Julia and Mary Jo go head-to-head – and arm-to-arm for that matter – after they start co-coaching Quent and Randa’s baseball team.
Meanwhile Suzanne is protecting her car windshield from foul balls – and taking Charlene along for the ride. There’s no getting around the fact it’s our last episode with her.
Meet us in the middle for a sidebar on parents who, uh, get a wee bit too into kids sports. Then come back Thursday to reminisce about Suzanne and Charlene.
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Some reads:
A couple of stats around youth sports
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: And hello, everyone, and welcome to Sweet Tea and tv.
Salina: Hey, y'all.
Salina: I'm just gonna go ahead and just be very blunt that we were just talking about how sad we are.
Nikki: I know.
Nikki: I think your eyes got a little misty.
Salina: The about as close as to Misty they do.
Salina: For someone who cries dust, it is kind of sad.
Nikki: It's the end of a.
Nikki: It's definitely the end of an era for this show.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: But, yeah, we've covered a lot of ground.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So if you guys haven't picked up by now or at season five finale, so, yeah, I'm sad.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Nikki: This one didn't feel general reaction alert, didn't feel momentous.
Nikki: It didn't feel end worthy.
Salina: I have thoughts.
Nikki: I'm sure you do.
Nikki: Season five, episode 24.
Nikki: I'm cutting you off so we can get to that in general reactions.
Nikki: Season five, episode 24, the Pride of Sugar Bakers.
Nikki: After Sugar Bakers agrees to sponsor a little league team, Mary Jo and Julia end up at odds over their different coaching styles when Randa turns out to be a better player than Quint.
Nikki: Meanwhile, Suzanne's car windshield keeps getting nailed by foul balls.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Nikki: I struggled with that.
Nikki: I almost said four balls, and then my mind was like, why four?
Salina: It's still baseball appropriate.
Nikki: Paul arbitrates.
Nikki: She gets to walk and then she gets to walk.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: She is the pride of sugar bakers.
Salina: Just a lot of happening.
Nikki: Salina's gonna have a meltdown after this.
Salina: Really sad.
Salina: Go on.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: Air date May 13, 1991.
Salina: My 6th birthday.
Nikki: That was your birthday present?
Nikki: Does it feel like a present?
Salina: The finale of designing women.
Salina: I remember it like it was yesterday.
Nikki: We're calling this one to the victor go the spoils.
Nikki: It's written by Tom Bray and Michael Ross and directed by Iris Dugau.
Nikki: All right, where would you like to start with general reactions, Salina?
Salina: Well, you know, I like to generally start with questions.
Salina: I appreciate that.
Salina: I was going to ask Nikki, what did it feel like, this being the first of only a few times where you mainly identify with Julia?
Nikki: I love that you say that, because I don't think she did a thing wrong in this episode.
Nikki: I think my very first general reaction is that we finally found Julia's weak spot, the place from which she's so flustered, she turns into like the rest of us.
Nikki: When it comes time to have a witty comeback, she has to be losing a game.
Nikki: And then the best she can come up with is, well, you're ugly.
Nikki: I could relate to that, and I could relate to her need to win, because what's the point in being out there if you're not gonna win?
Salina: Right?
Salina: Right.
Salina: I hear you.
Salina: So.
Salina: I hear you.
Nikki: I'm scared of you.
Salina: I'm very fearful.
Salina: You win, I yell.
Salina: I think you actually answered my next question, which was good.
Salina: It was kind of tongue in cheek, but, like, who did you identify more with and why?
Salina: For me, my answer is probably neither.
Salina: So they both eventually give in to the, I'm sorry, but the worst parts of their personalities at.
Salina: Although I do think maid oats motto.
Nikki: You say worst, I say best.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Mary Jo is being empathetic to a fault.
Salina: So I don't even care about sports.
Salina: But, like, also, no, lady, we can't change the rules just because your son isn't very good.
Salina: Then no one learns anything.
Salina: So.
Salina: I'm not in that camp.
Salina: I think with Julia, it's just.
Salina: It's just that she wound up teetering, and then eventually following over that line between confident and arrogant, which is hard for me.
Salina: It's okay to be competitive, but it, like, a healthy version.
Salina: And there were just some things where she wound up doing what she always does, which is being condescending to whoever's nearest to her.
Salina: In this case, Mary Jo was there.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And that's where she would lose me.
Salina: Otherwise.
Salina: Like, wanting to win and whatever.
Salina: Like, yes.
Salina: You know, inside of me, you know, I'm a monster.
Salina: That's why I don't compete.
Nikki: I just don't.
Salina: I just don't want to end up in jail.
Nikki: I am.
Nikki: I'm much more internally, I think, competitive than I am externally.
Nikki: Like, I don't feel like I'm air, because I don't.
Nikki: I never expect to win, but I'm going to give it 175% so that I stack the odds to win.
Salina: Let me be very clear that I didn't say that.
Nikki: You were like, yeah, no, I know.
Nikki: I didn't hear that.
Salina: I don't think that.
Salina: I think that.
Salina: You do scare me.
Salina: I will be just, like, dead honest with you.
Salina: You scare me, and you need to win.
Nikki: Yeah, I do.
Salina: And I know what your reaction's gonna be when you don't win, and it is.
Nikki: I'll be angry.
Salina: Outside.
Nikki: I'll be angry.
Salina: It is.
Nikki: It is.
Salina: Or the game was flawed.
Nikki: I wish I weren't this, but I love it.
Salina: Yeah, I kind of love it.
Nikki: Well, it's not my fault.
Nikki: Sometimes people cheat.
Salina: Much like Julia.
Salina: It happened right now.
Salina: Much like Julia.
Salina: It's the one time that I see you pushed beyond just normally very composed, very polished.
Salina: Like, the wheels come off in this glorious fashion.
Salina: I just don't want to be competing against you when it happens.
Salina: But if.
Salina: If it's a spectator sport and sometimes it is at work, I like to watch it happen.
Nikki: I feel like normally, Kyle will get the brunt.
Nikki: Like, when we play, we play pickleball or tennis.
Nikki: He's just naturally athletic, although he doesn't work out, and it infuriates me.
Nikki: And his hand eye coordination is just incredible, and it infuriates me.
Nikki: So I have definitely.
Nikki: I mean, I'm pretty sure I've thrown a racket before.
Nikki: There's been physical.
Salina: It doesn't really.
Nikki: That wasn't part of the story.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: So he racket down.
Nikki: I do think he sees the.
Nikki: He sees the worst part of it, I will say.
Nikki: I think most of the time, it's a little bit more frustrating.
Nikki: Like.
Nikki: Like you said, I'm mad at the game or I'm mad at myself for losing.
Nikki: I try not to take it out on people I don't know very well, but I will definitely.
Nikki: There will be conversations later about how they cheated.
Salina: You can.
Salina: Not that I'm sure they'll ever get here.
Salina: Although, Alyssa, thanks for being a patreon.
Salina: Alyssa, Sarah, and Casey can all tell you about the bowling incident of 2019.
Nikki: And it was too recent.
Salina: Too recent?
Salina: Really?
Nikki: No.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And I had, like, a complete meltdown about my bowling performance.
Nikki: Oh, did you cry?
Salina: No, but I'm lucky that the bowling alley didn't get burned to the ground.
