It’s been a rough week, y’all. Charlene quit. She and MJ had a big fight. But, hey, they both feel like bad moms and inadequate, so all is well in the world. Meanwhile, the whole gang is abused by a pint-sized client who comes to blows with Suzanne.
Come back later in the week for an “Extra Sugar” dedicated to the plight of stay-at-home parents.
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: And hello, everyone, and welcome to Sweet Tea and TV.
Nikki: Hey, y'all.
Salina: I cannot believe it, but here we are, season five, episode three.
Salina: Are you ready to get into working Mother?
Nikki: I am so designing Women season five, episode three Working Mother the Hulu episode description the sugar bakers deal with a precocious young client while Charlene decides to quit the firm and devote more time to her baby.
Nikki: Air Date October 1, 1990 we're calling this one Charlene and Mary Joe Fight.
Nikki: It was written by Pam Norris and directed by David Trainor.
Nikki: Let's do some general reactions.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: Let's be crazy this time.
Nikki: Let's do general reactions first.
Salina: Crazy.
Salina: I'll do a DJ hand with it.
Salina: That'll really make it different.
Salina: So, for me, this episode really nailed what it looks like when you package together the right A and B plots.
Salina: So in this case, the A is like this fight between Mary Jo and Charlene, and it's hinged on their respective judgments of working versus stay at home parents.
Salina: And the truth is and really, moms?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And the truth is that they're both good parents in two different circumstances.
Salina: So that's your one plot.
Salina: And then the B plot is at least I think it's meant to show us what not so good parenting actually is.
Salina: Visa Visda, who is spoiled, yes.
Salina: But know, she's the product of absentee parents who only model bad behavior when they are at home.
Salina: And in case it wasn't sinking in for people, julia just sort of blatantly says that children don't learn what we teach them.
Salina: They learn what we show them.
Salina: And I think that's actually a nice retort to the old do as I say, not as I do parenting style.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: I think that it would be disingenuous for me not to have an initial reaction of identifying at least a little bit with Charlene's storyline in this one.
Nikki: And I say that only for myself and only from my experience, not just because I'm a working parent, but because a lot of the things that they went through that Charlene went through in this episode, I went through the first year both my kids were born.
Nikki: So both my kids stayed home until they were about four months and six months old.
Nikki: They didn't go to daycare till that point, but I went back to work after three months with both of them.
Nikki: And my husband stayed home with know Kyle, that guy.
Nikki: I said, you guys have no idea who he is.
Nikki: Kyle stayed home with them, and he would send me pictures throughout the day of just, like, funny things like Carolina ate breakfast and fell asleep sitting up in her chair or Landon rolling around on the floor.
Nikki: Just funny things that are supposed to be sort of like, here's a little peek at what's going on at home.
Nikki: But there's not a second of that that you don't think, like, I should be there right now.
Nikki: I'm missing it all.
Nikki: And then when they hit about six months, which incidentally, is like my favorite age in the baby world, I do not love newborn, but six months to twelve months is so fun.
Nikki: They're sitting up, they're interacting with you.
Nikki: That's when we shipped them off to daycare.
Nikki: And so the daycare workers got the best part of them, because when I would get home from work, I'd pick them up, they'd be exhausted, they'd be ready for bed.
Nikki: We'd be scrambling to get them fed and bathed and throw them in the bed so we could do it all over again tomorrow.
Nikki: So I completely identified with that piece of Charlene's experience.
Nikki: And of course, I never quit work to see the other side of it like she did.
Nikki: But I can 100% see her journey in this one.
Nikki: And I think it was realistic for a lot of women.
Salina: Well, I think that pairs really nicely with what my other big general reaction is.
Salina: But I want to be very careful to not step on your extra sugar segment.
Salina: So I'm going to talk about my feelings, but if I'm going anywhere close to your stuff, you just tell me to back off.
Nikki: I was going to talk about your feelings, too.
Nikki: Are you really going to do this right now?
Salina: I was really hoping that you would give my feelings some attention.
Salina: So I was just going to say that from a feeling standpoint.
Salina: This one just made me really sad because it's the classic damned if you do, damned if you don't that women live out daily.
