Ebb Tide

Blanche's success at a festival is stopped when Big Daddy passes away. Going home for the Funeral, has Blanche deciding to miss it out of denial of her selfish ways and when Sophia rents out the house while Blanche is gone she is forced to realise she can't just use anything for people.

Plot
Blanche has been chosen to be Queen of The Citrus Festival, which she was about to get her age reduced by sleeping with the Journalist. Sophia is looking in the ads to rent out her room in order to pay for a big screen TV that none of them could afford. Then Blanche gets a call from Big Daddy saying that he's ill and wants Blanche to come, but the festival is more important to her and so she declines to claiming he sounded a little weaker.

After the festival, Blanche is gifted an extremely rare plate, and then she gets the news that Big Daddy has died. After pretending it's a joke she realises it's true and she feels stupid for neglecting his plea. She and Dorothy fly out to Atlanta. However Sophia goes ahead to rent the house out and convinces Rose to help her with a sob story.

At Twin Oaks Virginia confronts Blanche about not being there, Blanche tries to claim that she wasn't always there but Virginia tells her that everybody expects her to make the moment about her and so out of spite Blanche refuses to go to the funeral. However as she and Dorothy look at old photographs, she clearly does want to go and Dorothy sees that Blanche has overdrawn the truth mainly because Big Daddy would do. As Sophia's renters have a party, Sophia gets even closer to getting her TV but then one of the renters breaks Blanche's rare plate.

After the funeral Blanche goes to Big Daddy and Big Mommy's graves and pays her respects. She talks to Big Daddy and admits she was selfish and that she should have thought more of others. Dorothy tells them it's time to leave and Blanche admits her flaws as nobody will flatter them now. Sophia's renters leave the house and it's spotless, but for the broken plate. She was going to let Rose take the fall for it but instead Rose manages to find a collector with one to sell. As with anything, there's a catch. Because the plate is so rare, buying the replacement takes all of the money that Sophia managed to earn from renting out the home while everyone else was away in Atlanta. Determined that she is going to change her selfish ways, on her return, Blanche takes the plate and smashes it.

Trivia

 * Twin Oaks was meant to be sold in the season 1 episode Big Daddy so no explanation is given for its resale.
 * Sheree North reprises her role as Blanche's sister Virginia.
 * No sign of Margret Spender who was Big Daddy's new wife and no explanation.
 * The breaking of the plate and the twist at the end might have been based on the plot of The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant.
 * Sophia wanted a new TV in the season 1 episode Blind Ambitions, however in season 7's From Here to The Pharmacy she has plenty in the bank.
 * In season 6 there is an episode called Ebbtide's Revenge which also talks about a funeral and family feuds.