Salina: I don't.
Salina: Not again.
Salina: Like, when I cry, it needs to be alone.
Nikki: Yeah, well, just.
Nikki: My problem is, I can't control it.
Nikki: When I get so frustrated that I'm losing, I can't control it, and I'll just start crying.
Nikki: I've cried over a pickleball or a tennis game with Kyle because I just get so freaking mad.
Nikki: I don't understand.
Salina: See, in this.
Salina: This sounds so fun.
Nikki: My watch is giving me a heads up that my heart rate is really high right now.
Salina: Okay, well, here, let's move on to this point, which is, I wanted to hear your take on Julia's point about women in competition.
Salina: I flagged that point just in case you go, what episode are we talking about?
Nikki: What show is this?
Salina: This is her and Mary Jo talking.
Salina: Look, I think I know what your problem is.
Salina: When we were growing up, little girls were taught it wasn't nice to compete.
Salina: So now I think almost all women feel just a little uncomfortable about straight out competition.
Salina: How does this line from her land with you?
Nikki: I do remember this in the episode, and it's a little challenging.
Nikki: Cause I think Julia and Julia, definitely.
Nikki: But even from Mary Jo, they're different generation, so.
Salina: Yeah, they used a knickerbocker.
Nikki: A mashie mashie, a niblicky.
Nikki: I don't feel like I remember ever being told competition was bad.
Nikki: Like, girls shouldn't compete.
Nikki: I don't remember ever being told that.
Nikki: I don't remember that ever being, like, an under.
Nikki: Like, I've always been competitive.
Nikki: The problem with me is I was told I wasn't athletic, and so I didn't compete very hard in athletics until I was in high school.
Nikki: But what I do remember is not in, like, a sports setting.
Nikki: I don't remember being told competition is bad in, like, an interpersonal, like, girl on girl situation, which sounds creepy, but you know what I mean.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Competition, you do it internally.
Nikki: Like, you don't do it with one another.
Nikki: You're not trying to one up one another.
Nikki: There's a careful, like, social pecking order.
Nikki: Do you know what I mean?
Nikki: Is that making sense?
Salina: I think it does make sense.
Salina: I thought about this one a lot, actually, because I do agree with her to an extent.
Salina: And I think similar to what you were already hitting on this idea of, like, just a generational difference.
Salina: So at this time, we're a little younger than Quinton Randa.
Salina: The whole point of this is, like, they're kind of already speaking to the fact that this is changing.
Salina: This was very much so about the time that they were growing up at the same time.
Salina: And I think also similar to what you're talking about with the pecking order or whatever is I've said it here and I said it before, and I'll say it again, women are forced to compete all the time, not in sports, necessarily, but in the workplace for positions, because we're sold the false narrative that there aren't enough seats at the table or even with relationships where.
Salina: And this is very heteronormative, but we're told there are only so many eligible men and lots of women.
Salina: So don't trust anyone.
Salina: I mean, that is very much so.
Salina: Something that, like.
Salina: And it doesn't mean, like, my mom had to come, like, sit on the end of my bed and tell me that I can pick up on that from the narrative of a television show.
Salina: It's literally.
Salina: It was literally everywhere for me growing up.
Salina: It was in the messages all around me.
Nikki: So when I say I don't remember being told that I think I'm thinking even back for what I remember being themes in things that I saw or watched.
Nikki: I just don't remember that.
Nikki: Some things I can really clearly remember, like, I've definitely been told before, like, boys don't want girls who do better than them in things.
Salina: 100% to this day.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: You might be told something like, a man doesn't want a woman who makes more money than.
Salina: And it's like, even to hear something like that today breaks the brain.
Nikki: But I do.
Nikki: So I clearly remember that.
Nikki: I will tell you, though, because your first question, or maybe your second question, started as, who do I identify with more?
Nikki: I do have to acknowledge that I identify with Mary Jo, because I think.
Salina: You'Re a peace bringer.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Unless I'm losing, in which case, let the chaos reign.
Salina: It's really like your innards are struggling.
Nikki: It's a real.
Nikki: So the thing that I identified the most with Mary Jo, actually, was when she plopped down on the couch after the game and said, well, he was just devastated.
Nikki: Meaning quint.
Nikki: Like, he was just.
Nikki: And everybody.
Nikki: He led the cheer.
Nikki: What do you mean he was devastated?
Nikki: That is me to Kyle, like, five times a week.
Nikki: I'm like, her heart was just absolutely broken.
Nikki: And he was like, she was just skipping, whistling, like, what do you.
Nikki: I don't understand.
Nikki: And I'm like, you didn't see it.
Nikki: It was in her eyes.
Nikki: So I identified with that.
Nikki: And also, my son is playing baseball now, and I sit out there and watch some of the kids, and spoiler alert, he's got some amazing kids on his team this year, and I can.
Salina: Feel, oh, amazing players.
Nikki: Amazing players.
Nikki: Well, they're probably amazing kids, too.
Nikki: I don't know, but they're really good players.
Salina: Prove yourself.
Nikki: And there are some times where I feel myself being like, well, of course they did well because they got a really good pitch.
Nikki: Landon didn't get a very good pitch.
Salina: That's gotta be a hard dynamic.
Salina: So it's hard.
Nikki: You never want your kid hurt, I think, is the bottom line.
Salina: Yeah, well, see, look at that.
Salina: You fill em both.
Salina: That's what it is.
Nikki: I'm a complex human being.
Salina: Aren't we all?
Salina: I don't actually.
Salina: Did you have some general reactions that we should talk about?
Salina: Because we kind of went all over.
Nikki: The map there perfectly, because we talked about all of my general reactions except this last one, which I think I alluded to in our last episode, watching the last four seasons, plus this one of designing women in my head, the Suzanne we got in this episode was the Suzanne we were going to get.
Nikki: Every single episode Suzanne was in.
Nikki: She's dressed very elaborately.
Nikki: She's very loud in the middle of the game.
Nikki: She's, excuse me, juvenile delinquent.
Nikki: And we've had glimmers of that throughout the series.
Nikki: But this is the Suzanne I just felt like every time she was on screen, she was going to be this version of Suzanne.
Nikki: And that has been my surprise of surprises.
Nikki: Watching this entire series.
Nikki: She's had glimmers of over the top.
Nikki: She's had some episodes, like the plane episode where she and Julia were flying to Japan or whatever, where the.
Nikki: Excuse me.
Nikki: Episode.
Nikki: She's had some of that.
Nikki: But this was what I thought she was gonna be every single time we saw her.
Nikki: And it's strange, interesting to me that the very last episode, this is the enduring memory I have of this character.
Nikki: I.
Salina: So this, I think my last general will pair really nicely with this, which is.
Nikki: We'll see about that.
Salina: When we were.
Salina: You win, Vicki.
Salina: You win.
Salina: Thinking in our preview of the episodes, what I thought was, like, three days ago, but it was like, a year ago.
Nikki: In fact, a year ago.
Salina: But I thought this was a terribly disappointing send off for her.
Salina: They were just shy of having her fall down an elevator shaft.
Salina: And so I just.
Salina: I don't know, it just.
Salina: It didn't work for me.
Salina: It would have been fine for just a regular episode, I guess, but not for this.
Salina: And that feels like it's probably a good segue to our final Suzanne watch, which.