Salina: So you're not living up to your potential.
Salina: If you stay at home full time, your life isn't as hard.
Salina: On the other hand, if you're working, obviously you don't care about your mean.
Salina: I'm obviously being very sarcastic on both of those terms, but there's just no getting around it from my point of view.
Salina: Watching things.
Salina: One of the tensions that's going on between Mary Jo and Charlene, and there has been tension, and it's not just been in this episode, it's sort of been building.
Salina: I think we talked about a little of that towards the end of season four, and then even we didn't talk about this specifically, maybe in the opening episode, but there was even a little tension that came up in talking about the water picking with the shower.
Salina: Yeah, you know what it's like.
Nikki: Joe was being really ugly to Charlene.
Salina: Poking a little bit, I think not even real.
Salina: Like, who in the world would do that and then totally realizing Charlene would do that.
Salina: And I think she was trying to be kind in that scenario, but not well, it wasn't a marks.
Salina: You know what, when so they've got this tension between them already that's existing.
Salina: And then on top of that, they're just facing some really different experiences.
Salina: Charlene has a spouse who makes good money and can support their family, whether she works or not.
Salina: Mary Jo doesn't have that same circumstance.
Salina: Charlene has choice and agency monetarily, and Mary Jo has chosen a different kind of agency that we learn about later in the episode, which is declining the alimony.
Salina: I don't think Mary Jo should have lashed out at Charlene.
Salina: For 99.9% of us, there will always be someone who has more than us, and there will always be somebody who has less than us.
Salina: But in fairness to Mary Jo, that truth doesn't mean that having less is always easy to navigate.
Salina: So I just think there's, like, a lot of tough situations going there.
Salina: And as we often talk about in different parts of this show, sometimes you have to leave what's going on here and stay out here a little bit.
Salina: This is a big general reaction.
Nikki: A big general reaction.
Nikki: I think two things stick out to me.
Nikki: One is that thing you and I were talking about off air of just like, at some point you have to let go of other people's thoughts and expectations about you and think about yourself.
Nikki: And the second thing that I've been thinking about, or not think about yourself in the sense of only worry about yourself, but just think about you and what do you want to get out of life.
Nikki: And if that includes working and then spending time with your kids afterwards, that's great.
Nikki: If it includes not working and devoting it all to your family, that's great.
Nikki: But just don't let the external voices affect it quite so much.
Nikki: Thing one, thing two is something someone said recently, is if you are wondering if you're a good mom, specifically to me, but if you are wondering if you're a good parent, the fact that you're asking that question makes you a good parent.
Nikki: And I think that is how you can make your decisions, or it should be.
Salina: Well, I'm glad that you said what you said because there was a cut line, and they said there will always be a few people that think stay at home moms are lazy or dumb, and others that think that working moms are selfish.
Salina: Yuppies, we can't worry about those people.
Salina: And I wish they hadn't cut that, because that's such an important part of it all.
Salina: That's the crux of it all.
Salina: As women, I think we know I think sometimes we need the reminder.
Nikki: Another thing that occurred to me on my second or third watch of this episode was there's a little bit of a parallel between Charlene and Mary Jo's fight and then Suzanne and Randa's fight toward the end of the episode.
Nikki: Okay, so in essence, someone told on someone else in both fights.
Nikki: So Mary Jo says it's Charlene's fault for her remark about quint.
Nikki: Suzanne said it was Randa's fault for starting the fight about the beaded necklace, but the outcome was pretty different in both circumstances.
Nikki: So Suzanne's fight ended as you would expect.
Nikki: Suzanne's fight to end.
Nikki: Her and Randa are both in tatters and still really upset.
Nikki: And Mary Jo and Charlene smoothed things over and handled things.
Nikki: I don't know if that's an intentional parallel to sort of remind you of the different types of people we're dealing with in this show.
Nikki: Maybe it was just to show you two potential different outcomes to conflict, but it was just interesting to me that we had two different fights in this episode, and they ended very differently.
Nikki: Exactly how you would expect Suzanne's to end and how you would hope an adult's fight would end.
Salina: Yeah, that's fair.
Salina: That's fair.
