In this week's "Designing Women," Reese returns, and this time he and Julia are in a full-out war over a new, very attractive lawyer at his firm (though we hear she has big feet). So naturally, they do what any two mature adults would do -- break up in the most dramatic fashion possible and then rub each other’s noses in it. Perhaps the most interesting thing: Anthony is deftly skilled at folding napkins in a tulip pattern. Stick around for this week’s ‘Extra Sugar’ where we take a closer look at Southern etiquette.
We can brush up on our manners together with these:
Come on, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Salina: We're here, Nikki.
Nikki: We're here in person again.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: That's like two weeks in a row.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So that's pretty exciting.
Salina: And I have myself a little thought that passed through my brain, and I was like, I'm going to ask this question out loud the next time that we see each other.
Salina: So are you ready for a question to get us started?
Nikki: I think so.
Salina: Okay, so let's just say that you were going to go on a pick a nick.
Nikki: Oh, that sounds nice.
Salina: Yeah, you're pick a nicken.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: And not knit picking.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: No picking again.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So you're pick a nicken, and you have the opportunity to eat a picnic, spend a day with someone who's famous, dead or alive.
Salina: I want you to picture in your head who that would be, and I'm going to do the same.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: All right.
Salina: And I realize that's a tough question, so I'm just going to go ahead and tell you guys.
Salina: I asked Nikki ahead of time because I feel like this was a very unfair thing to ask someone to do on the spot.
Salina: I needed, like, a solid half hour to figure this out.
Nikki: And here we are.
Nikki: And I'm still sweating.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I'm still nervous.
Nikki: I'm picturing at least three people.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So I thought what we could do then is we would just see 16 episodes in.
Salina: Have we spent enough time with each other to land on whoever that person is in guessing each other's, famous person, dead or alive?
Nikki: The answer is no, because I'm going to Zig and you're going to Zag.
Nikki: Because that's the nature of our relationship.
Salina: Yeah, probably so.
Salina: All right, well, I'm going to go ahead and are you ready for me to make a guess?
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: And then I'm going to decide if.
Salina: You'Re oh, well, that doesn't seem fair.
Salina: Well, now that you said we're going to zig and zag, I want to say Stephen Hawking, because that would be a really big zag for you, I think.
Salina: But I had two guesses in mind.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: One is Taylor Swift, because I feel like that's, like, one of your favorite people on earth.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Right.
Salina: She's nodding her head in addition to saying the words accurate.
Salina: And then number two, I was thinking Dolly Parton.
Salina: Is it better than who was on your list?
Nikki: Dolly, definitely.
Nikki: Like, as soon as I started thinking about that question, I had, like, three people in my head.
Nikki: You got one of them?
Nikki: One of them was Taylor Swift.
Nikki: I would love the opportunity to just sit down with her and just get in her head.
Nikki: Just like, tell me.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Taylor, how does one promote a podcast?
Nikki: Question number one, could you put us on your Instagram?
Salina: You seem like you've got some good marketing strategies.
Salina: Do you want to share any?
Nikki: You have no idea, and you're not an Uber fan, so I feel confident in saying you have no idea.
Nikki: Not that you're not a fan.
Nikki: You're not an uber fan.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: I think she's a genius.
Nikki: So that's the point.
Nikki: When you get into her marketing, it is really amazing.
Nikki: So she was one.
Nikki: Dolly is an amazing that is so true.
Nikki: And yes, Dolly would be cool, too, but I actually was thinking Queen Elizabeth and or Kate Middleton.
Salina: Thank you.
Salina: Kate was the other one.
Nikki: I forgot that I figured she would be on your list.
Nikki: For me, she's the other just I would have so many questions for them about life in the spotlight and life in the royal family and do they really feel like ordained by God or how do they feel about this role they've landed in?
Salina: Okay, so we're also suspending belief.
Salina: And whoever we're having this picnic with, they really will open up and tell us all the things.
Salina: I think that's an important caveat, right?
Nikki: I assumed that caveat, but actually, when I was thinking about this I meant to ask you that before we started, but I didn't want to pepper you with questions about the rules since I figured this was all suspending belief.
Salina: They were number Taylor Swift come on the show.
Nikki: And then my 3rd fourth one, if I'm considering Kate and the Queen as number two.
Nikki: Actually, my grandmother on my mom's side.
Nikki: She passed away when I was a sophomore in college.
Nikki: And I feel like I never really got to ask her.
Nikki: She had a very fascinating life.
Nikki: Not good, but fascinating.
Nikki: And so I never got the chance to talk to her about it and to learn about it, and I've heard about it from family and I've heard their kind of version of her life, but it would have been cool to hear that from her.
Salina: Okay, so I'm not going to take your grandma away from you, but I do have to ask, was your grandma famous?
Nikki: Famous to me.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: She's famous to me.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I mean, yeah, I'm not going to take away your grandma.
Salina: So I thought not saying famous might open up the channels too broad, which is the reason I didn't say that.
Salina: But you've told me a couple of tidbits.
Salina: And I would also like to sit down with you, grandma.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: All right.
Nikki: I ruined your game for you, but those are mine.
Salina: No.
Salina: And I wish we had put some coffee on it.
Salina: Okay, so are you ready to guess mine?
Nikki: I think so.
Nikki: I have a guess.
Nikki: I have one guess.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I would have guessed Queen Elizabeth or like, someone in the royal family.
Nikki: I would have guessed that.
Nikki: But as I was saying it, I was looking at your face and thinking, that wasn't it.
Nikki: Okay, so my second guess is Audrey Hepburn.
Salina: That's a really good guess.
Salina: And I did think about that, but she's so perfect and so good that I felt like I couldn't get any hot goss.
Salina: I want some hot.
Nikki: See?
Salina: Okay, so you want to take one more guess or you want me to just tell you?
Salina: It is?
Nikki: I want you to tell me.
Salina: Marilyn Monroe.
Nikki: Doug Navit.
Nikki: I knew.
Salina: Okay, so the funny thing is I listen to podcasts a lot and so I've been in an armchair expert hole, which sounds like I get on like a train, and that's the train I stay.
Salina: Know that podcast has been on for like three or four years now, so there's a lot of episodes and I almost caught myself going to be like, I would like to sit down with DAX Shepard because I actually think he sounds like a very fascinating human being.
Salina: And I don't want to take that away because I think that's true.
Salina: But in the universe of everything, I had to go with Marilyn, because one, I need to know, just in case we can just go to the conspiracy theorist what happened that day, and then also, she's a fascinating human being.
Salina: She's like a method actor, like one of the most famous Method actors ever.
Salina: She was never really given, like, a fair shake.
Salina: She was in Hollywood in a perfectly terrible time.
Salina: She is one of the most recognized faces and bodies on the entire planet since the amount of money she made did not equal out what they took from her.
Salina: And she got kind of classified as this ditzy blonde.
Salina: So I think what really is the most fascinating to me is that in 2012, is it Strasberg is the Method acting coach and had a bunch of really famous actors underneath him.
Salina: And she also was a student of his as well.
Salina: And they found a bunch of her letters when he died, and they wound up doing a documentary called Love Marilyn and brought in a bunch of actors to read from these letters.
Salina: Marilyn Monroe was a so, and I think that sort of goes in line, too, with Taylor Swift a little bit, because I think that's somebody that people underestimate a little bit, and I think it's somebody that she's come out and said some things that are more political.
Salina: I think that actually made me like her more.
Salina: Maybe not a popular opinion in the south, but oh, well.
Salina: So I thought that was really brave because I think people are, you know, you're famous, you don't get an opinion.
Salina: And that's not fair.
Salina: I think as long as you're fairly using your platform and you're not using it as a bullish way you got there, you should be able to say what you want to say.
Salina: So all that to say that I think there's some similarities between the two people that we chose, and that, guys, is this week's extra.
Salina: Oh, wait, no, it's just the beginning of the podcast.
Salina: Sorry.
Nikki: We haven't even started.
Salina: Sorry.
Salina: Yeah, we haven't.
Salina: And that's my bad.
Salina: I picked a long start.
Nikki: No, it was interesting.
Nikki: I do.
Nikki: I mean, there's so much more I could say.
Nikki: And as you think about, like you said, that universe of people.