Salina: Let me cue up the music.
Salina: Dun dun dun.
Salina: What?
Salina: I'm losing it.
Salina: Suzanne, watch.
Salina: Susan.
Salina: Susan.
Salina: Every phone just turned off.
Salina: Before I share what I observed, is there anything that stuck out for you in this week's and our last edition of.
Nikki: I always think of this as your baby, so I love reacting to what you observed.
Nikki: That said, I will say again, on the heels of me saying I thought she was going to be this character the entire season, there was a split in the episode where, like, a fracture where she's very.
Nikki: In the episode, and then they send her to the parking lot, I think.
Nikki: I couldn't help but notice that.
Nikki: And I 100% agree with you that this was not a great send off for her character.
Nikki: I do not.
Nikki: This was such a lackluster episode for that to end on, but it was just so strange how she's there.
Nikki: She's there, she's there.
Nikki: And then all of a sudden, like I said, she's out in left field, in fact, in the parking lot of Leftfield.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I mean, yeah, exactly.
Salina: She got sidelined with this whole car windshield thing.
Salina: It just felt like this really easy way to get her out of there, but, like, still be funny.
Salina: Interesting that once again, Charlene heads out with her.
Salina: Similar to the NOLA episode.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: By the third act, she's completely isolated out there at her car, catching foul balls.
Salina: And then the other thing that struck me were these times where she has snatched the mic in the announcer's booth, and it was funny, but what a perfect way for her to not actually have to be on set.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: You know, it couldn't get easier than that.
Salina: And, um, you know, we do get her in the closing credits, which is nice, but she's by herself, and it just.
Salina: It reads really sad.
Salina: I think they didn't even try and play that part up that much, you know?
Salina: So that's the end of Suzanne watch, and for all the game of Thrones people out there.
Salina: And now your watch has ended.
Nikki: Oh.
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: Probably didn't say that right, but I haven't seen it in a couple years.
Salina: Stray observations.
Nikki: This is our fourth episode with Randa.
Nikki: I said.
Nikki: I actually said this in our last episode.
Nikki: This is where it came from.
Nikki: She's got more airtime than some of the menfolk on the show.
Nikki: She's been around longer.
Salina: What I want to know is, when are we gonna get some justice for the men in the world?
Nikki: I know, you know, get the short end of the stick every single.
Nikki: At the beginning of the episode, they said they'd played enough games to have lost six times already.
Nikki: I have to say, I know you think this is a long season of.
Salina: Sweet Tea and tv.
Nikki: That would be a long little league baseball season to have lost, played and lost six games and be, like, not even done with the season.
Salina: What would you do if your kid lost six games in a row?
Nikki: We would not be going back, which is why I think it's a very long season.
Nikki: That season would have ended at an earlier point for us.
Salina: Well, my first stray observation is for you, because, Nikki, you love the public library, and I wanted to know, how did you feel about Suzanne's reaction to one?
Salina: She referred to it as something about old ladies, poor people, and squalling brats.
Nikki: So I think that is good that she had that reaction, because that means one less person for me to deal with when I go to the library.
Salina: Now, are you the old lady, the poor person, or the squalling brat?
Nikki: I am probably the first two with the third.
Nikki: So, old lady, poor person.
Nikki: That goes to the library almost exclusively, because I love the little thing that pops up when you check out your books that says you saved $17.80 by checking this book out from your local library.
Nikki: It's very validating.
Nikki: And then three.
Nikki: I always have my kids in tow.
Nikki: Although my children are well behaved, I like to believe.
Salina: I think that makes you a thrifty person.
Nikki: Thank you.
Nikki: Thrifty.
Nikki: I need to change my language around that.
Salina: Well, I said porpoise.
Nikki: I also called someone cheap recently, and I was like, thrifty, frugal, whatever.
Nikki: Choose your adjective here.
Nikki: Whatever it is.
Nikki: But I do love the library so much.
Nikki: It's so.
Nikki: Such a good place to go.
Nikki: If it's not at the library, though, I'm probably not reading it.
Salina: Yeah, that's.
Salina: I mean, hey, they're an important part.
Nikki: I just feel like I read very few books multiple times.
Nikki: There is no need for me to buy them and own them.
Nikki: If I can just return them and then the next person can use them.
Salina: I don't think I've ever reread a book.
Nikki: I've read the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, like, a lot.
Nikki: It is.
Nikki: It was one of my favorite books as a kid.
Nikki: I've read that a lot.
Salina: By book, I mean movie.
Nikki: And I've read Harry Potter a few times.
Nikki: I'm on my third read with Landon.
Salina: Harry Potter is one that.
Salina: It is not infrequent for me to hear that people read them a lot, so.
Salina: Ashley also has read those countless times.
Nikki: Yeah, I'm on my third read with just my children.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Well, she's on her fifth read with just herself.
Nikki: Just herself.
Nikki: Good for her.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: Good for her.
Nikki: They are good books.
Nikki: Some are better than others.
Nikki: They get really long, and you don't realize how long they are until you're reading them with a child.
Salina: We still live together when they were being released.
Salina: Yeah, she and I did.
Salina: And, like, she would go into a hole.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Like, where she would be like.
Salina: And.
Salina: But, like, we also occupied a similar space together.
Salina: Or, like, we would be, like, taking Marta somewhere or something.
Salina: And all she would do is read the whole time.
Nikki: Did you hear her sobbing in her bed during.
Nikki: I think it was book five.
Nikki: Book five.
Nikki: And books five and six.
Nikki: I remember openly weeping at parts.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: That's.
Salina: That's good, though.
Salina: That's exciting.
Salina: That means it's good.
Salina: More strays.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: We got a to kill a Mockingbird reference, and we actually understood it now.
Nikki: The shooting of the dog.
Salina: There you go.
Salina: We did.
Nikki: And also, Dennis Berkley is back as the ump.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: From the laundromat episode.
Salina: Buford and son in law.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Oh, and of course.
Salina: Of course.
Salina: And the movie with Cher that I messed up and I said the motorcycle gang movie.
Nikki: Oh, you can't do it again.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Let's not go.
Salina: Well, that seems like a good segue.
Salina: Something sporty.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: I think something about parents.
Nikki: I had a cut line, and I'm trying to decide if it was a.
Nikki: I'm sorry.
Nikki: No, you're okay.
Nikki: I'm trying to decide if it would also make an equally good.
Nikki: It's about the game.
Nikki: I think it's an equally good transition.
Salina: Let's hear that cut line.
Nikki: When we first get to the baseball game, Suzanne yells, come on, sugar bakers.
Nikki: Well, this was cut before that.
Salina: Oh, come on.
Nikki: We're dying out there, Suzanne, can't you be supportive?
Nikki: While I'm on the subject, don't you think you're a little overdressed for a little league game?
Nikki: No, I do not.
Nikki: Just because I'm sitting here with a bunch of these trashy parents doesn't mean I have to dress like them.
Nikki: I am the owner of the team.
Nikki: I have a standard to set.
Nikki: And so I think, speaking of extra parents and caregivers like Suzanne, she was extra.
Nikki: I think we can move into our sidebar.
Salina: Love it.
Salina: Are you ready?
Salina: I am.
Nikki: I'll find our music.
Salina: Oh, you know what the problem is?