Salina: I was funny because you said that you identify with Charlene in this episode and I identify with Suzanne.
Salina: I was like, I really feel her in this one.
Salina: Did you have I'm ready for strays.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right, let's run into them.
Salina: You want to start us off?
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: So, for the play date in the park, and I do not have photographic evidence of this, so it better be burned into the back of your eyes so you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Nikki: Charlene and Olivia were headed to the park for a play date when she stopped into Sugar Bakers.
Nikki: Charlene was wearing, like, a pink skirt suit.
Nikki: It just feels like a really far cry in today's athleisure world, but especially, like, maybe a mismatch to the park.
Salina: That's a good one.
Nikki: So I was really wondering, I think this often when I watch TV and I watch shows, is that really representative of how women in the late eighty s and early 90s would dress for a thing like the park, or were they overdressed because it was TV?
Nikki: Do you know what I mean?
Nikki: Like, sometimes you're watching a TV show that's current, and they're wearing makeup in bed.
Nikki: That's obviously not realistic.
Nikki: So I think it's for TV.
Nikki: So I'd like to assume Charlene's was that way for TV.
Nikki: And maybe in the 90s they wore jeans and a shirt to take their kid to the park, but they always seem dressed to the nines on this show, so I really can't tell.
Salina: That's tough.
Salina: That's almost like people specific.
Salina: Right?
Salina: I know some people won't even walk to their mailbox unless they have some kind of an outfit on.
Salina: Doesn't have to be a fancy outfit, but I'm going to my pajamas.
Salina: I don't care.
Nikki: And I just wonder, was it a driveway?
Nikki: Was that more of a cultural like, my mom didn't leave the house without makeup until COVID?
Nikki: Was that more of a cultural norm of kind of coming of age in the like you said, is it all just people specific?
Nikki: And I don't actually expect you to have an answer.
Salina: Yeah, well but I like to have one on deck.
Salina: I do think it is people specific to some degree.
Salina: I do also think that we've gotten.
Nikki: Comfortable.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Relaxable.
Salina: Yeah, I think we're much more relaxed because you're talking about the 80s, but I'm sitting here thinking about, like, 60s housewives.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: I don't know that every housewife was in an aline skirt.
Salina: Hills and purse, I wonder.
Salina: But I don't think they were in their pajamas.
Salina: I do think that there was sort of this idea of like when we did the Dionne Warwick song when we were doing First Wives Club.
Salina: It's like, hey, little girl, do you make up or he's going to cheat on you.
Salina: I think that people really think, like, know certainly how I think.
Salina: Well, I don't as I pull on.
Nikki: My leggings one leg at a time.
Nikki: Doing this for you, Kyle.
Salina: Hope you love these leggings, like, popping in my retainer.
Salina: Yeah, the whole thing is nice.
Salina: But anyways, I do feel like there's this idea, and it usually feels like it's more towards women of upkeep and keeping up a certain kind of appearance.
Salina: But I think that people were okay.
Salina: I think she was overdressed for the park.
Salina: I think that people were dressier in.
Nikki: The thing I'll say is that her appearance also slightly changed as the episode went on.
Nikki: So she wore the pink skirt suit to the park, and then when they saw her in the house, she was much more relaxed.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: And I wonder if they did that purposely to show the difference between the two.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Another random thought I had was Randa.
Nikki: Something in the way she delivered her lines, particularly at the end, reminded me so much of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.
Nikki: Something about her face and the way she said, or they'll just sit around on their big butts made me think of him sort of Home Alone and then also his character in Uncle Buck.
Nikki: He's like an old soul in a young kid's body in Uncle Buck.
Nikki: If you've not seen it, I can't help.
Nikki: You got to watch it.
Salina: Love, uncle Buck.
Nikki: So good.
Nikki: Something about Macaulay Culkin of the early 90s.
Nikki: That's what Randa reminded me of.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I thought she was at first I thought, because she looks so familiar to me.
Salina: And I remembered this episode of this show.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Nikki: I so badly wanted to bring this up in your 90s segment.
Nikki: Do you know maybe why she looks familiar to you?
Salina: I looked her up.
