The Heart Attack

 was the 10th episode of Season 1 of The Golden Girls TV series, also the 10th overall series episode. Directed by Jim Drake and written by series co-executive producer Susan Harris, it originally aired on NBC-TV on November 23, 1985.

Summary
After a party, Sophia complained of Chest Pains, so a doctor was called in fear that she was suffering a Heart Attack. As the ladies waited for the Doctor or the ambulance to arrive they talked about death and their feelings of what family is.

Plot
The girls host a party at the house, which Sophia catered. After the guests all leave, likely due to the bad weather and the late time, the girls begin to clean up and knowing the work Sophia did they decide to let her rest. However before they speak, Sophia sits down in discomfort, believing she has indigestion from scungilli she ate earlier. However, when she begins to have chest pains, she and the girls think she is having a heart attack. Rose comforts Dorothy explaining that Charlie had a Heart Attack, it was worst and she confesses Charlie died when they were making love.

Blanche calls Sophia's doctor, Dr. Harris, as well as the paramedics, however, Dr. Harris is not available and the paramedics cannot drive an ambulance because trees are down from the storm. While the girls take turns keeping Sophia company, they think about their own deaths and how Sophia's deaths would impact them, especially Dorothy, who says she'd consider herself a 50+-year-old orphan. Finally Dorothy breaks down but Blanche comforts her saying that they will be her family if anything happens.

Several times, Sophia falls asleep and scares the girls, who thought she had died. She also claims that she went to Heaven. Finally, Dr. Harris arrives and diagnoses Sophia with a gallbladder attack, brought on by the gargantuan amount of food Sophia consumed throughout the day. With the resolve Blanche, Dorothy and Blanche think about living for the moment but rather than pig out on the desert they go for a walk.

Scene excerpts

 * Sophia: I've got a bubble.
 * Dorothy: Why're you holding your chest?
 * Sophia: The bubble is in my chest.
 * Dorothy: What do you mean you have a bubble? Is it pain?
 * Sophia: If it was a pain I'd call it pain, I have a bubble.
 * Dorothy: Blanche, do you know what a bubble is?
 * Blanche: [shows her ring] I know what a bauble is.


 * Sophia Petrillo: Oh! Oh!
 * Dorothy: What is it, Ma?
 * Sophia Pain!
 * Dorothy: What kind of pain?
 * Sophia: The kind that hurts!


 * Blanche: What do you want to be, buried or cremated?
 * Rose: Neither.
 * Blanche: What do you want to be, flushed down the toilet like a goldfish?


 * Dorothy: I knew this woman who went to Paris, went out to eat and she just had watercress, because you know she didn't want to gain weight. And when she left, this gargoyle fell off the roof, hit her on the head and killed her! And just look at what her last meal was.
 * Blanche: That's horrible, here, eat up.
 * Dorothy: Of course it'll be just my luck, I'll eat, I'll gain 40 pounds and I'll live to be 90.
 * Rose: Me too, I'm as healthy as a horse, unfortunately, I'll wind up looking like one.


 * Sophia: It's funny, you think you're dying, you feel death enter your body, a doctor comes, he says you're fine, you're ready to swim the English Chanel.


 * Blanche: Why are so many doctors Jewish?
 * Dr. Harris: Because their mothers are.

Guest Stars

 * Ronald Hunter as Dr. Harris

Trivia

 * This is one of the few episodes in the series with only one main plot line. Most episodes have two or three; for example, the previous episode, Blanche and the Younger Man, focused mainly on both Alma and Rose's mother-daughter relationship and on Blanche's relationship with a younger man, hence the title.
 * Second Time Rose talks about Charlie's death.
 * First reference of the girls talking about themselves as family, they would focus on it again in T'was The Nightmare Before Christmas.
 * Dr Harris would be subbed by Dr. Richmond in Flu Attack.