Salina: Is it a Salina sidebar or a.
Nikki: Nikki sidebar or a Snicky?
Salina: I don't know, but the last one sounds like a cookie.
Nikki: See if I can play them at the same time.
Nikki: I'm just gonna give it to you, Salina.
Nikki: It's a sidebar.
Nikki: Salina Sidebar.
Nikki: She's got a keyboard.
Nikki: Looking for a reward by in the obscure, taking us on a detour.
Nikki: What you got?
Nikki: Salina and Salina Sidebar.
Nikki: Or Salina Nikki, it could be both of us.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: I was gonna give it to you.
Nikki: That's how not competitive I am.
Nikki: I'm happy for you to own this one, Salina.
Salina: Don't you even dare.
Salina: Don't you even act like that.
Nikki: So, Lia, we've all been there.
Nikki: 1 minute you're soaking in a beautiful spring afternoon watching a delightful game of pee wee baseball.
Nikki: The next minute, some numbskull ref called your kid out when he was clearly safe.
Nikki: And now you've got to show the ref who's boss.
Nikki: Is that just me and Julia and Mary Jo now.
Nikki: Mary Jo.
Nikki: Now.
Salina: Everyone's on your team.
Nikki: In fact, it is not just us, though.
Nikki: Because what you and I did was dig around into the worst parents of children's sports.
Salina: Let's call all these real pieces craps.
Nikki: So, of course, as is our duty, we are honor bound now to the sweet tea and tv listeners who I'm not allowed to call sweet teas to share the results of that digging.
Nikki: So we found a fairly definitive list, I think, on conflict.
Nikki: You're looking at me so, interestingly, Salina.
Salina: I have no idea where you're going, so I'm just excited.
Salina: She's on the edge of her seat.
Nikki: We found a fairly definitive list on complex.com of the ten worst parent behaviors, which we're going to link to in the show notes if folks want to read more.
Nikki: And then we're going to talk here about a handful of them.
Nikki: And I just kind of want to see what you think about them, see what I think about them in chat.
Nikki: So I'm gonna set the stage, though, first to say that, like, a lot of kids play youth sports.
Nikki: So there are 74 million children in the US, and 60 million of them are registered for sports.
Salina: That's a lot.
Nikki: It's a ton.
Salina: 80.
Salina: That's why there's always traffic.
Nikki: That's correct.
Nikki: Everybody's always going to.
Nikki: That's exactly what it is, Salina.
Nikki: It has nothing to do with work.
Nikki: It has nothing to do with businesses that are only open from nine to five.
Nikki: It is all to do with YouTube.
Nikki: 81% of Americans agree that sports are an important institution in the United States.
Salina: So agree to disagree.
Nikki: Well, you're just part of the 29%.
Nikki: That's right.
Salina: It's not the first time I've been in the 29th percentile.
Salina: Wait, is that higher or lower?
Salina: I always get confused.
Salina: I didn't mean to call myself smart.
Salina: I meant to call myself stupid.
Salina: Anyways, proceed.
Nikki: I think if I were smarter than I could answer that question for you, I'll warm us up, Salina, with the most egregious one on the list, and then we can talk about the other ones that stuck out to us.
Nikki: I think you had a couple of the handful that you thought were interesting.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So, number one on the list sounds like sort of an infamous, crazy hockey parent story.
Nikki: It is crazy.
Nikki: I kind of.
Nikki: I'll say I kind of fall down on this one.
Nikki: Maybe if I had read all, like, if I had paid attention to the entire trial, I might have come out feeling differently on this one.
Nikki: But the high points to me, I don't think there were any winners in this situation.
Nikki: And I don't know that I'm not sure.
Nikki: Okay, so the year was 2000.
Nikki: Let's just say the year was 2000.
Nikki: It was summer, so Thomas Giunta took his two boys.
Nikki: Where you go in the summer?
Nikki: A hockey rink to practice in Canada?
Nikki: In Canada, for sure, yeah.
Nikki: A couple boys splintered off for a scrimmage, which another dad was reffing.
Nikki: The game got heated, and Giunta didn't like that.
Nikki: He really didn't like it when the other dad, who was reffing, was egging on the violent behavior between the children.
Nikki: So when the game ended, he cornered the other dad, whose name was Michael Kostin.
Nikki: One thing led to another, and after a series of escalations, Costin lay dead on the floor.
Nikki: The fight was witnessed by about a dozen children, including both Junta's son, as well as Coston's three sons.
Nikki: During the trial that would come later, Giunta claimed it was self defense after Coston jumped him.
Nikki: Either way, Costin lost his life, and Giunta was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and would go on to spend about a decade in prison.
Nikki: So what I'm saying is, the things that Costin said to Giunta that, like, escalated the fight, he was basically saying, like, this is hockey.
Nikki: This is how you play.
Nikki: These kids need to get out there and beat the crap out of each other.
Nikki: I think there was some name calling at a point.
Nikki: There was some pushing and shoving, and I think that junta's version of events is that he was, like, sucker punched, and that's what started him punching this other guy.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: And everybody knows once you've been sucker punched, you kill that person.
Nikki: That's what I think.
Salina: And I feel it's just, to me, like, okay, so it sounds like maybe you looked at a longer version, and I just looked at those little blurbs.
Salina: So the way that it's framed there, it's like, he didn't like the rough play, so he killed him.
Nikki: That's not how it went, which is what's interesting about that version, but it's also.
Salina: It's not.
Salina: It's also not exactly wrong.
Salina: And so it is interesting to get violent because you didn't like something getting violent.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: You know, and even yelling at someone is, like, a type of violence.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And, yeah, it's just really sad.
Salina: I know.
Salina: I read on to say, like, to see that, like, I guess all the kids wound up having a lot of problems, too.
Salina: Wouldn't you, if you saw someone get murdered in front of you?
Salina: And especially if that someone was your father?
Salina: I can't remember if they, like, I can't remember if it was like both sets of kids who saw it or.
Nikki: Who had trouble later.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Like the sons.
Salina: Yeah, I think one of.
Nikki: I think one of each had trouble later.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So I think, yeah, it's just depressing.
Salina: I actually had asked Casey if he remembered that case, since that would have been like, I guess he probably would have been maybe a junior in high school or something then.
Salina: So I thought maybe he might remember.
Salina: He didn't.
Salina: But his actual first reaction was, it's hockey.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: They get violent.
Salina: I will say the one time I went to a hockey game in Atlanta, all I wanted to do was see if they were going to get a big fight.
Salina: And then no one did.
Salina: And I was like, what am I even here for?
Nikki: Yeah, it's hard because I think they were young, like nine and ten years old, to a point where violence probably wasn't the thing we should have been pushing.
Salina: It's probably never the thing that you should be doing.
Salina: To be honest, I did think they were a little older.
Salina: So I thought, actually, that was one thing that I thought was a little confusing about the article.
Salina: Sometimes it wasn't very clear until you got a little bit further on the last line and be like, in there.
Salina: Eleven.
Nikki: So I thought the article we're referencing was very black and white about things.
Salina: And all these parents were terrible.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: And one of my greatest weaknesses in life is that I have to see the.
Nikki: The in between.
Nikki: I have to know what happened in between.
Nikki: And I think that, yeah, I think it was a super unfortunate situation.