Salina: She wasn't who I thought she was because I thought she was the mean little girl in Little Princess, the remake of it.
Salina: That was in the 90s.
Salina: I'd have to look that one up.
Salina: It wasn't her, but she was in something else.
Salina: But now I can't.
Salina: Tell me.
Nikki: Are you afraid of the dark?
Nikki: She was in the 1995 episode the Tale of the Mystical Mirror.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: There's no way I'm going to oh, God.
Salina: Is that your favorite?
Nikki: No, but it's exactly what I remember her from.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Because, I mean, I remember Are you afraid of the dark?
Salina: But I don't remember individual episodes.
Nikki: It's like a beauty shop and there's a mirror on the wall that's like sucking employees into it or something.
Nikki: I remember her from that.
Nikki: But she was also in the war with Elijah Wood and Kevin Costner in 1994 and The Long Walk Home in 1990, which I don't think I've seen.
Nikki: But in your 90s segment, I so badly wanted to say we're going to come back to someone who's in Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Nikki: Which was my favorite staple of Snick on Nickelodeon on Saturday nights.
Salina: Well, look, you got to say it now.
Nikki: I got to say it now.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Now I feel good thread those episodes.
Nikki: Nikki, adam, did you notice that Anthony and Adam seemed to be waiting outside Charlene's house for like a really long time to bring in the computer?
Salina: No, but I wish I had.
Nikki: They had like well, Charlene and Mary Jo had that very long heart to heart about all the ins and outs of everything.
Nikki: And then out of nowhere, they're like.
Salina: All right, bring it in, boys.
Nikki: And Anthony and Adam just come walking and it's just straight out of like, Sitcom 101.
Nikki: Time doesn't matter.
Nikki: Location doesn't matter.
Nikki: She lives in a townhouse on the second floor, but that doesn't matter because they've been waiting outside this whole time.
Salina: Well, now I like to just hear or think about Anthony just holding the box the whole time.
Salina: It's like really heavy.
Salina: The other guy's like, not helping at all.
Nikki: Not helping at all.
Salina: That's my stray, actually, because it's the Return of Bookstore guy from season four, episode Ten Manhunt for Everyone, where Mary Jo buys that terrible dating book.
Salina: But now he's Temp guy, right?
Salina: And in a stray stray.
Salina: I just have to say that sometimes some of us have to hump alphabet to get where we're going.
Salina: Julia so, like, sorry we're not perfect.
Nikki: The guy who played Adam is going to show up one more time as a stray character.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: And as a reminder for anyone, he was in a King of Queens episode, which is where I knew him from.
Salina: And now you know, my other stray is did Designing Women create remote work?
Nikki: I wondered about that.
Nikki: I wondered about that.
Salina: Early adopters.
Nikki: I'm telling you for sure she'll never do it again.
Nikki: But it's a possibility.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And then I screwed this up because I meant to take a picture.
Salina: And I'm just going to be honest, I didn't.
Salina: But I've had so many thoughts already about Mary Jo's wardrobe.
Salina: Oh, I feel good.
Nikki: Or bad?
Salina: Good.
Salina: It's like a series.
Salina: So I in the very first episode, she wore this fitted cream colored pantsuit with an orange top under.
Salina: And then the pants were wide legged, so it had a little bit of this bohemian fill to it.
Salina: And then also back in style, by the way.
Salina: And then in this one, she's wearing a beautiful, light burnt orange jacket that's also pretty bohemian looking over a long floral skirt.
Salina: And a black top, and it just man.
Nikki: There was one episode that I just finished watching, so it must be later in the season, but I just thought, golly, she looks so beautiful this season.
Nikki: Just everything from her hair to her wardrobe, she looks amazing.
Salina: So maybe it's just because they're making more money now.
Salina: Maybe.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And they finally just nailed the right costume designer.
Nikki: She also had a baby, Annie Potts.
Salina: Did in season three.
Salina: Was it season four?
Salina: Yeah, she was pregnant.
Nikki: I think at the time, we were getting Charlene's story.
Nikki: So I also wonder if there's a little bit of renewed look at her appearance now that she's had time to work through that part of her life.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Yeah, that's a good point.
