"It's like we say in St. Olaf, Christmas without fruitcake is like St. Sigmund's Day without the headless boy."
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Flu Attack is the twenty-first episode of the first season of The Golden Girls and the twenty-first episode overall. Directed by Terry Hughes and written by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman, it premiered on NBC-TV on March 1st, 1986.
Blanche, Dorothy and Rose all come down with the flu and infuriate each other. When they each suspect that one of them has won a major award for their charity work, their competitiveness causes them all to attend despite their illness.
Plot[]
Rose comes down with the flu that soon affects the others, except Sophia. A doctor comes and diagnoses them with the flu and tells them to wait a week. The girls soon become irritable towards each other to the point they stop speaking to each other. Sophia unaffected goes forward with plans to attend the banquet. Two days later, the girls decide to make up after throwing insults at each other. Sophia comes in saying that she called to cancel the other girls' reservations and mentions she read between the lines and believes that one of them has won the award. The girls instantly start feuding and vow to attend and win the award. Still visibly sick, the girls attend the banquet with dates. Sophia shows up with a younger man named Raoul. The winner is announced as Sophia because she had raised money. She gives a moving speech that gets to the girls' hearts and they make up.[1]
Tall Tales[]
Picture It...[]
Sophia mentions that in Sicily, people went to the Widow Caravelli whenever they had health problems. Caravelli was best known for a green salve that she used to treat ear infections, which she once gave to Salvador, the village idiot. Due to his ear infection, Salvadore misheard her instructions and put the salve on his linguini instead of in his ears. The salve ended up tasting great, and Salvadore decided to market it. While it wasn't very popular at first, the salve moved like hotcakes when Salvadore began calling it pesto sauce.
Tony Carreiro previously appeared in "A Little Romance"[3] as a waiter and would later appear in Season 5 as a doctor.
Cultural references[]
When the three are first shown sick on the couch, Blanche is covering her eyes, Dorothy her ears, and Rose her mouth, a visual expression of "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
Blanche and Dorothy fight over whether to watch Another World or something else. Another World was a soap opera on NBC at the time, the same network that originally owned The Golden Girls.