Nikki: And I fully hear you that upset about violence shouldn't lead to more violence.
Nikki: I will say Genta stepped outside at a point because he could tell it was getting to it, had gotten aggressive, and he didn't want to be aggressive, so he went and stepped outside.
Nikki: He came back in, and that's when he claims that he was like, attack.
Nikki: I think it was actually more like attacked from behind or something.
Nikki: And so he turned around.
Nikki: He had like 60 or 75 pounds on this guy.
Nikki: And I do think one punch the wrong way.
Salina: I mean, that's the other thing, though.
Salina: Then, like, okay, if that's the way it went down, then why, then that was way too serious of a charge for him to get.
Nikki: So that's why I say, I wish I could be more, like, in the.
Nikki: Know about the details of the case and, like, what they presented it for.
Salina: I know, but, you know, we've spent.
Nikki: Too much time talking about this really bad behavior because ultimately, it is bad behavior, and they, unfortunately, are un.
Nikki: Not the only parents who have exhibited a little less than ideal behavior around kids, sports, or, you know, even plotted a murder over it, which is the next story that I think you flagged in your list was Wanda Holloway.
Salina: I should be smiling.
Nikki: Sorry.
Nikki: Do you have any of the details?
Nikki: Do you want to sort of lay the groundwork for it?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So the.
Salina: The mom who.
Salina: She winds up putting a hit out on her daughter's rival's mom so that her daughter would make the cheerleading squad, if I remember it correctly, it's like she thought that the girl who beat her daughter out for cheerleading would be so sad that her mom died, that she would drop out and her daughter could get into that slot.
Salina: So this sounded so familiar to me.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: And here's why.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: It was a movie.
Salina: Oh.
Nikki: It was a tv movie on lifetime.
Salina: I think eventually it would make its way.
Salina: Hallmark wishes its content was that salacious, but it.
Salina: I think eventually was on lifetime.
Salina: It may have been like, a network movie at first, but anyways, it's called willing to kill the Texas cheerleader story.
Salina: I remember watching that when I was little.
Salina: So as soon as I saw those details, I was like, oh, my God, I know this story.
Salina: And that would have been right around the time of this episode, maybe like, a year later.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: Interesting.
Salina: So I guess, just, like, my reaction to this is, like.
Salina: Just like, I don't.
Salina: What is wrong with people?
Nikki: What is wrong with people?
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: Like, and they would go to that length.
Salina: I couldn't even get someone to, like, take me to an after school program.
Salina: This is what happens when you have a single parent.
Salina: I'm like, my mom was working, like, ten jobs.
Salina: She was like, ain't nobody got time for murder.
Nikki: It does sound like it was a lot of intricacy because it involved.
Nikki: Wanda was the mom.
Nikki: It involved her ex brother in law.
Nikki: So, like, Wanda was married to this guy.
Salina: Come on.
Nikki: And then they got divorced, and this was her former brother in law that she hired to do the hit, and then he ratted her out there, like, logistics to it.
Nikki: There was, like, the awkwardness of ex family members.
Nikki: It was all around bad.
Nikki: She ended up.
Nikki: There were two trials for her.
Nikki: She ended up serving about six months of her sentence.
Salina: Yeah, it's just a bad.
Salina: Just a bad plan.
Salina: It was bad planning, Wanda.
Nikki: It was not well done.
Nikki: These people are not professional criminals.
Salina: No.
Salina: Which other ones hit for you?
Nikki: So the next one I wanted to talk about was the dad who Mike Tyson does son's coach.
Nikki: So this is.
Nikki: I guess it's Evander Holyfield.
Nikki: Hey, Mike Tyson.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: About Timothy Lee Forbes and his son's 6th grade catholic league baseball championship.
Salina: That's part of the whole thing.
Nikki: Or rather, it's about Timothy and his afternoon snack.
Nikki: So his son's team lost the championship.
Nikki: So he sucker punched the coach who won, then bit a chunk out of his ear.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: The most mind blowing part of it was that at the trial later, it would come out that they were unable to reattach the missing part of this coach's ear.
Nikki: So they just ended up shrinking his other ear to make it match.
Nikki: So somewhere in the world, this guy's walking around with like an extra tiny ear so that it could match the other ear that got bitten off by a wacky guy over a.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: They were 6th grade.
Salina: Like eleven.
Nikki: 6Th grade.
Nikki: That's crazy.
Salina: What are the stakes?
Nikki: That, right, that you're not going anywhere?
Salina: It's a catholic league.
Salina: Nothing's happening.
Salina: This is not Michael Jordan.
Nikki: Things are probably happening.
Nikki: The parent ended up serving four years in prison.
Salina: Oh, that was weird.
Nikki: So I found like, one common theme is dads.
Salina: Me too.
Salina: That's what I was thinking, too.
Salina: And I was like.
Salina: Cause there's only two women on the list.
Salina: The other one was like, flashing the kids.
Salina: Tanya, Tanya, put your shirt on.
Nikki: The next one was the dad who accidentally poisoned the sun's football team.
Nikki: So your list and my list overlapped almost perfectly.
Salina: Salina, I think this is a personal.
Nikki: Favorite for me, okay?
Salina: And I think it's because, like, it's low stakes.
Nikki: Unless they die.
Salina: It's epicac.
Salina: You literally take it to throw up because you've ingested something that you shouldn't.
Salina: So I think the thing, like, let me be very clear.
Salina: You do not tell your son to poison a team.
Salina: Okay, hold on.
Nikki: Real quick.
Salina: Let me set the stage.
Nikki: So this kid plays football and it's 2000.
Nikki: So it's a twelve year old playing football.
Nikki: It's the year 2000.
Nikki: Jerome Breeland was really annoyed that there was another kid on the team bullying his son.
Nikki: So he felt like he was left with no option.
Nikki: He had to poison the kid.
Nikki: So take it from here, Salina.
Nikki: He gives this kid a water bottle.
Salina: Yeah, he gives his kid a water bottle.
Salina: He's like, hey, give this to the kid that's bullying you.
Nikki: This will teach him a lesson.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: But then the problem is, is that the whole team decided they were going to have some of this delicious water that only this kid had.
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: I was like, what'd you say was in there?
Nikki: Right.
Salina: Vodka.
Salina: Anyways, and so the whole team winds up getting sick, and I guess some kids wound up going to the hospital.
Salina: Look, I don't know if he, like, put the wrong amount in or if people, like, if your kid just starts spontaneously throwing up for no reason and then several of them are doing it, I think there's just panic, because in my mind, I guess part of what I was thinking is, again, this is not an endorsement, but I used to bartend, and, you know, the kind of stories I would get when I would bartend would be like, if they're rude, just slip a little visine in their drink.
Salina: Oh.
Salina: So I want to be very clear.
Salina: I did not do that.
Salina: I don't need that energy in my life.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: You know, like, I already have bad luck on my own.
Salina: Tell you about my pie story from last episode.
Salina: You know, I don't need to bring in that kind of karma, but, like, that's how kind of, like, people are and were.
Salina: And this was also, like, 24 years ago, and so it's just not that surprising to me.
Salina: And it does feel a little bit like a weirder version.
Salina: But when a parent's like, if they hit you, sometimes you just gotta hit them back.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: To let them know that you're strong.
Salina: This was not an unusual lesson for parents to teach.