Nikki: Yeah, she looks beautiful this season.
Nikki: She's really killing it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So did you have any other strays you want to talk about?
Salina: Some things we like?
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: All right, what you got?
Nikki: I thought the script writing in this one was really crisp.
Nikki: I liked Anthony's thing about not riding down the highway with a white girl on his lap was really funny.
Nikki: Suzanne had a thing about needing a big screen TV so they could have something to do while they're sitting around all day because she doesn't work, but everybody else there does.
Nikki: Randa saying, I prefer to call people what they are, and Anthony being glad that they adopted that policy.
Salina: So good.
Salina: I'm so glad we've adopted that policy.
Nikki: All of the interactions between Suzanne and Randa were really good.
Nikki: And then sort of that surprise ending with Randa at the end where she's not really horrible, she's just a product of her environment.
Nikki: I really liked that.
Nikki: And then I just loved how honest Mary Jo and Charlene were with each other in that scene at Charlene's house.
Nikki: I thought it was really well written.
Nikki: And then I feel like I felt like I was watching two friends hash out a really difficult part of their relationship, which they are, but they're playing a role.
Nikki: And I thought that was really well.
Salina: I think I think my comment would be on the same wavelength of yours, which is just I thought there were a lot of quippy lines and good deliveries in this one as well.
Salina: Julia tells Suzanne she can't pretend to sneeze and say b**** under her breath.
Salina: And then a ten year old walks us through the door.
Salina: Classic.
Nikki: That was really good.
Nikki: You were not expecting that.
Salina: But I should have been.
Salina: I think probably there was also, like, Anthony pointing out to Suzanne that her and Randa are basically the same person.
Salina: And that was really cute.
Salina: Suzanne saying she's going to kill Randa.
Salina: Enter long, luxuriating pause with kindness.
Salina: That was nice.
Salina: I also thought that kindness, it wasn't necessarily a runner, but it's just this idea of, like, Mary Jo is so snowed, like, delusionally thinking that Charlene is unhappy at so she'll be back any minute now.
Salina: Do you see how miserable she is when she that?
Nikki: Isn't it lovely outside today?
Nikki: I can't wait to roll around in the grass.
Salina: She is miserable.
Nikki: She is so unhappy.
Salina: The funny thing is, she turned out not to be.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And that's maybe what Best Friends, but it played, you know, just a whole trip.
Salina: Coming back from the mall, I thought this was with Rand and Suzanne.
Salina: I thought this was another really good example of where the aftermath was much more satisfying than seeing the incident go down.
Salina: So that disheveled appearance, the retelling of what happened, and the cherry on top is Suzanne making faces at Randa in the background while Julia is chastising mean.
Salina: Like I said, I'm Suzanne in this episode.
Salina: And I thought, too, I just have to say this.
Salina: I don't really like to comment on people's appearances because we've talked about, like I don't know, I just think that downplays everything.
Salina: And I see that a lot with Delta Burke because she is so beautiful.
Salina: But I think there have been a couple of times this season where they're trying to make her look bad because of the episode, and she's just gorgeous.
Salina: So even when she walks through that door and they have tried to make her look like a hot mess, I'm just like, this is just a gorgeous human being, and you can't do anything to mess that up again.
Salina: While I normally try and not do that, I was sitting there just, like, a little stunned that's what I look.
Nikki: Like after a fight, too.
Salina: Same.
Salina: That will be also in a future episode that we cover.
Salina: I will share another time where I was like, I just stopped trying.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So what about things we didn't like?
Nikki: My only dislike with this episode is just meta, and it has nothing to do with the show.
Nikki: It has nothing to do with Pam Norris's writing.
Nikki: It's just the idea you touched on at the beginning that there is no right answer for women.
Nikki: No matter what you do, you're doing it wrong, or at least you feel that way, and that just sucks.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: But if you can tune and I think the benefit of late thirty s is I'm getting to the point maybe where I'm actually going to be able to tune some of that out and realize that you don't have to live my life, man.
Nikki: Let me just live my life.
Nikki: You worry about your life.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: What a beautiful point to be at.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I can't wait till I can tell people everything I think.