Nikki: I thought through presidents and how cool it would be to sit down and yeah, assuming they're going to open up to you, but ask them, what is it like to be one of the most recognizable faces on the planet?
Nikki: What is that pressure like when you have to make life or death decisions?
Nikki: So there were tons of people I thought through and it sounds cheesy to have Taylor Swift on my list, but she really has done some really cool things.
Nikki: What you were saying about not being political in her music or just like in her platform.
Nikki: She talks a lot about that in her documentary about how in country music, which is relevant to our next episode, she talks about how you don't want to be Dixie Chicked because the Dixie Chicks accidentally said how they felt about something and not so accidentally, but they said it, and then they were kind of blackballed for a long time in country music.
Nikki: So Taylor said as long as she was in that world that just felt impossible to I just I would love to talk about that.
Nikki: How true is that?
Nikki: I know that's what she said externally, but how true is that?
Nikki: And what do we take from that and what do we learn from that?
Nikki: So I could have picked a million people, but she would be cool to talk to.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Well, I mean, I could almost go on this entire episode about this.
Nikki: I know.
Nikki: We could keep talking.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Because I have to tell you, I'll go ahead and just say that just thinking and bringing it back to Designing Women before we get into this episode in the description, which I'm going to toss over to you, I am at this point, again, where I didn't love this episode.
Salina: Yeah, but that's okay.
Salina: It's fun to talk about the good ones and it's fun to talk about the ones that you just go, it's fine.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: So this one is Reese's friend is the name of episode 16.
Salina: We're at episode 16, so that's kind of cool.
Salina: We're really trucking along at this point.
Salina: Do you want to take us into the episode description, Nikki?
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: Jealousy takes a giant step forward when Julia assumes her friend Reese is overly preoccupied with the beautiful new attorney in his law.
Nikki: OOH, her friend.
Nikki: Her friend Reese.
Nikki: We've well established he's more than her friend.
Salina: You think that they just feel weird calling like, a guy that age boyfriend.
Nikki: We don't need no age discrimination in our Hulu episode descriptions.
Salina: Yeah, I don't know.
Nikki: They could have called him a man friend.
Nikki: They could have called him her intimate partner.
Salina: Well, I actually think that I had a good description, which was there's trouble in paradise when Reese is spending a lot of time with a new lawyer at his firm.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: Go with Salina's Hulu if you want to borrow that.
Nikki: You can pay us for it.
Nikki: So this one aired on February 22, 1987.
Nikki: I did not look at those dates.
Nikki: I wonder if that was supposed to be our fourth Valentine's Day episode or was the last one our Valentine's Day episode?
Salina: I think the last one would have.
Nikki: Been this would have been a good one.
Nikki: So it was written by LBT.
Nikki: And it was directed by Arlene Sanford.
Salina: There you go.
Salina: So Desperate Housewives, Allie McBill, and Pretty Little Liars are all on that list, which I thought was kind of cool because sometimes we'll see the credits, the filmography credits, and it's like their career stopped in 88.
Salina: And so the fact that they've gone on to do something as recent as Pretty Little Liars is substantial.
Nikki: Well, there you go.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I guess we can just start with the cold open.
Salina: We learn here that we're headed in this episode towards an annual pre spring ball at the country club.
Salina: So we're getting fancy in this episode.
Salina: We're really showing where our ladies sit.
Salina: And Julia and Suzanne, as we know, they come from a pretty advantageous background.
Nikki: They're in a different social status than we.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So and then we get this whole thing about julia has voted down the theme that they were going to do, which Suzanne really loved, which was Hobo heaven.
Salina: Or maybe Hobo haven.
Salina: Hobohaven it is heaven.
Salina: That's even worse.
Salina: I don't know why Haven made it better, but Julia's description sounds like they.
Nikki: Died of why she came in.
Nikki: And it was distasteful or tacky.
Nikki: And I was like, well, that's an interesting way of saying, like, super stigmatizing and way tone deaf.
Salina: You don't take your spare time to go dress up like poor people.
Salina: I don't understand.
Nikki: Strange.
Salina: Yeah, it was all really weird.
Salina: The other thing is we also kind of get in the beginning how we're going to bring all of these people into the same room.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: And that's basically Julia buys everybody in the office tickets because it's a good cause.
Salina: Would you skip the dressing like poor people part?
Nikki: Well, they changed the theme.
Nikki: It's not that anymore.
Nikki: They can dress however they want now.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: Julia fixed it.
Salina: Yep.
Salina: And then we also have to figure out how to bring Anthony in.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: We sort of come out of the cold open.
Salina: And this is kind of nice because we are kind of streaming in the junior college know, he's picked up a schedule of spring classes, but he's having trouble paying for tuition.
Salina: So the way we're going to get him into the episode is Joy is going to get him a job at the country club as a waiter.
Salina: We also have, of course, a snide comment from Suzanne that he has no experience in a fancy place, basically.
Salina: And then Anthony lets them know, excuse me, I was the chief matri d at Dunbar Correctional Institute for Men for six months.
Nikki: That's a big role.
Nikki: That's important.
Salina: It is.
Salina: We also get our first mention of t tommy Reed.
Salina: Did you notice this?
Nikki: I did.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So this is a name again, like we've talked about before.
Nikki: I've never watched the show all the way through.
Nikki: Like, we're watching it, but I do remember this name.
Salina: Well, every time they say dude now, too, or Anthony does, I definitely think of you.
Salina: It definitely needs to be on the bingo card.
Salina: He calls him the meanest dude on Anthony's cell.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: And but the whole point of this is that the reason he knows is it's something like, oh, T.
Salina: Thomas Reed checked out some kind of book from the library about table manners, and then basically, like, was shanking people for not getting their table manners correct.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: But the important thing also that we get out of this, and it's going to connect to this week's extra sugar, is that Anthony knows how to fold his napkin into a tulip pattern.
Salina: So that's lovely.
Nikki: It's an underappreciated life skill, I think.
Salina: I guess so.
Salina: That kind of forays us into the now I'm just like making up words and using them in the wrong place.
Salina: But that sort of kind of pushes us into the episode.
Salina: And now Reese arrives, and we haven't seen Reese since they got married.
Salina: And then an old right.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And he's there to cancel his date with, uh, and it's because his firm is working on a lawsuit.
Salina: And then a very attractive woman comes in, shannon Gibbs, and she's a new attorney at the firm.
Nikki: And Julia totally couldn't care about her.
Nikki: It's nice.
Salina: He got everything.
Salina: Uh, she is fine with is.
Salina: That's a very fair point.
Salina: It's the women that make after he leaves that starts to really kind of edge at her self esteem.
Nikki: They do that thing, that thing that women do, which is pour gasoline on the fire.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And that's really too bad, honestly, but it definitely happens.
Salina: And Suzanne is leading the charge of.
Nikki: Yeah, but Anthony's not too impressed by her.
Nikki: She's got big feet.
Salina: Okay, so here's the thing.
Salina: This, I thought, was a really nice, impressive reminder that men can sometimes have a really good skill of knowing how to not, speaking of feet, put theirs in their own mouth.
Salina: So it kind of made me laugh.
Salina: It was like there wasn't a skipping of a beat, but you could tell.
Salina: Obviously, he thinks this woman is attractive, but it was just like, perfectly, like, I don't know, she kind of seemed like she had big feet to me.
Salina: And then I'm going to get out of here.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: So the other women got into her head about Shannon.
Nikki: Anthony tried to help her.
Nikki: She wasn't buying it.
Nikki: So we know for the rest of the episode, julia's going to be upset about this Shannon Reese thing.
Nikki: So then some time passes and we come back to Sugar Bakers, and we set up kind of the second big line of this story, or maybe third line, I guess, if you're counting Anthony's as the second, which is that Charlene has seen a psychic.
Nikki: Good things are coming of this psychic.
Nikki: So it's not the run of the mill like someone you saw someone in Green yesterday or anything like that.
Nikki: This time it is.
Nikki: You are going to meet the father of your children at a big social event this week.
Salina: Yeah, that's got to be like all the psychic capital, right?
Salina: All her chips went in on that.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: I'm assuming it was a female.
Salina: I don't know why?
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: But wouldn't you think just to stop there for a second, isn't Charlene sort of like a psychics?