Salina: So, anyways, I don't know.
Salina: I got a little tickled by this one.
Salina: I'm not saying it's right.
Salina: I just need everyone to remember I'm not a parent, so the stakes are much lower for me.
Nikki: Well, Breland, the dad, it did not take long for them to square it back to him.
Nikki: He was given six months house arrest and one year of community service.
Salina: That's crazy.
Nikki: The last one I wanted to talk about, Salina, was doctor kill the children.
Nikki: You might know him as doctor Steven Cito or Keto.
Salina: He's a dentist, yes.
Nikki: In 1996, he hatched and executed a plan to turn his son's high school football equipment into a dangerous weapon.
Nikki: So he sharpened his son's chinstrap in an effort to literally slash the competition.
Nikki: Ultimately, five kids left the game due to lacerations, with one going to the hospital for a dozen stitches before officials stopped the game to investigate, whereupon they found out the kid's helmet was, quote, sharp enough to shred a magazine cover.
Nikki: So he was expelled from his high school.
Nikki: Pops was given a weekend in prison, a year on probation, and 400 hours of community service.
Nikki: Then he went back to sharpening kids teeth because he's a children's dentist.
Salina: I think this one is one of the more egregious ones for me.
Salina: Pretty bad.
Salina: Right.
Salina: So intentional.
Salina: I think the other thing, back to the poisoning r1 quickly.
Salina: He was trying to protect his kid.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: This is like, this is just, like a hole behavior, you know?
Salina: I mean, you're like.
Salina: You are literally putting a real weapon in a kid's hand.
Salina: And, like.
Salina: And that's a life lesson for them.
Nikki: Football is already dangerous.
Nikki: Football is already a dangerous sport.
Nikki: Unequivocally, then you've upped the ante to your point, taught your kid the lesson.
Nikki: Like, I'm super competitive.
Nikki: I do not cheat, and I certainly don't cheat in a violent way.
Nikki: Rarely killed person.
Nikki: I have only killed, like, a couple of times.
Nikki: It's been rare.
Salina: I just fell back three inappropriate jokes, just so you know.
Salina: And I want some.
Nikki: You want credit for some credit.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Thank you, Salina.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So, this one was in just.
Salina: And then him being a children's dentist.
Nikki: On top of wacky, right?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Did you have any more that you wanted to talk about?
Salina: No, I didn't have any more.
Salina: I was just gonna, like, this is just a general observation of mine because I got to thinking a little bit about, like, my experience growing up.
Salina: And I think what was so different for me on this, like, these stories versus what I was used to being exposed to is, like, we actually had a pretty good baseball team at my high school, and for some weird reason, I know this sounds especially the way you hear me talk about sports.
Salina: I actually spent quite a bit of time at the ball field.
Salina: I either would have friends on the team or friends who were dating players or, like, we also lived in Henry County, Georgia, not the coolest place to grow up.
Salina: So I'm like, it's like this.
Salina: Or, like, a corner lifetime movie about.
Nikki: The Texas cheerleader mom, just go ahead.
Salina: And start my course of meth now.
Salina: Anyway, whatever.
Salina: Anyways.
Salina: And so I wound up at a lot of games, and the one thing I remember more than anything when it came to parents and behavior was there was always, like, one or two dads who were a little hard on their sons.
Salina: That's what I remember more than anything.
Salina: And I just remember it was, like, always really uncomfortable because they were being pretty abusive and, like, everybody had to see it.
Salina: And I would remember feeling really bad for the kid because, like, for whatever reason you're a kid, you kind of, like, take on this behavior.
Salina: Then it's layered, I'm sure, because you don't feel like you're, like, living up to whatever your dad's expectation is.
Salina: Obviously, dad wanted to be a baseball player, and that didn't work out for him.
Salina: So here he is, like, beating up on his son.
Salina: And then, like, there's.
Salina: So there's that whole aspect and then just thinking, like, what is this parent thinking?
Salina: Yeah, like, to.
Salina: Not only to do that, period, but then also make a spectacle of it.
Salina: And then, like.
Salina: And everybody knows this dad, you know what I'm saying?
Salina: Like, because all these ball.
Salina: All these kids who play ball, and you get good, you're all together all the time.
Salina: So, anyways, that was more of my experience.
Salina: I don't ever really remember, like.
Salina: Like a.
Salina: Like a ref getting yelled at.
Salina: I'm sure that happened, and I probably wasn't paying attention, but that didn't seem, like the most egregious to me.
Nikki: Yeah, I agree with you.
Salina: So baseball.
Nikki: So baseball.
Nikki: We don't like overzealous parents.
Nikki: But what did we like about this episode of designing women?
Salina: Except for the poisoning parents.
Nikki: Salina really liked that one.
Salina: No, I didn't.
Salina: It makes me poison people.
Nikki: It makes me think of an episode of Family Guy.
Nikki: All I can remember is Brian and Stewie.
Nikki: And I think it was epicat.
Nikki: And I think it whatever.
Nikki: And I think it's just like, vomit everywhere.
Nikki: And from a parent perspective, that is, like, vomit is worst case scenario.
Nikki: Like, in terms of sickness.
Salina: Oh, you mean just in terms of, like, fear over the kid?
Nikki: Yeah, like, they're just losing.
Nikki: Losing it over.
Nikki: It's just scary.
Nikki: I do feel bad for that dad, though, and you've made me think about it in a slightly different way.
Nikki: I do feel bad for him because it.
Nikki: He shouldn't have done it.
Nikki: He should have done it.
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: I want to poison that.
Nikki: That's bad.
Nikki: Don't.
Salina: Or adults.
Nikki: The fair point is he didn't intend for that to go around the whole team.
Nikki: Just that one a hole kid, you know what I mean?
Nikki: And that kid probably stood to learn a lesson.
Salina: And that's why I don't poison.
Salina: That is going to get the challenge.
Nikki: That's why you don't poison.
Salina: That's why.
Salina: So in terms of things, I liked Charlene's point about people being competitive over everything she says.
Salina: It seems like you can't get away from it, and not just in sports.
Salina: I remember when Olivia was ten months old, we went to the park and a lady with her baby went after me.
Salina: She said, when did your baby cut her teeth?
Salina: Mine cut her teeth at six months.
Salina: My baby took her first step.
Salina: At nine months, I thought I'd given birth to the most perfect creation in the universe.
Salina: But I've got the toothless blob that just lies around.
Nikki: For some people, life is one big, giant competition, and they're working towards some prize.
Nikki: And I'm not sure what that prize is, and I'm not sure when it's coming.
Salina: I find it a little too much.
Nikki: A little too much?
Salina: A little too much.
Salina: Although, like, I have my own things that I need to work on, and.
Nikki: I'll just say that.
Salina: But that's what therapy is for.
Salina: I also like Suzanne's take on competition.
Salina: She says, there's a word for you people that worry that competition's a bad thing.
Salina: Losers.
Salina: Actually, there's another good word.
Salina: Wusses.
Salina: There's a whole lot of good words.
Salina: And I used to yell all of them out of car windows after beauty pageants, when I drive by, the girls I'd just beaten, which is so weird.
Salina: Cause, like, that's the opposite of classy.
Salina: Which is why I always think that she's such a conundrum.
Salina: You know, you can't paint that one in a corner.
