(art by Aireen Arellano - to view larger version, click here)

——

SHOW: Golden Girls
EPISODE: “My Brother, My Father”
FIRST AIRED:  Feb. 06, 1988

The Golden Girls has gained a new level of respect by a modern audience that did not necessarily watch the show when it first aired.  The passing of venerable actresses Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur, and Rue McLanahan and the career renaissance of Betty White have cast a new light on this sitcom, which before may have been looked at as hokey nostalgia.  While this might be a show you watched in the ‘80s while you were over at your grandma’s house because she loved it, it deserves a reexamination.

The Golden Girls is that, but it’s also more.  Particularly in a television culture perpetually obsessed with youth, can you imagine a show where all the characters are women over 50 (or barely over 40, if you believe Blanche); a show that deals with “women’s issues” like menopause, or that devotes episodes to elder abuse, the difficulties in being divorced or widowed, living on a fixed income; a show that depicts these characters and their real concerns AND doesn’t cover up the fact that not only the young and beautiful are concerned about their sex lives?  50+ year-old women with dignity and sex drives?   The Golden Girls had two decades on It’s Complicated.  The show was ahead of its time.

Season Three’s “My Brother, Father” is about identity and masquerading: the characters are all deceiving someone.  We all know the canonical reading of the girls: Rose (White) is the dumb one from St. Olaf, Blanche (McLanahan) is the oversexed one, Sophia (Getty) is the quintessentially feisty 80-year-old, and Dorothy (Arthur) is the sensible one who keeps the girls together.  In “My Brother, My Father,” all of these familiar elements are turned upside down by deceit.

The episode opens with the news that Sophia’s brother, Dorothy’s Uncle Angelo, will be visiting Miami to give Dorothy and her ex-husband Stan a blessing for their wedding anniversary.  Angelo is a priest and hasn’t left Sicily since attending Dorothy’s wedding decades prior.  Thus, he’s totally unaware that Stan and Dorothy are no longer married. Stan is now a “yutz” door-to-door novelty salesman who ran out on Dorothy for a woman half his age.  Dorothy begrudgingly agrees to the charade: she and Stan will play the faithful and happily married couple, and Sophia will be the proud mother.

…

…

Meanwhile, Blanche and Rose put on personas of their own.  They’ve been trying out for a community production of a musical.  Blanche is upset that she wasn’t able to sleep her way into a starring role, but, all the same, she and Rose take on their ancillary characters with gusto. 

When Angelo arrives in full clerical garb, the game is afoot.  Dorothy does her best to gracefully play the role of devoted wife, but Stan’s doting and saccharine-y pet names start to send her over the edge.  As she heads to the kitchen for some respite, Stan calls after her to hurry back.  “My feet have wings, Barf Bag!” she responds as if pronouncing a declaration of eternal devotion, blows him a kiss, and, safely in the kitchen, breaks down.

…

…

She has to confess, maybe in both senses of the word, to Uncle Angelo about this ruse.  At precisely this moment, Angelo comes into the kitchen to reiterate how happy he is to see Stan and Dorothy still so in love.  He reveals that he disobeyed his doctor’s orders to make the trip to Miami … but it was all worth it.  Dorothy is quickly able to repair the cracks in her mask of faithful wife.

The charade’s stakes are raised when Rose and Blanche arrive home from dress rehearsal early because of a hurricane warning.  Unfortunately the two did not have time to change, so they enter the kitchen in full nun’s habits, as if they stepped out of an archival photograph from Charity Hospital circa 1955.  Because the house is supposedly the family home of Stan, Dorothy, and Sophia, the “nuns” cannot reveal their true identities but introduce themselves as Sister Rose and Sister Blanche.  Sister Blanche, who is holding the real Blanche’s dress and brassiere in her hands quickly announces to Angelo, “We’re here … uh … collecting lingerie for needy sexy people.”