Nikki: Like, they see her coming and they're like, ching ching, you know what?
Salina: Well, you know, Charlene's taken the bait.
Nikki: On a couple of things a time or two.
Nikki: So we get that kind of coming into the episode now that we're going to have kind of a little bit of a Charlene story, which is great because I'm a big Charlene fan.
Nikki: But then there's a Reese Julia head to head moment.
Salina: This is the thing.
Salina: And it escalates so fast.
Salina: Very quickly.
Nikki: So fast.
Nikki: Reese keeps calling it a misunderstanding, but it's right in front of the other.
Salina: Women, which is kind of like the way that they played it.
Salina: And he kind of introduces this kind of argument that they start to have as a misunderstanding.
Salina: Then there's a button on the end where they've basically taken each other to task and he's like, what?
Salina: Y'all have never seen a misunderstanding.
Salina: But let's back into that about how all this got started.
Nikki: So I have a bunch of thoughts about it.
Nikki: Julia openly so he comes in and cancels going to the ball with her.
Nikki: He says he's not going to be able to because he has to depositions or lawyer, such I don't remember, but he's not going to be able to go.
Nikki: So then she is sort of like, well, I'm not surprised, and gets into all the reasons she's not surprised.
Nikki: He acts like he has no idea what she's talking about.
Nikki: She openly accuses him of lusting after Shannon.
Nikki: He says he's not and maybe I got it wrong.
Nikki: Maybe he wasn't canceling the dance.
Nikki: Maybe he was canceling a different date.
Salina: Oh, it's just a different date.
Nikki: It was a different date.
Nikki: Sorry about that.
Nikki: He was canceling a different date.
Nikki: He said it's her.
Nikki: He's going to take to the date.
Salina: Six dates.
Nikki: Six in a row.
Nikki: Six in a row, that's right.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: It's a I think I just imagine she's had enough time to marinate and really let this whole Shannon thing take over everything.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: You can imagine how it's like propagated in her brain, right?
Salina: Definitely.
Nikki: It starts as like this tiny little kernel she was trying to ignore.
Nikki: And then Suzanne turns on the flame and it pops into a piece of popcorn.
Nikki: It just keeps popping.
Salina: Well, and once you get to six dates, I mean, I understand, like, you busy, you got work and that's fine, but six dates, that's pretty rude.
Salina: At that point, he does offer for her to go on the deposition.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: He invites her.
Nikki: He's real generous.
Salina: What did he said?
Salina: He said, oh, to come along with us and the US with Shannon.
Salina: And that's when it really started to all mean.
Salina: She just flies off the handle.
Nikki: She loses it a little bit.
Salina: And again, I think anger is fine, but she proceeds to tell him she's going to call the police and have him arrested for trespassing.
Salina: And then he makes a comment about how sometimes she just needs to be taken out and horse whipped.
Salina: These were different times, the 80s, my.
Nikki: Notes say, good Lord.
Salina: And to me that was a very Rhett Butler Gone with the Wind thing.
Salina: I think LBT.
Salina: Was a big Gone with the Wind fan.
Salina: And I just think that this was like I mean, let's just remember that domestic culture yep, domestic abuse really used to be very baked know.
Salina: And so I know that's not the road he's going on or down, but I do feel like that's wrapped into even the very language that we still speak today.
Salina: You know my feelings about the rule of thumb, because that's how wide something could be to hit your wife with.
Salina: So, yes, that bothers me a little bit when we use it in business language.
Salina: So I think it was just a lot.
Salina: Obviously he really doesn't mean it, but it kind of strikes you in a certain way, like a horse whip, maybe.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I think two things I wanted to say about their argument.
Nikki: So I think we talked at the very beginning of the episode, how they're in a different social stratosphere than I'll speak for myself, I won't pull you into that, but oh, yes, I'm going.
Salina: To bowls all the time also.
Salina: We're sitting here, we're so out of it, we're calling it a ball.
Salina: This is a dance.
Nikki: So he the whole time calls it a misunderstanding because it would be ungentlemanly to acknowledge the fact that they're fighting in front of other people.
Nikki: But I think I'm so bothered by the fact that they did it in front of other people because that seems so tacky to me.
Nikki: That just feels like if they had any ounce of etiquette and courtesy, they would know you don't fight in front of other people.
Salina: Stick around for extra sugar, where we'll talk about Southern etiquette.
Nikki: So she tells him, well, you're not the man that's going to do it.
Nikki: Speaking of him, of someone horse whipping her.
Nikki: And just basically he leaves.
Nikki: He turns to the other ladies, haven't you ever seen a misunderstanding before?
Nikki: And leaves.
Nikki: So then it's another amount of time, maybe the next day or something, and julia is obviously distracted.
Nikki: Mary Jo tells her she thinks she's depressed and just needs to go ahead and call Reese.
Nikki: And Julia says, I've never been happier, and I've never believed someone less.
Nikki: And then Suzanne sweeps in as she's one to do.
Salina: She's always there.
Nikki: She's always there with just the news.
Salina: You need Linda help in hand.
Nikki: What's the news this time?
Salina: Well, the news this time is that Reese is taking Shannon to the dance, the ball, whatever this thing is, this country club event.
Salina: So that takes a lot of balls.
Salina: And so I will just say that my parting thought on this was, good grief.
Salina: Am I going to have to say this every time we have an episode with these two?
Salina: Are they adults?
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And that's it.
Nikki: So in this next scene is when we get them all at the ball.
Nikki: This is when everybody gets there.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: We're there.
Nikki: We're there.
Nikki: Mary Jo, Suzanne and Charlene have all ridden together.
Nikki: They're in high's limo.
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: He's not there.
Salina: Right.
Salina: This is Suzanne's date.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: We didn't talk about that earlier yet he's 112.
Salina: That's how she likes him.
Nikki: So they're all there.
Nikki: Julia arrives separately with a much younger date.
Nikki: Reese is there with Shannon, and Anthony is waiting tables.
Nikki: That's this part of the episode sounds.
Salina: All accurate to me.
Salina: We also get some fancy fashion from our ladies.
Salina: We'll have to drop a screenshot of that into our social media or something, because it is something.
Salina: It is a treat for the eyes.
Nikki: So I have two thoughts about Mary Jo.
Nikki: Here one related to what you're saying.
Nikki: So I loved Charlene and Suzanne's dresses.
Nikki: They brought the glitter again.
Nikki: You know how I feel about the sequins.
Nikki: Mary Jo, man, that poor creature.
Nikki: Why do they keep putting her in this stuff?
Nikki: Why?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Well, this is the sexiest thing she's been in.
Salina: And it's just I think it's probably challenging because she is really petite, and Suzanne and Charlene are what I would describe as statuesque.
Salina: And so I think they just have a lot like a lot of that evening wear tends to work better, I think, on tall people.
Salina: For instance, I'm wearing a long dress today, and I was tripping on it up the stairs, and I'm having to throw the end of it over my shoulder just to make it up without breaking my neck.
Salina: So it's just a different world we live down here in this five foot two lane.
Nikki: All right, so I'll give her a pass.
Nikki: I will also say, though, may we never forget what a lightweight she is.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: She tied one on in the limo accidentally.
Nikki: She thought it was juice or something.
Salina: Sure she did.
Salina: She just, like, licks the outside of the bottle and she's like, woo.
Salina: And, like, tops coming off and it's getting crazy in there.
Salina: I don't know.
Nikki: So we find out that High didn't come to the ball because he had the audacity to get an open heart surgery.
Salina: This is coming from Suzanne.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Charlene is attracted to the wait staff.
Nikki: She finds a man is like, that's the man I'm going to marry.
Nikki: And Suzanne's like, yeah, of course it is.
Nikki: He works here.
Salina: Well, we also get our southern etiquette tip here, which is because Suzanne lets them know as they're heading in to go sit down with some very fancy people.
Salina: So everybody needs to act their best.
Salina: Do not embarrass me.
Salina: She lays it down.
Nikki: Well, good.
Nikki: She doesn't want him to do anything uncouth.
Nikki: I think we get the word uncouth again.
Salina: We love uncouth around here.
Nikki: So this is about when Julia makes her grand entrance with her younger date, Harrison.