Salina: And one day you won't remember it.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: I can't wait.
Salina: It's so Mary Jo.
Salina: For me, she was just so condescending and passive aggressive towards charlene with these little jabs, like, about the daytime talk shows and whatnot.
Salina: And there were just several instances where it was really hard for me to get on Mary Jo's side.
Salina: So I finally felt a little warmer to her at some.
Salina: Just like I felt more on Charlene's side because she wasn't like because even when Charlene, I felt like she was very honest, and it seemed healthy to be like, hey, you're really hurting my feelings right now.
Nikki: That was groundbreaking to me in terms of someone who will never tell someone when they're actually hurting them, but to just say it like that, I was like and it was, like, not mean.
Salina: I loved it.
Nikki: She said, I know you're not trying to, but I thought that was beautiful.
Nikki: I will say, I think that was just the example of what insecurity can do to you.
Nikki: And insecurity can play out in the worst version of yourself.
Nikki: Said as a very insecure person.
Nikki: And I think at times it can make you a person you don't even recognize.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And that's why if you feel insecure about something, maybe deal with it.
Nikki: Deal with that because you're going to hurt people you really, really care about.
Salina: Right.
Salina: And I don't know.
Salina: I know we needed the conflict, but I just don't like it when they fight for real.
Nikki: It's hurtful, isn't it?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I just don't like fighting.
Nikki: I love it, personally, when two people I really care about just go at it, I just really love it.
Salina: There could have been a fist fight.
Nikki: I mean, kind of was if we just saw the aftermath of it.
Salina: Oh, that's that's true.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: No, I mean, I think that's a testament to the characters that we have sort of I don't want to say grown to love, because that sounds creepy, but we've grown accustomed to these friendships and watching them fight, plus the benefit of knowing what's happening off screen around this time, it just makes all of this feel more something intense.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: That was the hand gesture.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: There's a lot of honking going on.
Nikki: Sorry about that.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: What do you want to rate this sucker?
Nikki: I'm ready.
Nikki: My rating scale is Witless administrative staff.
Salina: I know him.
Nikki: Coming in hot on this one.
Salina: Oh, what you got?
Nikki: I gave it a five out of a five.
Salina: That's great.
Nikki: And I do this because this is an episode I would rewatch a few times voluntarily.
Salina: I agree.
Nikki: I would look forward to this one.
Salina: I agree.
Nikki: And I don't want to spoil anything for the rest of the season, because, to be fair, I still haven't watched, like, three episodes, but I feel like I might actually have a couple of these this season where I'm like, this is peak.
Nikki: Designing Women.
Nikki: I'd love to watch this over and over again.
Nikki: This episode in particular still feels kind of painfully timely, which we'll talk about in My Extra Sugar this week, but also really funny and relatable.
Nikki: I thought the episode was really cohesive in a way that hasn't felt at times, which I think you alluded to at the beginning.
Nikki: The device of Randa and Suzanne's line playing out similarly to Mary Jo and Charlene's, but with different outcomes, I thought was neat.
Nikki: Whether that was intentional or not, I thought that was really cool.
Nikki: And then I just, of course, love that we get a nice ending with Charlene and the rest of the ladies.
Nikki: She came back, although she may be teleworking in the mornings or something, she got the best of both worlds, which I think she a thousand percent deserves.
Nikki: Her employer, in this case, Julia, and the rest of the team met her where she was and helped accommodate her so that she can continue to do the two things that she loves and she didn't have to sacrifice, which I think spoiler alert is something that most managers should be trying to do for their staff.
Nikki: So I really liked that.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: What about you, Gosh?
Salina: You just spoke so beautifully on all that.
Salina: Well, one thing I went ahead and did is I bumped mine up because I had at a 4.8 and literally there was no reason to do that.
Salina: So I'm going to give it a five out of five accidental reflecting pool falls.
Salina: I think that this was a well balanced, nicely placed episode.
Salina: We got the humor, we got the heart, we got the emotion, we got all of the things, and I just want everything.
Salina: And I got it.
Salina: I will have to take three episodes.
Nikki: This season, but episode three, we got it.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: And to your point, it still resonates today.