Nikki: I think that's one of my favorite lines I've ever heard in this entire show.
Nikki: The part.
Nikki: There's a word for people like you that think competition's a bad thing.
Nikki: Losers.
Nikki: I also really liked when she said, you just don't know how to kick little butts.
Nikki: I really liked everything about her in this episode.
Nikki: Truly, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Nikki: Yes, but they won't keep it very long.
Salina: That was a fantastic line.
Nikki: So much goodness.
Salina: In this episode, she did.
Salina: Anthony trying to survive in between Mary Jo and Julia's dust up was pretty funny.
Salina: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Salina: I was just.
Salina: You just don't get in the middle of those.
Salina: You see it going down and you just.
Salina: You gotta get out of the way.
Salina: And I gotta tell you, if it's.
Salina: If it's two women and they're good friends, it is not.
Salina: Because if you know that friendship will survive, you better get out the way.
Nikki: We did see Bill get in the middle of Charlene and Mary Jo, and he pretty effectively neutralized that in the.
Salina: Well, he's a soldier.
Nikki: That's correct.
Nikki: And a captain, in fact.
Salina: That's great.
Nikki: So, yeah, he can get those people in line.
Nikki: Anthony knew his limits.
Salina: Right.
Salina: He's been in a real conflict, real conflict between, like, large swaths of people.
Nikki: I would argue two female best friends.
Nikki: Fighting is a real conflict.
Salina: It's maybe one of the scariest things that I've ever been a part of that I've.
Nikki: And she's played me in monopoly.
Salina: It's one of the scariest things I've ever started and occasionally finished.
Nikki: Napal.
Salina: I will tell you right now, I have been told that I am the scariest of my friends.
Nikki: I would be scared of you in a friendly fight.
Nikki: I would be scared.
Salina: On that note, my other one was that Julia and Mary Jo pretty much switched personalities by the end.
Salina: And in doing so, it was pretty great to see Mary Jo get in the ump's face, like, and that side of her personality come out, which, you know, is there.
Nikki: She's firing.
Salina: It's under the surface.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: She has red hair.
Salina: It just has to be.
Salina: That's the rule, right?
Nikki: That's the rule.
Salina: Are we.
Salina: We have any others that you wanted to share?
Nikki: Nope.
Salina: Okay, what about things that you didn't like?
Nikki: I didn't have a thing.
Salina: So I will have to say that we had to sneak in just a little bit of, like, fat shaming on.
Salina: On the ump.
Salina: Buford.
Salina: Oh, it wasn't.
Salina: It wasn't the worst I've heard on the show, to be honest, and it is of the era.
Salina: But telling him his cholesterol was probably high.
Salina: And then Mary Jo mentions his belly.
Salina: Let's just be easy on Buford.
Salina: We don't know what he's been through.
Nikki: They body shamed him all the way around.
Nikki: They told him he was ugly too.
Nikki: He did also tell him really unnecessary.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And then can you imagine being called in for that part?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: You got a paycheck?
Salina: Are you all hiring?
Nikki: Son in law wouldn't be made for another three years.
Salina: Ah, yes.
Salina: It dragged me for.
Salina: He was running out of that motorcycle money.
Salina: It dragged me.
Salina: It dragged the episode.
Salina: Excuse me for a tad.
Salina: Where Mary Jo and Julia do sort of fight a little bit right there in the episode.
Salina: You know, in that time just felt like lost time because it felt like maybe we were trying to make up for time that got cut from someone, like, I don't know, Suzanne being her.
Nikki: Final episode and everything.
Salina: You got a rating for this one.
Salina: I do.
Nikki: Little b*** kicks.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: I gave it a five out of five.
Nikki: I think my.
Nikki: I couldn't hold it against the episode itself.
Nikki: The biggest disappointment for this episode is that this is the final episode with both.
Nikki: Well, with the whole cast together, but definitely Suzanne.
Nikki: And then we'll have a little bit more jean smart for a little while, but not much.
Nikki: And I do feel like, I felt like this was the Suzanne that I recognize and know and or thought I knew from what I remembered, so it felt appropriate for her, but this definitely didn't feel like the ideal send off for her.
Nikki: And what I will say is that I hope there's a little bit more in the hopper for Jean Smart in terms of a character send off, and that it's not really just, like, send her out into the parking lot and we're done.
Salina: Oh, gosh.
Salina: And I just.
Salina: I don't remember that at all.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: But even the fact that she drags into the first and second episode might be kind of telling.
Nikki: Yeah, I don't know.
Salina: I gave it 3.5 out of five toothless blobs that just lie around.
Salina: Speaking of toothless, that's kind of how I would describe the finale.
Salina: So I think Beaumont would have been a better finale.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I would have maybe tweaked it a little bit, maybe even had Suzanne and Anthony have a little dance.
Nikki: You know, I think that's a good call.
Salina: This feels like midseason stuff, and in a season that almost felt like a lot of midseason stuff, to be fair, it may be a byproduct of how exhausted they were.
Salina: I imagine waking up to a new article or, like, story every day gets real old real fast, and it was in the news a lot more than the show was, you know?
Salina: And that might have given.
Salina: Given them a ratings bump, but that doesn't take away from just feeling like you're getting dragged every day.
Nikki: This show has never had really great season finales.
Nikki: It's never really.
Nikki: There's never been one where that I can remember where we've been.
Nikki: Like, that was the way to end the season that Mary Jo.
Nikki: We ended a season one time on Mary Jo with a sexual predator, which was such, like a.
Salina: That felt like the most.
Salina: But that was the most memorable one.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Like, I think, you know, then we've gotten, like, some couples, and I always, with all due respect to the fans of the show, like, really big fans, I will get comments on social media a lot that are, like, I love the couple episodes.
Salina: I'm like, really?
Salina: But, like, you know, and I never want to make any.
Salina: I don't want to yuck people's yums.
Salina: But with all due respect, again, I have to disagree.
Salina: I don't think they're the best episodes or they're just hard now, maybe.
Salina: Maybe they were really great then.
Nikki: Context also matters, and our context for interactions with men, hopefully, are a little better than they are.
Salina: The only one that was is when they went to Florida, and that's because Suzanne wrapped it up and it was just her.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So the only reason I bring that up, that we've never had good season finales is that this is not an outlier in my mind in terms of the stuff happening off screen notwithstanding, this is similar to previous seasons.
Nikki: But I think that's a really great point about the Beaumont episode.
Nikki: Could have been a nice flip for this one.
Salina: So nice.
Salina: And then if we just gotten one nice thing from Suzanne about Anthony.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And then, like, maybe she, like, maybe they wind up slow dancing there, and she, like, reaches over and she just says, I'm glad you're here.
Salina: I've always loved you.
Salina: And she just softly starts to see Whitney Houston.
Nikki: She puts her head on his shoulder.
Salina: And then they have babies.
Nikki: I agree.
Nikki: I think that.
Nikki: I think there was just so much betrayal and bad blood, they wouldn't have given it to her.
Nikki: But something you said earlier, I think you said it jokingly, but, like, the fans kind of deserved better.
Nikki: I do think that they could have given the fans a little bit more with her.
Nikki: Although, again, like, this episode is what I will remember.
Nikki: That personality for Suzanne.
Nikki: So at least they gave us that.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Yeah, that's true.