Nikki: I gotta say, since we talked about fashion, I'm gonna say I don't love Julia's pinstripe purple formal gown.
Nikki: I wasn't loving it.
Salina: Yeah, but her date is some quiet arm he.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: I thought he was a very attractive I didn't even notice a very attractive man.
Nikki: I'm Anthony here.
Nikki: I had no idea he looked like he had big feet.
Salina: I want to make ten jokes, but.
Nikki: I'm not I know.
Nikki: I realized I teed you up.
Nikki: Disappointed me.
Nikki: So Reese makes room for them at the table.
Nikki: There's a joke about a high chair in there.
Nikki: He and Julia, they're both young.
Salina: Right?
Salina: This attractive arm candy that Julia has brought is also young.
Salina: So we need multiple high chairs at the table.
Nikki: I thought it was really funny when Julia came in and said to the other ladies, like, I'm sorry we're late.
Nikki: I hope we didn't miss anything.
Nikki: And Mary Jo said, nah, we thought some man was going to father Charlene's children.
Nikki: He was just going to the bathroom.
Nikki: Because she's continuing to lust after these men as they're walking by.
Salina: Oh, yeah, she's ready.
Nikki: So a couple more things in this part of the episode for me, shannon asks Reese to dance with her.
Nikki: So then Julia says she wants to rumba that's Harrison.
Salina: That was so strange.
Salina: And then that's like I have in my notes, like, now we're off in the races to the one upmanship.
Salina: We're just really going to do a little tat for taut.
Salina: Wanted to try.
Salina: I don't like tit for tat.
Nikki: Well, that's one way to avoid it.
Salina: It makes me uncomfortable.
Salina: So I'll say all of them and confuse you.
Nikki: But Harrison, I think Julia did not come out on top because Harrison's going to charge her extra to dance.
Salina: Okay, let's take a pause right there.
Salina: Isn't that like escort 101?
Nikki: What's that?
Salina: Don't say in a very loud voice that you're going to have to charge extra for something.
Salina: Would you set those ground rules at the beginning?
Salina: There's a reason that we're hiring your services.
Nikki: Weird.
Nikki: I don't know what you're talking about.
Nikki: Salina, I'm not sure of these rules of which you speak.
Nikki: I'm not familiar.
Nikki: Telling me.
Salina: That if you spent money on an escort, you wouldn't be upset if they were like, that's going to cost you extra when you're obviously bringing someone in to make an impression.
Nikki: If I were paying for an escort, there's more for me to be upset about.
Nikki: Salina well, it's not as funny if they don't make a big deal about it in front of Reese.
Salina: Oh, the show, right.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: This is a television show.
Nikki: Yes, I hear you.
Nikki: I don't think Harrison was the best escort.
Nikki: Maybe he was new.
Salina: Also extra for dancing.
Salina: I mean, I know there's extra for things, but dancing?
Salina: Shouldn't that come with the package?
Salina: I don't understand.
Nikki: Good point.
Nikki: You're made all good points, Salina.
Nikki: You are making good points.
Salina: It's either obvious that I've had a number of escorts in my life or zero.
Nikki: The thing is, when I think you're going to zig, you zag.
Salina: You guys be the judge.
Salina: Have I had multiple or none?
Salina: Multiple or none?
Salina: I'm gonna keep you guessing.
Salina: Anthony's had a bad night, too.
Nikki: Yeah, man.
Nikki: He's not feeling these people.
Salina: Apparently high society folks are worse than who he dealt with during his unfortunate incarceration.
Salina: Anthony, I could have told you that.
Nikki: Light my bick, flick my ash, swizzle.
Salina: My stick was a great line.
Nikki: Yeah, it was great.
Salina: Do you think they purposely stayed away from flick my bick?
Salina: That was the slogan, I think, for oh, was it?
Salina: Yeah, I think it was.
Salina: Well, maybe I feel like I just harassed you.
Nikki: When he said flick my ash, I was like, excuse me, I had to rewind that one a couple.
Salina: Well, now that you said that, I'm like, we're just over here being dirty.
Salina: Oops.
Salina: I do like also, this camaraderie between JD.
Salina: And Anthony, like, they legitimately seem like they're friends.
Salina: Part of me, especially over this episode, was sitting there.
Salina: This will tell you where my mind was during this, where I just felt frankly, bored, was that I wanted to imagine a show with the two of oh.
Salina: And so by day, JD Is a talent scout for the Braves, as he is, and Anthony is a delivery person.
Salina: But by night, they deliver justice, fighting crime in the city of Atlanta and bringing racial harmony to the south.
Nikki: I think you're onto something that could have been a thing.
Salina: We could have done something with that.
Nikki: Well, now we're going to have to think who the actors for today would be if you wanted to make that show happen.
Nikki: So that's your assignment.
Nikki: Who would you put in those roles?
Salina: You'd be assigning me things.
Nikki: So then, of course, this is the last act of the show, which means we're going to resolve this thing with Julia and.
Salina: They'Re going to work this out.
Nikki: Let's see.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: Let's see.
Nikki: Who knows?
Nikki: My guess is yes.
Nikki: She has a shocking moment when she learns that he's prepared some clothing choices that are making her feel still.
Nikki: She thinks he's going to go to bed with Shannon because he's chosen different underwear.
Salina: Well, they've bought new not let's not.
Nikki: Beat around the bush.
Nikki: That's what's happening.
Nikki: He's still claiming he's not into her and then some things happen.
Nikki: So some things happen, but it starts with a dance between Julia and.
Salina: Does well, and this is where the new boxer stuff comes up, I think Julia's like, I didn't understand why we were spending so much time on the man's underwear.
Salina: That's what I'm going to say.
Salina: I didn't understand why that was.
Salina: I mean, I kind of understand why it's an indicator of a new relationship.
Salina: You want to look your best the first time you're in your didn't.
Salina: It just really threw Julia for a loop.
Salina: And I think that's the important part.
Salina: This conversation they have about him having new underwear, he's on this date.
Salina: I'm like, this is what you're upset about, not the fact that the thing you were worried about was that he had this young, attractive woman working for the law firm and they were spending a lot of time together.
Salina: You guys had a huge fight over it and now he brought her as his date.
Salina: But that didn't clue her in.
Salina: That wasn't the thing.
Salina: It was the underwear.
Nikki: Well, she also says that he's in love with her.
Nikki: She goes back to the table with the girls and says it's all over.
Nikki: He's in love with her.
Nikki: I'm not buying it because a man in love with a woman wears old jinky underwear.
Nikki: He's not buying new underwear.
Nikki: So I don't think he's in love with her initially.
Nikki: I mean, she'd cheat, but he initially isn't in love with her.
Nikki: And Julia says he's in love with her.
Nikki: So Julia has skipped a bunch of.
Salina: What we're trying to say, people person grandma.
Salina: No, I'm just kidding.
Salina: Grandma won't listen to the podcast because she can't figure out how to work it.
Salina: You're going to be real embarrassed when you finally get to this episode.
Salina: And I say that grandma anyways, so.
Nikki: Mean to your grandma.
Salina: I love my grandmas.
Nikki: Both of them.
Salina: Sometimes they're not up and up on the technologies.
Salina: But what we're trying to say here is don't make your life decisions around underwear.
Salina: Is that fair enough?
Salina: I feel like that's a good takeaway for today.
Nikki: I also appreciate they said why are we talking so much about a man's underwear?
Nikki: Then we proceeded to talk about a man's underwear for an extended amount of time.
Salina: That is what we do.
Salina: Not for a living.
Nikki: So they finish their dance.
Nikki: Julia's just totally heartbroken because this is not going the way she wanted it to go.
Nikki: So I'm clutching my pearls right now because Shannon tries to strike up an affair with Reese and I'm going to go back to the comment that's in my note, which is, good lord, she was super forthright and it made me super.
Salina: Mean okay.
Salina: Can we just break down what she says?
Nikki: We can.
Salina: I'm going to be okay.
Nikki: I only have the one line that really stressed me out.
Nikki: I think I'm getting red again.
Salina: Okay, get your pearls.
Salina: All right, so this is what she says.
Salina: She says that she wants to go to bed with him, which is something else she's very good at.
Salina: And all day long, she's been thinking about exploding in each other's arms.