Salina: I don't know if that's a good thing.
Nikki: No, it's not, because it means, like.
Salina: We haven't really progressed yet.
Salina: We have.
Nikki: Yet we have.
Nikki: I mean, not a ton.
Salina: Wink, wink, wink, we'll talk about it.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Progress is slow.
Salina: I did like that there was an attempt to make a fair and balanced argument for both sides of the equation, because my theme for this year has been life is a series of trade offs, and I think this is a really good example of that.
Salina: And we resolve things in 22 minutes.
Salina: Which is your favorite?
Nikki: That is my favorite.
Salina: Can we ask for anything more?
Salina: We can.
Salina: And you know what?
Salina: We'll get 90s things.
Salina: What?
Nikki: You got a big screen TV, which is what Suzanne mentioned.
Nikki: It feels like all TVs are big now, but I think the ones back in the days used to be way bigger.
Nikki: Big tubes and whatnot.
Nikki: Nintendo.
Nikki: That's the thing that Quint broke into a house over this made me think that I don't think we've talked about it here.
Nikki: Have you seen the 2021 movie eight Bit Christmas?
Salina: I don't even think I've heard of it.
Nikki: I think it's on Netflix or Hulu or Peacock, one of them.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: And it is about the Nintendo crush of the late 80s, early 90s, maybe mid eighty s to late 80s anyway.
Nikki: Somewhere in that zone, the crush at Christmas time of Nintendo.
Nikki: So if anybody's listening to this and they're.
Nikki: Like, what is the big deal about Nintendo?
Nikki: Why would a kid break into someone's house over a Nintendo?
Nikki: Watch this movie?
Nikki: Because it gives you the whole thing.
Salina: Yeah, I don't even think I ever questioned that, especially it was a big deal.
Salina: Well, also, kids, he's not thinking he's conducting a low key B and E.
Salina: He's just going to he was invited.
Nikki: Yeah, that's right.
Salina: So I honestly think it's a little bit of a misunderstanding.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: For I just of course, I was like, which one is it?
Salina: I think it's probably Super Nintendo.
Salina: But yeah, I think that was a huge thing at the time.
Salina: But it's good you said that because maybe not everybody realizes just how big of a deal those were then.
Nikki: Mostly it just made me think, I'm ready to watch that movie again.
Nikki: So I'm glad it's almost Christmas season.
Salina: Well, when you recall which platform it's on, let me, uh so I had Super Mario Brothers while we're on this.
Salina: That's the game.
Salina: He just thank you.
Nikki: None of the ones I said, well.
Salina: I think you're just talking about the problem with TV right now.
Nikki: I just tell Kyle what I want to watch and he turns it on.
Nikki: You ever figure it out?
Nikki: I never know where things are.
Nikki: He has to find it for me.
Salina: It's a little challenging.
Nikki: Really hard.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: But on the Super Mario Brothers front, I just think that it's kind of funny because it is 90s.
Salina: It's a 90s reference in my mind.
Salina: But also it's having this huge moment again, and the franchise is like super it's the number two movie this year.
Salina: Did you see Mario Brothers?
Nikki: Really good.
Nikki: Oh, it's really good.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: That's probably a little I could see if I had kids, but I don't know.
Nikki: Are you not nostalgic for that stuff?
Salina: Not in a way where I want to sit down and watch a movie.
Salina: I would go play the game.
Nikki: I watched the original Super Mario Brothers movie in the early ninety s, and it holds a really special place in my heart.
Nikki: Although now I know it's a terrible movie and I was worried that this would sort of, like, do something.
Nikki: It's very different and it's very funny.
Nikki: I liked it.
Salina: Okay, well, maybe I should stop being so judgmental.
Nikki: I think it's worth watching.
Nikki: It's silly.
Salina: Yeah, I didn't realize.
Nikki: Put down one of your documentaries and laugh for a little while.
Salina: I laugh.
Salina: I watch funny stuff.
Salina: I watch Seinfeld all the time.
Salina: Of course, I've been watching Justify lately, so I don't know.
Nikki: That's funny.
Nikki: Need a break?
