is wrong with you?
Salina: Well, that's what the.
Salina: Ashes.
Salina: Ashes.
Salina: So creepy.
Salina: You want to rate this one?
Nikki: It's kind of in the vein of health issues.
Nikki: It's a sprain.
Nikki: Tear duct was my rating scale.
Nikki: Okay, I gave it three out of five.
Nikki: And again, I think that my biggest complaint is it just didn't feel like a reasonable goodbye to Reese, especially under these circumstances.
Salina: Well, especially since I think your strongest argument was the fact that you couldn't remember the last time we seen him.
Nikki: We saved him.
Nikki: I can't remember.
Salina: I think that's really something to basically, he's pretty much been written off already.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And now we're going to make hay of it.
Nikki: There was, like, maybe the last time we saw him in a substantial way was when.
Nikki: I'm going to get this wrong, but Julia was singing and he was, like, in the audience.
Nikki: It's been one more time since.
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: No, it's not.
Salina: That is the last time.
Salina: And it's the last World War II fevered.
Nikki: There you go.
Salina: And he was, like, in his evening shade costume, and they threw a World War II hat on, like a little army hat on top.
Salina: World War II hat?
Nikki: Worse is the fin.
Nikki: I'm very educated.
Salina: But you know what it is, don't you?
Salina: But anyways.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: What about you?
Salina: I gave it a 4.7 out of five cruises that we never got on.
Nikki: That's sad.
Salina: What's a sad episode?
Salina: I'm sorry.
Salina: 4.7 out of five hamburgers.
Salina: You better eat before I kick the crap out of you.
Salina: I think this one was thoughtful, with a nice balance of sad, funny and heartwarming.
Salina: And with only one very petty dislike.
Salina: I feel good about a nearly perfect score for this one.
Salina: Plus, it keeps me and Nikki on the same playing field we always are on which is when she goes high, I go low.
Salina: And the other way around.
Nikki: Perfect 90s things.
Nikki: Kathy Lee Gifford.
Nikki: There was a reference to in the morning, in the evening.
Nikki: I actually found the carnival cruise line commercial that's referring to.
Nikki: And it is very much in the morning, in the evening, right in your face.
Salina: Had it in my references and I saw that in the blog post.
Salina: I was like, scratch.
Nikki: It feels like a 90s carnival cruise line commercial.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Does it?
Nikki: And then Chuck E.
Nikki: Cheese.
Nikki: There was a reference to Chuck E.
Nikki: Cheese.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Got that one.
Nikki: Isn't only 90s, but it is.
Salina: That's when I knew Chuck E.
Salina: Cheese.
Salina: Southern thing when you were a kid.
Nikki: Scarlett O'Hara reference they made about Suzanne being there for Julia.
Salina: Yeah, that's a good one.
Salina: Table manners and manners generally at the cost of anything and everything, even your life.
Salina: References we need to talk about.
Salina: It's too hard.
Nikki: The brothers Karamaza, your favorite book, Dostoyevsky's final novel.
Salina: I have it written out in the pronunciation.
Salina: Oh, good.
Nikki: Can you fix that for me?
Salina: Dostoyevsky.
Nikki: Dostoyevsky, his final novel.
Nikki: And it was set in 19th century Russia.
Nikki: And I think I lost some steam.
Salina: I think the main point is we're with Charlene.
Nikki: It's big.
Salina: Yeah, we're with Charlene.
Salina: This seems like maybe a weird choice for Julia to take.
Nikki: Correct.
Salina: Although I will say I was very fascinated as a child with crime and punishment and I really felt I needed to read that.
Salina: And then I started it at the age of eleven, what I have done my entire life, and that is acquire books, put books on shelf and then look at them occasionally and go, that's a thing I said I was going to read.
Salina: I've been doing that since eleven.
Nikki: Add the brothers Karamazov to that.
Salina: I wouldn't even add that to that list, to be honest.
Nikki: Well, what I did read about it is that even though it's old and set in a very old time, there are a lot of modern sort of literary themes and literary approaches to it.
Nikki: So it might not feel like quite an old read, you know, like old movies.
Nikki: Sometimes books feel really old.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Hard to read.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: This one might not be.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I'll never know.
Salina: You never know.
Nikki: Julia will know.
Salina: Maybe she can tell us.
Salina: I had Bridget Nielsen and Mark Gassano.
Salina: Do you look into them?
Nikki: Ran out of some steam.
Nikki: It's on my list.
Nikki: And what's funny is we just talked about Rocky in the last episode and that's what Bridget Nielsen's from or like kind of known for.