Salina: Oh, is that the line?
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Oh, excuse me.
Salina: So this is all accompanied by this extended law metaphor where she calls him counselor and then wants to know the verdict.
Salina: And I'm just like, okay, if you talk to someone you're coming on to like this, please message us, email us, send carrier pigeons.
Salina: I got to know.
Nikki: And we want to interview you.
Salina: If someone said this to me, I wouldn't even mean to.
Salina: I would laugh.
Salina: Like, that's something else I'm very good at.
Salina: I'm like, what is happening?
Salina: I just didn't understand.
Salina: I just thought it was the weirdest way to come on to somebody.
Salina: So it didn't work for me.
Nikki: Shannon well, it didn't work for Reese either, because poor Reese can't deal.
Nikki: He's out.
Nikki: He's out.
Salina: I think it scared the crap out of him.
Nikki: He's headed to the bar, which, to be honest, I want to go to the bar right now, too.
Salina: I think it's a little bit of a generational gap.
Nikki: Was it was too much for him.
Nikki: That was more forthright than he was expecting.
Nikki: I am an old soul, so I think it was more forthright for me.
Nikki: No judgment on Shannon.
Nikki: I'm super proud of her for owning her body and destiny and whatever, but.
Salina: We'Ll come up with a better pickup, right?
Salina: Yeah, but and don't do the extended law metaphor.
Nikki: It was too much.
Nikki: So they cut to Suzanne, who's appalled about Charlene because she's dancing with a guy from the kitchen.
Nikki: There's an awkward cut in here, and there's an awkward cut because there's a missing script alert.
Nikki: There is an entire oh, I mean, what?
Salina: Sorry.
Nikki: There's an entire conversation at the bar where Reese says what?
Nikki: We presumed that he was a little bit surprised he didn't see it coming, and then it came, and he was just not prepared in the script.
Nikki: He says, well, I'm not sure I'm packing that much dynamite.
Nikki: To which I'm like.
Nikki: So he didn't hook up with her because he doesn't think he can keep up, not because he loves Julia.
Salina: Well, I don't know.
Salina: I didn't even think about it that way, I guess.
Salina: So I'm going to probably sound a little thrown because I think for me, I had other thoughts about this.
Salina: Mean, because we learned that Burton is his partner that he's talking to.
Salina: Right.
Salina: And she says something to or one of the things that he said is that she's even patted him on the b*** a few times.
Salina: I mean, just the whole thing is mean.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Is this just like a guy talking to another guy?
Salina: Is he going to get all especially of that generation and get all gushy about Julia?
Salina: I don't know, but don't you think.
Nikki: He would have then just said, y'all totally bag it?
Salina: Well, maybe.
Salina: All I knew is if the other line bothered you hearing about whether or not he's packing dynamite in his new or old underwear, I'm like, why is there so much focus on his crotch area?
Salina: That's what I don't understand.
Nikki: I'm itching do you see me?
Nikki: Itching myself.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: I feel like maybe I should tell you that Nikki has been scratching for a while now.
Salina: All up top.
Nikki: No, I so we cut to the bathroom and this is where the real dynamite happens because Shannon has odly decided to try to convince Julia it's a good idea for her to have an affair with Reese.
Salina: We're just really leaning into that.
Salina: Whatever.
Salina: It meant to be a woman of.
Nikki: The moment in the my God.
Nikki: So she says she doesn't want to take him away from Julia.
Nikki: She just really wants a casual thing.
Nikki: And then Julia gets like, really, Caddy?
Salina: You know what's kind of funny about that is, like, I've positioned my fingers on my face in a way that was weird and Nikki's making fun of me.
Salina: It's all relevant.
Salina: Maybe, but what's really funny to me is this is supposed to be progressive for the times, but she's basically suggesting what happened a lot, I feel like in the which was basically all of these guys had like a side piece.
Salina: But maybe what makes it more progressive is that it's just going to be out on the table and we'll all know maybe we'll all go get our STD testing done together.
Salina: I don't know, but it's just funny to me because it doesn't really feel very progressive.
Salina: But you're right.
Salina: Julia goes caddy.
Salina: I almost said wampus.
Nikki: She's mean.
Nikki: She compares her to manure, basically.
Nikki: Did you write her whole thing down?
Nikki: You're always the one with the so.
Salina: Okay, well, I also want to mention that Mary Jo is in the room.
Salina: They're like in the powder room at this place.
Salina: And you see Mary Jo's face because she's sitting in the mirror.
Salina: She sees all this about to go down and I just want there to be like a meme made and she's like with some popcorn because she's still like half in the bag right when she's in there anyway.
Salina: And so she's almost kind of like laid down on the table.
Salina: It's pretty excellent.
Salina: But yeah, I mean, Julia basically calls her trash.
Salina: Despite being very pretty and clever.
Salina: She uses the term compost.
Salina: Like you said, manure, that's a classy southern lady way to say sure.
Salina: So she also mentions that she's watched it be hauled away in wagons compost.
Salina: To which I said, how old is Julia?
Nikki: Old.
Salina: So I didn't have all the words, I think, is what I'm trying to tell you.
Salina: But when Julia says all this and she just hotily runs out of the room, mary Jo pops in and says, around the office, we call her the Terminator.
Salina: And that's pretty much where things wrap up between Julia and Shannon.
Nikki: So it didn't work out for poor Shannon, but now she's back with Reese and tells him she doesn't have indiscriminate sex with random people.
Nikki: She's very particular, so he should really see this as a compliment of sorts, an opportunity.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: That's a word.
Nikki: And he just really politely declines her offer.
Salina: He likes commitment.
Salina: And I think, again, we get this kind of, like, generational thing.
Nikki: He likes commitment, and I do think he likes Julia.
Salina: Yeah, of course.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: They are really into each other.
Salina: I mean, that's clear.
Salina: They're just being very immature, this whole episode, I think.
Salina: So their brand doesn't work for me, but they're clearly meant for one another.
Salina: One thing that I have to say is, did you notice the giant discotech ball?
Nikki: I did not, but I appreciate you calling it a discotech ball.
Salina: What's it called?
Nikki: Disco ball.
Salina: Oh, no, I think in here it's called a disco tech ball.
Salina: No, in 87, it's definitely a disco tech ball.
Salina: First of all, feels like a weird thing to have at a classy country club event.
Salina: But also, this episode is not worth going back to rewatch, but it's almost worth going back just to see them use this as a transition.
Salina: So in between these different scenes, between people, they'll kind of go up to the disco ball.
Salina: That's a hipper thing to call it.
Salina: And then they'll kind of cascade back down to the different scene.
Salina: And that way you still know we're still at the dance.
Salina: And I don't know, there was just something about it that really made me kind of, like, chuckle when I was watching this really wonderful episode.
Salina: But what cuts, again, between the transition of the disco ball, you guys can't see, but there's a lot of flailing of my arms right now because that's what disco balls do.
Salina: But it's Julia and Reese, and they're slow dancing again.
Salina: This time it's a little slower, a little closer.
Salina: They've made up.
Nikki: Who saw that coming?
Salina: Just all of us.
Nikki: I'm shocked.
Nikki: Color me shocked.
Nikki: Yeah, don't worry.
Nikki: There's another mention of underwear, though we do get that.
Salina: We also get a flashover to Suzanne.
Salina: And I'm just going to go ahead and foreshadow.
Salina: Obviously, Nikki and I have to watch a little ahead.
Salina: I don't want to give anything away except for to say that it feels like what LBT.
Salina: Starts to do is she is capturing the things that the audience is saying but in the mouths of the characters.
Salina: And I felt that here with Suzanne, because when it goes over to her and Suzanne is like, sitting there with JD.
Salina: Still and she's watching them dance, she says I don't know why I bothered to get so upset.
Salina: I mean, they just thrive on this stuff.
Salina: And that's exactly where I'm kind of at.
Salina: They're enjoying this, like we said in the other episode, and I'm going to clean this version up.
Salina: They like to fight so that they can make up and that's what this episode was for me.
Salina: And then what is our final underwear moment?
Salina: Because I want the people to get all the underwears.
Nikki: Oh, darn.
Nikki: I didn't write it down.
Nikki: I just know that there was an underwear mention.