Salina: Yeah, I'm about to come up on the end of the show, so it'd be a good time.
Salina: Randa's candy lipstick.
Salina: I just assume it's lip smackers.
Salina: That feels very 90s.
Nikki: Candy.
Nikki: What's that?
Nikki: You can't eat that stuff.
Salina: No, I know.
Salina: She called it candy lipstick.
Salina: Yeah, but it actually debuted in 1972.
Salina: But it just always feels like peak ninety S to me.
Salina: Lip smackers.
Salina: What else do you have?
Nikki: They gave apple juice to Olivia in a bottle.
Nikki: I just don't do that to babies.
Nikki: That's just not a thing.
Salina: Oh, funny that you said that because I have a note here that says things I don't think parents say anymore, but tell me if I'm wrong.
Nikki: No, it's not a thing you do.
Salina: But also, like, apple juice is just.
Nikki: You know, don't start the habits early.
Nikki: The other thing I'd say is just the computer they left for Charlene at the end of the episode, plus, like, the system they had for connecting it, which was not the World Wide Web.
Nikki: It's just fascinating so much.
Salina: And that box was just like the size of a house.
Salina: Yeah, we got references to a soap opera, maybe Guiding Light.
Salina: I couldn't confirm.
Salina: I did try.
Salina: And we also got ones to Phil Donahue and Oprah 80s in there, too, but they definitely were around in the 90s as well.
Salina: And then lots of mall references, of course, and then keeping invoices in a physical book, and then even the idea of having a temp, it feels like of another it doesn't feel to me like it happens quite that way.
Nikki: Good point.
Salina: Like, they used to have temp agencies that were very findable.
Salina: Remember, Ronstadt?
Salina: That was everywhere.
Salina: There's nothing like that anymore.
Salina: And I don't know if it's because we're so gig economy now.
Salina: I actually tried to look into it because I'm a weirdo, but I'd read one article that's like, it's on the rise, and then I'd open another one, it's declining.
Salina: And then I'd open another one and be like, what are temps?
Salina: And I was like, I get actually.
Nikki: Nobody knows what temps are anymore, so no one knows if it's increasing or decreasing.
Salina: Maybe that's part of the problem.
Salina: What about Southern?
Nikki: Maybe all jobs are temporary.
Salina: Oh, that's a good point.
Nikki: Mine is so obscure and it mean, it's not exciting.
Nikki: Charlene had a friend named Mary Markey or something that she mentioned in the episode, and her son's name was Bo, which feels very Southern to me.
Salina: Oh, Bo.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: It just feels like of all the names they could have chosen, Bo.
Nikki: That makes sense.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I hadn't really thought about that.
Nikki: Probably for good reason.
Nikki: Didn't say it was the best reference.
Salina: It's just funny because what it was going through my head is like, I'm so encapsulated in the south.
Salina: To me, that's just a name.
Nikki: Oh, Bo.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: Now Bubba so beat the tar out of each.
Salina: Oh, we've gotten this one before, but that will just always sound so Southern to me.
Salina: And then Julia tells Randa to straighten up and fly right, and that feels very Southern to me as well.
Salina: References that we need to talk about.
Nikki: I don't have anything.
Salina: I don't have anything that's new.
Salina: We got another Leona Helmsley reference, the Queen of mean, but we've been there and done that, so I'm out of references.
Nikki: So next episode, season five, episode four, miss Trial.
Nikki: We'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at sweet.
Nikki: TNTV TikTok at sweettvpod, YouTube at sweettv 7371 email sweettvpod@gmail.com and our website is WW dot sweettv.com.
Nikki: There are also several ways to support the show.
Nikki: You can tell your family or friends about us.
Nikki: You can rate and review the podcast wherever you listen.
Nikki: We have some additional ways available from our website if you click the Support us page and then come back Thursday for extra sugar.
Nikki: I'm considering this segment a bit of a companion piece to our extra sugar for season four, episode 16 when I talked about working parents this week.
Nikki: Is the flip of that coin the balancing act for stay at home parents?
Salina: Okay, well, you know what that means.
Nikki: What does it mean, Salina?
Salina: It means we'll see you around the bend.
Salina: Bye.
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