Salina: Nineties things.
Nikki: Nothing.
Salina: I had nothing either.
Nikki: Nothing.
Nikki: Sorry, I put something in the wrong category.
Nikki: I have nothing for nineties things.
Salina: Get out.
Nikki: Southern things of squalling brats.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: My mom used to say squalling growing up, and I am confident that's a southern saying.
Salina: Yeah, that's fair squalling over there for.
Nikki: That'S how my mom sounds.
Salina: Well, that also helps with the accent I mentioned to kill a mockingbird.
Salina: References we need to talk about.
Nikki: I don't have anything.
Salina: I have just so Julia says this thing about not being allowed to participate when Payne was in pee wee football or something, and I did some poking around, I wanted to just share a couple of things from a 2023 medium article to marinate on.
Salina: According to research by the Tucker center for Research on girls and Women in sports, fewer than 10% of youth coaches in 2020 were female.
Salina: That percentage has been declining over the past ten years.
Salina: According to the Women's Sports foundation, by age 14, many girls are dropping out of sports at two times the rate of boys.
Salina: One major reason is the lack of role models.
Salina: According to USA Facts, in 2020, 93% of division one men's teams had male head coaches, while 46% of division one women's teams had female head coaches.
Salina: Division two and three were on par with this number.
Salina: And then women coached men's teams at a rate ranging from three to 5% in the NCAA.
Salina: So just something to marinate on.
Nikki: It's interesting you say that lack of role models is a leading reason that they drop out of sports at, like, 14.
Nikki: And it's interesting you say that, because I think it was a Super bowl commercial this year, and I want to say by Dove because they're very body positive.
Nikki: But it's a commercial that made me cry because it was about preteen and teenage girls dropping out of sports because they're self conscious of their bodies and how body image plays into the ability to show up and be successful in an athletic sport.
Nikki: So I will think probably more about that than I will about lack of role models.
Nikki: Cause I don't wanna coach my kids teams.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I have no interest.
Salina: Oh, did you think that was what this was?
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: I thought you were telling me.
Salina: I was like, Nikki, it's time to coach.
Nikki: Time to become a volleyball coach.
Salina: No, I think it's just like, you know, earlier in this episode, we were talking about competition and how you were like, I never really received any messages.
Salina: Well, here.
Salina: Yes, you did.
Salina: I guess I struggle with that, though.
Nikki: Because, again, I don't have interest in coaching.
Salina: Oh.
Salina: I don't have interest in sports.
Salina: But.
Nikki: So I wonder how many women are interested in coaching.
Salina: But maybe I.
Salina: Well, so there's.
Salina: But this almost reminds me of, like, the science argument.
Salina: You know, it's kind of this thing.
Salina: Maybe women aren't interested in science and math.
Nikki: Chicken and egg arguments.
Salina: Maybe we weren't taught.
Salina: Like, maybe we.
Salina: There were just these messages that we're getting from so young that we don't even know we have the right to.
Nikki: Be interested in it.
Salina: You know what I'm saying?
Salina: So I think it is sort of hard to.
Salina: There is no definitive answer.
Salina: I just think it's something worth pausing about.
Salina: Those numbers are really low.
Salina: That's really strange.
Salina: Why is this a space where women aren't?
Salina: Maybe I should have liked sports.
Salina: Maybe I didn't have that taught to me.
Salina: You know, maybe that wasn't modeled for me.
Salina: And that's the kind of thing I sat with.
Nikki: It's tough.
Nikki: Similar to math, it's tough generationally, because I know I can play sports.
Nikki: I know I could probably teach my kids to play sports, but I only learned I could play sports late in life because I was told I couldn't play sports.
Nikki: I was told I was uncoordinated.
Nikki: And this is by my parents, they told me I'm uncoordinated.
Nikki: I'm not athletic, I'm not fast.
Nikki: I'm just not meant for sports.
Nikki: And then it turns out I am actually, it can be all those things.
Nikki: Not coordinated.
Nikki: I'm not super coordinated, but.
Nikki: So my issue was different, but for me with my kids, I'm like, baseball is the one thing that I can just tell Kyle.
Nikki: Like, baseball is your thing, dude.
Nikki: Like, you and Landon go bond.
Salina: Your parents probably told you that because they didn't want to take you to sports.
Nikki: They didn't want to have to fight somebody or that either.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Your mom was gearing up.
Salina: She knew she was going to have to poison somebody's water bottle when they made fun of.
Salina: You know what you've done?
Nikki: You know what you've done, Salina.
Nikki: Now you've planted the seed that I'm not setting a good example for my daughter by not coaching.
Salina: It's not you.
Salina: It's the world.
Nikki: It's everybody else.
Nikki: It's not me.
Salina: It's not you.
Salina: You're already doing girl scouts and cubs.
Salina: What more do they want?
Nikki: Good lord.
Salina: So.
Salina: Well, that's it.
Nikki: Well, that's it.
Nikki: So our next episode is going to be the finale finale.
Salina: And we're just going to replay finale finale from season four.
Nikki: And every now and then, say bye, Suzanne.
Nikki: And then, so it's going to be out in two weeks, and then our special episode will come out two weeks.
Salina: After that, most likely, unless we change our minds.
Salina: I'm just gonna leave some opening there.
Nikki: You know what I do.
Nikki: I think that's a great point to make.
Nikki: I think we're a little bit loosey goosey this year, trying to figure out when to get together to record so it'll come out at some point.
Nikki: We're also just to set the scene a little bit loosey goosey.
Nikki: That what we're gonna do next?
Salina: We don't know.
Nikki: We have not figured it out yet.
Salina: No.
Salina: So you better tell us you love.
Nikki: Us, which is great for our next thing, which is following along with us and engaging and telling your family and friends about the show.
Nikki: Better the show.
Nikki: We need some engagement.
Nikki: We need some feedback.
Nikki: We are like a crossroads.
Nikki: We're really torn.
Nikki: We always set out that we were gonna do this show through the main.
Salina: Cast, and now we've done it.
Nikki: Now we've done it.
Nikki: Everything I've heard is that the next few seasons suck.
Salina: And I'm telling you, it sounds like Nikki's about to head off and coach a little league.
Nikki: I gotta go be a female role model for my daughter.
Salina: But T ball and Tata, as I hear it's called.
Nikki: Before we get there, we do owe people a finale.
Nikki: Finale?
Nikki: Our special episode.
Nikki: And we owe them this week's extra sugar, which is going to be our farewell to Suzanne and Charlene.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Are we gonna make you cry, Salina?
Nikki: Dust.
Salina: Tears of dust.
Nikki: Are we gonna make you, like a desert sandstorm?
Nikki: Sandstorm?
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Is it gonna.
Salina: Who knows?
Nikki: We'll see.
Salina: Come around.
Nikki: It's.
Salina: Come back.
Salina: Come back, come back, come back.
Salina: Just think about what you'll be missing.
Salina: These golden gems, these shiny stones.
Salina: All right, well, you know what that means, Nikki.
Nikki: What does it mean, Salina?
Salina: It means we'll see you around the mother flippin bend.
Salina: Oh, you got nerdy.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh.
Nikki: I didn't have my hand hovering over the beat.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Nikki: Oh, my gosh.
Salina: Salina.
Salina: Hi.