Salina: I got it.
Nikki: Oh, good.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Salina: I didn't mean to put you on the underwear show.
Salina: That they come back to them one last time, reese and Julia on the dance floor and he invites her to find out if he actually got those new you just kind of that's why I had to write it down.
Salina: Because, guys, this is the kind of stuff that we like to erase from our memory.
Salina: That's where the show ends.
Salina: So hallelujah to that.
Salina: So, Nikki, are you ready to rate this underwear?
Salina: I mean.
Nikki: I am.
Salina: Do you have a rating scale this time?
Nikki: I do now.
Nikki: Is the underwear it's big flicks.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Salina: I love that.
Salina: Why don't you start us off then?
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: I did two.
Salina: Intro.
Salina: I gave it a two.
Nikki: What was your rating scale?
Salina: Pairs of good looking underwear.
Salina: Oh, I like the bix, so I'm going to switch to yours.
Nikki: Bixlics?
Salina: Yep.
Nikki: It's just boring.
Nikki: Yeah, I can't handle I don't get this Julia Reese toxicity.
Nikki: It feels toxic to me and I don't like it.
Nikki: And I understand it's their bag, so have at it.
Nikki: But every time I have to watch it.
Salina: Yeah, and I think we've talked about this before, but it's sort of like we kind of know.
Salina: I doubt anyone else is watching these episodes.
Salina: Even like, whoever's following along, they're not watching these episodes four and five times.
Salina: That's our gift.
Salina: And sometimes I'm like I'll like it a little bit more every time I watch it.
Salina: I've had those episodes.
Salina: And then there's sometimes when I have to go back to watch it, I have to go back to watch it.
Salina: And that's what this one felt like for me.
Salina: I was actually excited by the name of it.
Salina: I thought they could have done something really good with it, but it just didn't land for me.
Salina: So I felt agitated with them most of the episode, julia and Reese and I kind of think, at least from what we've seen so far, it's more of what you're saying.
Salina: They're just a terrible couple.
Nikki: They really are.
Nikki: Not great together, made for each other.
Salina: Maybe, but they're just not like they're not a good time to watch.
Salina: They're stubborn to a fault.
Salina: They're being immature.
Salina: And the whole fight so we can make up routine, it just doesn't resonate with me.
Salina: I'm not like that.
Salina: Again, I don't have to be like you to enjoy something.
Salina: But for me, when I'm mad, I am p*****, and I want you to go fly a kite.
Salina: I don't want to get close to you.
Salina: I don't want to slow dance with you.
Salina: I don't want to do none of that.
Salina: Just that whole kind of mentality I don't get.
Salina: So also, I have to say that there was something a little icky to me about the portrayal of Shannon and how she was written.
Salina: And part of that is like, they take this scene out where the missing script that you mentioned?
Salina: But it's hilarious to me because what we're presenting here is that, man, this is really an issue.
Salina: These young, oversexed women just infiltrate in the workplace.
Salina: And my thought was, is that the problem?
Salina: Was that really the issue?
Salina: Just these women, these newfangled women just coming into the workplace, they're just wanting to pat everybody's b*** and just sleep with the partners.
Salina: They're just causing a raucous with their brains and their bodies, their lawyering.
Salina: Yeah, they're just coming in with their breasts, and we're just very confused.
Salina: We just have penises.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: There was just something in it that read that way to me, and it didn't.
Salina: And I was like, I don't think this was the big harassment problem.
Salina: I'm not saying it never happened, but gosh, hollywood loved a femme fatale.
Salina: Okay, so that was the other thing for me.
Salina: And then just bored.
Nikki: I was bored.
Salina: Anything else you want to say on the rating?
Nikki: There were some bright spots.
Nikki: Anthony is very funny.
Nikki: Like you said earlier, anthony and JD.
Nikki: Together, that's just a dinner party group that I would want to be with.
Nikki: Yeah, they're really cute.
Nikki: I think Charlene's storyline about her future husband, it was so bizarre to set that up and then never really there were cuts to her, like, dancing with kitchen staff or whatever, but it just sort of ends like there's no whatever.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Dancing with a random guy at the end.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: That one felt like it could have been kind of funnier.
Salina: And a lot of times I feel like and again, to LBT's credit, it is really easy for you and I to sit here 30 years later and be, excuse me, 35 years later and be like, you know what you could have done.
Nikki: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Nikki: I couldn't do this any better.
Nikki: That's my favorite part of critiquing things.
Nikki: Like when you watch Olympians and you're like, my God, he couldn't get to the end of the pool, and I couldn't do that.
Nikki: So what am I doing?
Nikki: This is for fun.
Nikki: That's just like Opining.
Salina: What we're trying to say is, LBT.
Salina: Come on the show.
Nikki: We couldn't do it any better.
Nikki: We have the benefit, the gift of time removed and a different perspective.
Nikki: So we can still offer our perspective.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: No one's jumping to make our TV show.
Salina: Well, not yet.
Nikki: Not yet.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: It depends on how many more times I get to say breast, underwear and p**** in this episode.
Nikki: You didn't get I wonder if any.
Salina: Of these are going to make it into the final show.
Salina: That's what I like to sit around and see.
Salina: How about some 80s things?
Nikki: I feel like I should have more, especially because you just said discotech ball and I totally did not catch the ball, so I feel like I should have more.
Nikki: I don't really have any 80s things.
Salina: Well, the funny thing is I didn't have that on the list.
Salina: I don't even know what I'm doing on my list.
Salina: Was a rolodex.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Nikki: She's flipping through the rolodex very angrily.
Salina: And again, a lot of times I have things on my list and I realize they might still be a thing, but there's something that feels 80s about it.
Salina: A harlequin.
Salina: A novel.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Salina: That felt very eighty s to me.
Salina: That's it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And a disco tech ball.
Salina: All right.
Salina: Southern things.
Nikki: There was a Marietta, Georgia shout out.
Salina: That was very exciting.
Nikki: Yes, that was very exciting.
Nikki: That's it a country club ball, but.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Not a disco tech ball.
Salina: So I have Marietta as well.
Salina: For those of you who are not from the Atlanta area, marietta is well, actually, you've mentioned it before.
Salina: It's where the Big Chicken is in an earlier episode, but it's in the suburbs of Atlanta.
Salina: I'm starting to think Uncouth needs to go on the bingo card, if it's not already.
Salina: Can't remember and I don't have it in front of me.
Salina: We do get a mention of rural Georgia where Julia apparently grew.
Salina: Like it didn't fit in with the show Bible.
Salina: Wherever that sits.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: That's a device of telling this narrative.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: This doesn't seem to fit with this idea of them having servants and things growing up.
Salina: I mean, it could maybe it was the servants running the compost wagon.
Nikki: Yeah, it could.
Nikki: And you did mention earlier, you did ask, how old is Julia?
Nikki: And it's possible Atlanta was very rural when Julia was but a mean, I.
Salina: Guess if it was covered wagons.
Salina: You mentioned this.
Salina: The country club did feel particularly Southern to me.
Salina: I realized there are country clubs all over the US.
Salina: I can't explain it, but it does it just feels Southern.
Salina: And then Reese, when he was referring to his own underwear my God, I've said underwear more times in this episode than I've said in my entire life.
Salina: But he refers to them as being good looking.
Nikki: Good looking.
Salina: And that felt very Southern to me as well.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: References anything you had to look up?
Salina: No, I'll just go ahead and just lay this napkin on the table and do some admission here.
Salina: I did not know what a tulip pattern looked like.
Salina: I had seen it before, and I think I had heard that terminology before, but I had to look it up to see it together, to see what that pattern of a napkin looked like.
Salina: Okay, it's a little overdone.
Nikki: Not your style.
Salina: Probably won't be having any tulip patterns on the Smith table.
Salina: So anyways, that was it for me.
Salina: And then what do we have coming up next?
Nikki: Next episode is Episode 17 nashville Bound Spoiler alert.
Nikki: I also thought that episode was going to be something different.
Nikki: I'm not enjoying these titles lately.
Salina: Oh, but wouldn't it be nice if we were doing this episode Nashville?
Nikki: It would be.
Nikki: That's true.
Salina: We're not.
Nikki: We are not.