Nikki: And also a lot of relationships.
Salina: She was in Rocky.
Nikki: Bridget Nielsen.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: She was married to Sylvester Stallone that I knew.
Salina: We've talked about Bridget Nielsen a time or two.
Salina: I know because she comes up in the tabloids.
Salina: I know it's always like her and someone else in a rocky relationship.
Salina: So that's another one of these because.
Nikki: She was in Rocky.
Nikki: All the relationships have to be.
Salina: Ah, thank you.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It just got sad.
Salina: The more I looked into their relationship, it just got sad.
Salina: So I don't think we have to go down that actually, he's a former.
Salina: No, he's a former New York jets player, and that's what stood out the most for me.
Salina: And this is for Casey in case he ever gets to this part of this episode, which I don't think he will, and he's going to miss out on me talking football.
Salina: As someone who was forced to watch football, even though I do not want to, I'm always asking, but why?
Salina: For this or that?
Salina: And one of those things is like, the excessive celebration rule, and he is.
Nikki: Kind of the reason that exists.
Salina: There's been several iterations and it changes.
Salina: Like, they've loosened it in some ways back in 2017, and then they've tightened it in other times.
Salina: But apparently his wild and prolonged sack dances angered opponents, started brawls, and then led to an NFL ban on such celebrations.
Salina: So you're going to miss that, Casey.
Nikki: I'm well known for my sack.
Salina: That could just mean so many things.
Salina: So I'm going to leave that there.
Salina: Anne Margaret in a prison movie.
Salina: All I'm going to say is I couldn't walk it back.
Salina: They mentioned, like, it was like an Anne Margaret prison movie or the lady Warden from the blah, blah, blah.
Salina: I couldn't find it.
Salina: That really annoyed me.
Nikki: The closest, Anne Margaret and Grumpy Oldman.
Nikki: One of my top films.
Nikki: Carry on.
Salina: That's a great movie.
Nikki: Grumpy old man and grumpier Oldman.
Nikki: It's a comfort movie for me.
Nikki: Both of them.
Salina: Well, it's mid 90s.
Salina: That's comfort.
Nikki: She wasn't a nurse or a lady warden or whatever in that movie.
Salina: Didn't think it was grumpy old.
Nikki: Okay, just double check.
Salina: I didn't trying to help you, Salina.
Salina: The closest I could find was once a thief.
Salina: But I never found anything about lady wardens because I'm assuming that just based on all the context, the warden was mean, or then I was like, maybe Anne Margaret was like, just, you know how certain people get to a certain phase in their career, and then they're doing the same movie over and over again.
Salina: So I thought maybe that was happening.
Salina: Like, suddenly she had found herself, like, mid career and typecast.
Salina: I found nothing.
Salina: That's what you need to know.
Salina: And that is references that Nikki didn't care about, which is what we're actually going to change this section name to.
Nikki: At some point.
Nikki: It's going to be references Nikki didn't care about or references Nikki started very strongly on and then fizzled out on.
Nikki: If the Wikipedia article goes, you have your 20 minutes rule.
Nikki: For me, it's like, if it doesn't catch me in the first paragraph, I'm like, yeah, no, this is a hard pass.
Nikki: So next episode, season five, episode 22 friends and husbands.
Nikki: We'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at Sweet teanTV, YouTube, TikTok at sweettvpod, then YouTube at sweettv 7371.
Nikki: Our email address is sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: And our website is www.sweettv.com.
Nikki: As always, there are several ways to support the show.
Nikki: Please tell your family and friends about us.
Nikki: Please leave right now and go rate or review the podcast wherever you listen.
Nikki: And then you can also go visit the website for additional ways to support the show from the support US tab.
Nikki: And then Thursday, Salina, I think we have an extra sugar inspired by this episode, and it only works if I speak with this accent.
Salina: Is this what you think NPR reporters.
Nikki: Sound like the british ones, so BBC.
Salina: Reporters the british ones, yes.
Salina: I'm still kind of workshopping the name.
Salina: We'll probably go with this one because now I'm saying it.
Salina: But I'm calling this week's extra sugar later on this week a minimum standard of good manners with Julia Sugarbecker.
Salina: So I hope you'll come back around and reference whether or not Nikki and I have good manners.
Salina: And you know what that means.
Nikki: What does it mean, Salina?
Salina: It means that we have a really uneven british accent.
Salina: Subscribe.
Salina: And it also means we'll see you around the bend.
Salina: Bye.
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