…

…

The remainder of the comic relief in the episode ensues when they whole group get stranded in the house together because of the hurricane.  The game of keeping up the deceitful personas becomes more difficult, particularly for Blanche.  In nun garb she nearly blows her cover on a number of occasions.  Dorothy and Stan’s not sleeping in the same bedroom is explained as them having a fight, which Uncle Angelo is quick to try to patch up: “Please sleep with this man!”  And it is here that the unthinkable happens, forced to spend the night in the same room, Dorothy and Stan begin to reconnect.  A spark is rekindled between the two of them as they reminisce the good memories of their failed marriage.

The next day is the actual anniversary of Stan and Dorothy’s wedding.  “Sister” Rose, not thinking as usual, suggests that Dorothy and Stan renew their vows … after all, Uncle Angelo could preside over the ceremony.  Stan and Dorothy talk it over – Dorothy is hesitant, but Stan proclaims that it is Divine Providence at work.  If God didn’t mean for them to be together despite all their history and heartache, then a priest wouldn’t have been sent to renew their vows on this special day. 

…

…

Just as Dorothy gives in to Stan’s wooing, truth bursts forth onto the scene and all the deceitful identities are cast aside.  Uncle Angelo confesses that he cannot officiate at a renewal of vows because he is not actually a priest!  On his way to the seminary decades before he ran into the beautiful Filomena, whose behind fills Angelo with more celestial inspiration than the thought of celibate priesthood.  Angelo and Filomena married, and he became estranged from the family so that nobody would know he broke his promise to his mother to become a priest.  With this life-long case of false identity revealed, the girls feel free to declare their true selves as well: Rose and Blanche aren’t nuns (they’re actually “gorgeous private citizens”), Sophia is actually the not-so-proud EX-mother-in-law of Stan, Stan is a yutz, and Dorothy the sensible one again.  But is she?

The bittersweet ending of this episode is that Dorothy actually started to believe the lie.  The false persona began to eclipse the real one as the happy years of marriage flooded back over this two-day affair.  The episode closes with Dorothy and Stan playing just as much a “part” as they did in the beginning.  Stan confesses to only kidding about the whole renewal of vows suggestion, but doesn’t take the $50 Sophia offered him to act in this little drama, and Dorothy sits alone on the couch.  The mask she wears of her sensible self now hides a real woman conflicted about her feelings for the sleazy novelty salesman in a bad toupee.

…

…

“My Brother, My Father” realigns our focus on the characters of The Golden Girls.  In playing with the themes of identity, we are drawn into an even greater appreciation of who the girls really are.  Rose and Sophia really get the least amount of treatment in the episode, but are confirmed in their roles, respectively, of the dumb one and the feisty one.  Blanche is painted in the garish colors of the sexpot that even a religious habit cannot mute – in fact it brings them out more vividly.  Dorothy’s easy assignation of the heart of the group, the one with a good head on her shoulders, the one who doesn’t put up with (too much) nonsense, is explored in this episode, revealing a woman who is strong but not impervious, smart but not infallible.

This episode also reminds us that love can reveal itself in the unlikeliest of places.  It can unexpectedly appear between a young seminarian and a bar maid, or a “nun” and her paramour of the week; it can also take a divorced couple by surprise.  But whenever it announces itself or to whom, this episode shows that a policy of truth is the best way of proceeding.  It will save those smitten from unnecessary estrangement from their families or the trouble of starching a Roman collar.

~ Seth Alexander

Seth Alexander is a graduate student in theology living in Chicago.  He enjoys The Golden Girls and loves his baby boat.

——

About the Art: Having not watched the show religiously while growing up, I approached this episode ready to latch on to any visuals that intrigued me. I thoroughly enjoyed the image of Uncle Angelo passionately telling our Golden Girls the story of how he fell in love with his wife and his undying adoration for a woman’s badunk – all while wearing a priest’s uniform. I interpreted the humor by giving the artwork a comic book noir feel. I also thought keeping the piece grayscale and adding a dramatic shadow made the cognitive dissonance a little more humorous. ~ Aireen Arellano