Nikki: We are very much in metro Atlanta.
Nikki: So, as always, follow along on social media.
Nikki: We are on Instagram and Facebook at Sweet tea and TV.
Nikki: You can email us at sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Nikki: We're at WW sweettv.com.
Nikki: And if you are really enjoying this journey with us, share us with your friends, family, neighbors, strangers, anyone you want to share it with.
Nikki: And leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to the podcast.
Salina: And now we'll just skip over the fact that Nikki once again just asked you to pass us around to your friends.
Nikki: Do it on the phone, whatever it takes.
Salina: And then stick around for this week's Il Extra Sugar, where we'll talk about Southern etiquette.
Salina: And we're going to test Nikki's table manners, see how much she knows and doesn't know.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: So we'll see you around the bend by welcome, Nikki, to this edition of Extra Sugar.
Nikki: Thank you.
Salina: So what we're going to go ahead and do is just jump into what I'm calling today Southern etiquette.
Salina: And in case no one can understand my Southern accent, that's Southern etiquette.
Salina: This is important because episode 16 really touches on etiquette in a couple of different ways, particularly at the dinner table.
Salina: We get early on in the episode that Anthony's former cellmate, t Tommy Reed, really has an obsession with table manners.
Salina: We have Anthony's flawless execution of a tulip pattern, and then we also follow this whole thing up.
Salina: The entire episode is actually centered around the Hill Gang attending an event at a country club event.
Salina: You got to be real prim and proper for the country club.
Salina: Sure.
Salina: I also wanted to go ahead and throw in that what we really have here is another Southern stereotype.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Because basically I'm going to posit that in entertainment, we get two versions of Southerners.
Salina: This is four.
Salina: We get two versions right.
Salina: And I feel like one is like this Southern hillbilly kind of character.
Salina: The other is a Southern gentleman or a Southern belle or lady.
Salina: And we're sort of positioned as either having the most impeccable table manners or basically biting our toenails at the dinner table.
Salina: So I just want to ask before we jump into this, does that dichotomy resonate with you at all and what you see in TV?
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Absolutely.
Nikki: And it's so, like, I'm not going to admit now that I bite my toenails at the dinner table.
Nikki: I guess that's out the window, but it's just not I mean, it's not true to my southern experience.
Nikki: We're in that middle ground.
Nikki: We also talked about how we're a different social stratosphere than Julia and Suzanne are, so maybe that makes sense.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: They only bite their toenails in the privacy of their own home.
Nikki: The idea of biting toenails is giving.
Salina: The love so much.
Salina: It's terrible.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Salina: All right.
Salina: Etiquette is the set of requirements or rules for good social behavior in a community.
Salina: So the word etiquette is actually French.
Salina: I'm looking at you, kid, because you're the one that speaks French.
Salina: So it comes from a time when people actually needed a physical ticket to visit the king and queen, and they were chosen based on how properly they acted.
Salina: So, like, you had to have good manners and dress nicely and not just on special occasions.
Salina: It's like the way you lived your life.
Salina: Your face is telling me this is new news.
Nikki: My face is telling you we talk a lot about how hard it is to live in the world today, but, God, that sounds challenging.
Salina: I will be like, it's really not that important to me to meet the king.
Salina: But back then, there's the ordained by god thing.
Salina: So let's get into southern etiquette.
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: We can specifically talk about table manners.
Salina: That's definitely a piece of this.
Salina: But I also thought we could talk generally about southern etiquette and what that means to us.
Salina: So people, persons, individual, whom, or whoever you are, because I don't ever know when to use whom and who.
Salina: I shared with Nikki a southern living article before we met, and that article was titled 20 unspoken rules of etiquette that every Southerner follows.
Salina: We'll link to that from our website.
Salina: What we don't want to do is go through all 20, because then we're just reading to you, and that's not a good time for anyone.
Salina: What I did think we could do, however, is talk a little bit about our experience growing up.
Salina: And I'd just go ahead and ask you, Nikki, after you read that list, what was it that resonated with you the most and what resonated with you the least?
Nikki: There were a couple of ways that you carry yourself is maybe how I would sort of bucket those those really resonated with me in some of my mom's roles growing up, and then there were some about kids.
Nikki: The whole be seen but not heard does not resonate with me at all.
Nikki: So there were a couple in that vein that just really didn't resonate.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Do you want specifics?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So chewing with your mouth open or talking with food in your mouth is one I felt in my soul because I had to sit in the bathroom one time because I smacked my food at the dinner table.
Salina: Oh, wow.
Nikki: Yeah, I ate dinner in.
Nikki: The bathroom, so that one, absolutely.
Salina: Do you remember what you ate?
Nikki: I don't.
Nikki: I'm sorry.
Salina: Was it taco night?
Nikki: I really don't remember.
Nikki: Not talking about unpleasantries at the table.
Nikki: We definitely did not do that.
Nikki: And our kids at a certain age want to talk about certain things, and we're just like, no, that's just good manners.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: It's all the same thing, I guess.
Nikki: But then there were some like that kids weren't allowed to sit at the table.
Nikki: Like, if you were under 40, you couldn't sit under the table.
Nikki: Or very you couldn't sit at the table.
Salina: Although I like that threshold now.
Salina: I'm like, yeah, I'm just a baby.
Nikki: That was so strange to me, and maybe because my family was relatively I have a large extended family, but we never really sat all around a table.
Nikki: We sort of spread out across the house, so there weren't real table rules.
Nikki: And then other families where we did sit at the table were relatively small, so there was no banishing the kids somewhere else.
Salina: Well, so for me, I think the issue would have been is that I'd have been at the table by myself.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Nikki: That's a good point.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: It was just me and my sister a lot of the times, and then my brother later.
Salina: It does feel like you'd have to have a significant there's got to be a lot of the right things at play to have a kids table.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: I had a side of the family that did that, and there was just, like, a lot of kids, right?
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: And then, like, please and thank you were big ones for us.
Nikki: And then, yes, ma'am and no, sir.
Nikki: We've talked about that one before, and then one that made me laugh was never let on that you've heard Paw Paw tell that story before.
Nikki: That one made me laugh because to this day, I don't remember anyone telling me that it's rude to interrupt someone and say, like, yeah, you've told me this before.
Nikki: I've already heard this.
Nikki: But to this day, I will not interrupt someone telling me the same story for the 14th time.
Salina: Oh, that's so nice.
Nikki: I will not do it.
Salina: Oh, wow.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I might say, oh, yeah.
Nikki: If you were tuned in, you would get the sense that, I've heard this before, but I will not tell someone they've told me the same story before.
Nikki: Mostly because with Paw Paws, it doesn't matter.
Nikki: They're still going to tell you.
Nikki: But also, it just feels super rude to me.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So what about you?
Salina: Kind.
Salina: So the one that resonated, or there was a couple, the very most.
Salina: Because I think we both agreed in a side conversation that we had that a lot of them did.
Salina: I would say a majority did for me, but always seeing your guests to the door when they leave is huge for me.
Salina: And you'll probably notice that when you leave.
Nikki: Can speak firsthand.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: And I'm going to watch you leave that's ingrained in me.
Salina: You make sure they get away safely, right?
Salina: I don't know if my family came from dangerous times.
Nikki: What happens to you after you leave the driveway is not on you.
Salina: Well, a little down the road.
Salina: I'll let you get a little piece down the road, and then you got to take care of yourself.
Salina: But if you're in my driveway, I'm responsible for you.
Salina: I'm going to stand at the door.
Salina: I'm going to wave at you.
Salina: If we're family, we're going to follow each other out to the cars.
Salina: It starts with hugs at the doors, hugs and kisses.
Salina: Oh, bye.
Salina: Then suddenly we're at the car.
Salina: I'm going home with you.
Salina: And that actually comes from both sides of my family.
Salina: And I guess you could say regionally, I am half Southern and half Midwestern.
Salina: It's spicy, like I've said before.
Salina: But that is something like where we would wind up in conversations for 30, 45 minutes an hour in the driveway.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: So that one's really important to me.
Salina: And then this one is essential.
Salina: Always hold the door for the next person behind.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: But I'm also very angry when you don't.
Nikki: It's so rude, man.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: You know I'm there.
Nikki: I know I'm there.
Salina: Let's just say that I feel so seriously about it that even in a situation where let's just say that it's a secure building and you've been told, do not hold the door for the person behind you, they're going to have to cart me off to jail.
Salina: Because if it comes down between me having to close the door, the person who's coming up the stairs, or me going to sit in the slammer, I'm going to go sit in the slammer.
Salina: That's how important that feels to me.
Salina: But also, if I hold the door open for you and you just waltz through and give me no connection, acknowledgment.
Salina: Oh, man.
Nikki: That sends me that also might wind.
Salina: Me up in the slammer.
Nikki: I have occasionally said behind someone, well, you're welcome.
Salina: Absolutely.
Nikki: Which probably isn't the most polite thing.
Salina: But it does feel like the other part of being Southern, for some reason, we do have impeccable manners, but we expect in kind.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: And we're quick to anger.
Salina: We will smack you around, is what we're trying to say here's.
Salina: The ones that were lost on me just because it feels a little before my era.
Salina: Yours too, standing when a lady comes into the room.
Nikki: I was going to get into that one, and I felt like I'd already talked so long, I was cutting myself off.
Nikki: There was some weirdness happening in there with the male female rules.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So it feels like a lot of work for the man.
Salina: For one, it's fine.
Salina: And also, if the trade off means that I get to work and not be barefoot and pregnant all the time, and tying my husband's shoes and like, putting them on.
Salina: Just stay seated.
Salina: If that's how you're making me feel special, it's really okay.
Salina: Also, this idea of ladies fixing their plates first, is this the other kind of feminine, masculine one?
Salina: Okay, so in men making their plates first at Christmas.
Salina: All right, first of all, so my grandmothers used to make the plates for my grandfather's.
Salina: Did this happen?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I never understood this.
Salina: I remember being like eight and being like, this is dumb.
Salina: So I think there was always a little feminist inside of me.
Salina: I don't even know what to say.
Salina: It beats inside of me from a young age.
Nikki: I will say I make Kyle's plate occasionally, not because it's woman husband, like, weirdness.
Nikki: I do it.
Nikki: Part of it is having young kids, so, like, the one with their free hands will do it.
Nikki: The other part, though, I do sometimes feel like I just go ahead and fix it.
Nikki: Like I'm fixing an extra plate.
Nikki: What difference is it?
Nikki: I'll go ahead and make it.
Nikki: I love him, so I'm happy to do it.
Nikki: I didn't know it was a rule, though.
Nikki: If I know it's a rule, I'm not going to do it.
Salina: Maybe it is the rule.
Nikki: The yeah, I don't like that.
Salina: I just remember watching my grandmas when I was younger.
Salina: And it's not that they weren't busy.
Salina: They weren't burping or diapering a child.
Salina: They were just sitting there.
Salina: So it bothered me a little bit, I'll have to say.
Salina: There's nothing wrong with doing something out of the kindness of your heart, so I'll be very clear about that.
Salina: My order actually is I tend to think of it in waves.
Salina: Guests and or grandparents first help the parents with young children and ensure the host actually gets something.
Salina: My spot, no matter if I'm a guest or hosting, is last.
Salina: And that's because I don't like the pressure.
Salina: I like the time with the food.
Salina: I want to think about it.
Salina: I'm plotting.
Salina: So there is no etiquette to that.
Salina: That's just called strategy, guys.
Nikki: That makes sense.
Salina: So here's the table manner quiz.
Salina: Let's go ahead and get into that because all right.
Salina: Otherwise I'll be talking about what ticks me off until the end of time.
Salina: Okay, so, Nikki, I want you to picture yourself well, go ahead and picture yourself.
Salina: You're there.
Salina: Get your hat on.
Salina: You're sitting at the dinner table.
Salina: At the dinner table.
Salina: You're looking at your setup in front of you.
Salina: Where should you always keep your bread plate?
Nikki: Left hand.
Nikki: Woohoo.
Nikki: Oh, my God.
Salina: And she got it.
Nikki: Okay, they got it.
Salina: It's the hat.
Salina: Now you got to luckily touch it.
Nikki: You're right.
Salina: Touch the hat.
Salina: Say thank you.
Nikki: Got to adjust myself in my seat so I'm properly sitting right I've been.
Salina: Slouched this entire time, by the way.
Nikki: Just to be clear, there's no food on the table.
Salina: I'm so tired.
Salina: My legs are all splayed because I'm not a lady.
Salina: I don't know what to tell you.
Salina: All right, so when dining out, where should you put your napkin if you're temporarily leaving the table and you don't want your plate cleared in your seat?
Salina: Good job.
Salina: Let's give her a little golf clap, if you will.
Salina: All right.
Salina: This is where it's going to get tricky.
Nikki: Maybe.
Nikki: Why am I so competitive?
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Because you're only playing against yourself, by the way.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: That's the worst competitor.
Salina: All right.
Salina: In the US.
Salina: What is the proper way to hold one's knife and fork?
Salina: I'm going to give you a hint because that feels like nebulous, especially while cutting food.
Nikki: Oh, that was it.
Salina: That's it.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Nikki: I don't know how to answer that.
Nikki: You mean hand like which hand goes what?
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Do you switch hands at all?
Nikki: There's a hand switching involved.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: There is a hand switching involved.
Nikki: Okay, give me a second.
Salina: It does also have something to do with the fork, what way your fork should be.
Nikki: Holy moly.
Salina: It's a toughie see, I will show.
Nikki: You what I would do.
Nikki: You tell me if this is the answer you're looking for.
Nikki: Fork in this hand, my right hand, because it's my dominant hand.
Nikki: Fork in that hand, knife in the left hand.
Nikki: You cut.
Nikki: Then there's something about putting your fork down and then putting your knife back on the side of the plate or something.
Salina: You're really am I close?
Salina: You're really close.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So you have your fork in the left hand.
Salina: Actually, that's where you start off.
Salina: When you're cutting, your knife is in the right because that's your dominant hand.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: I want to say oh, my gosh.
Salina: Just so you guys know, this is very leftist and rightest because I don't think that would work for a lefty.
Salina: We're definitely being right hand centric here.
Nikki: Can I also say I get my left and my right hand confused.
Salina: You can also say that.
Salina: Then you're going to put the knife down, you're going to switch your fork to the right hand, and your tines are facing upwards.
Nikki: Is that right?
Salina: That's correct.
Nikki: Oh, my.
Salina: So bonus for European style.
Salina: You want to give it a shot, or do you want me to just tell you what it is?
Salina: Tell me.
Salina: I've had enough with this.
Nikki: There's something very barbaric about it compared to the way we use our knives and forks like this or something.
Salina: Are you at a meat house?
Salina: It's something shaving the lamb off.
Nikki: Maybe barbaric was not the right word to use.
Nikki: It's weird.
Salina: It just took a picture of us.
Nikki: Oh, good.
Salina: So here's how it works.
Salina: Fork remains in the left hand.
Salina: The knife helps to coax the food onto the fork, and instead of your tines being up, in this case, your tines remain down.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Yeah, it's a lot of weird.
Salina: That's a lot to think through.
Salina: It is no wonder julia Roberts lost her oyster or whatever it was.
Salina: And Pretty Woman.
Salina: Oh, come on.
Salina: Oh, she looks at me like she doesn't know.
Salina: I have not told you, but we've got a little list of movies to the side for you.
Salina: Somebody's got some homework.
Salina: Hold on.
Salina: I do have one more thing to share.
Salina: Are you telling me you haven't seen Pretty Woman?
Salina: Okay, pauses pregnant pauses are not good for audio recordings.
Salina: Okay?
Salina: All right, here's what I want to leave you with an Emily Post quote.
Nikki: Oh, gosh, I can only imagine.
Salina: Well, whenever two people's lives come together and affect one another, you have etiquette.
Salina: Etiquette is not some rigid code of manners.
Salina: It's simply how people's lives touch one another.
Nikki: Oh, my.
Salina: And that's it.
Salina: Now flop your hat one more time for us.
Salina: All right, guys.
Salina: Thank you for joining us for this edition of Extra Sugar.
Salina: When we come back, I'm sure Nikki will let us know about how she was practicing her knife and fork work for us.
Salina: And we'll see you on episode 17.