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Sick and Tired, Part 1 is the first episode of the fifth season of The Golden Girls and the one-hundred and third episode overall. Directed by Terry Hughes and written by Susan Harris, it premiered on NBC-TV on September 23rd, 1989. It is the first part of the Season 5 premiere.
Summary[]
After five months of worsening fatigue and pain, Dorothy believes she is seriously ill. Two doctors tell her there's nothing wrong with her, as does a specialist whom Sophia then rebukes. Traveling with Rose to New York City, Dorothy sees neurologist Dr. Budd, who tells her she's just aging and any other problem is in her head, despite two psychiatric assessments that she's mentally healthy. Dorothy breaks down, thinking she may be crazy, but Rose reassures her that she is sick. Sophia fears losing Dorothy to an unknown disease. Meanwhile, Blanche decides to become a novelist, but immediately suffers writer's block.
Plot[]
While preparing dinner, Blanche announces to Rose and Sophia that she believes her destiny is to become a romance novelist. When Dorothy arrives home, she is uninterested in Blanche's revelation, stating that she feels ill and hardly had any strength to work through the day. Rose and Sophia worry for Dorothy, mentioning that her illness has persisted for at least five months already, and press her to see a doctor. Despite having gotten a second opinion already, Dorothy agrees to visit a doctor again and to ask for specialist recommendations.
Dorothy visits Dr. Stevens with Sophia, to which he finds nothing clinically wrong with Dorothy after having run multiple tests. Both Dorothy and Sophia insist there is something wrong, but Dr. Stevens can only suggest that Dorothy is suffering something mental, and suggests the cause may be from depression for leading a widowed, single life. This only upsets Sophia, who insists there is something wrong with Dorothy before they leave. Later that night, Blanche complains of suffering from "writer's block" despite Dorothy mentioning Blanche needs to actually write something to claim suffering from it. Blanche then postulates that her writer's block could be cured if she went to New York with Dorothy to see the neurologist that Dr. Stevens recommended, but Dorothy remains firm that she would rather be accompanied by Rose since she feels more at ease with her and that Rose believes in Dorothy suffering from a disease.
In New York, Dorothy meets with Dr. Budd. He, too, reaches the same findings as all of Dorothy's previous doctors. When he suggests that Dorothy is suffering mentally instead, Dorothy produces testimony from two other psychologists that she is mentally sound. However, Dr. Budd is dismissive and short with Dorothy, and repudiates the psychological findings Dorothy provides. He continues to simplify the problem as her getting older and needing to do something different with her life. Dorothy leaves wordlessly. She returns to her hotel with Rose, where Dorothy pretends to put up a front until she eventually breaks down in despair and Rose comforts her.
Once home, Blanche still has not progressed on writing her novel, and Dorothy is too fatigued to come to dinner. Blanche and Rose try to comfort a worried Sophia, who laments on the possibility of outliving her own daughter.[1]
Tall Tales[]
Back in St. Olaf...[]
While preparing for the barbecue, Rose mentions that they never had a barbecue in St. Olaf after "the tragedy". When Dorothy asks what Rose is taking about, Rose says she can't say -- but it had to do with barbecuing elk, a big fire and someone who lost his balance.
Later, while Blanche compares writing to giving birth, she exclaims "Once you get started, you can't stop!" Rose contradicts her, saying that Ingrid Thurman stopped giving birth to twins right after she gave birth to her son Hans. When Blanche asked what happened to Franz, the other twin, Rose replies that he just "stayed in". She admits she didn't know how long, but Hans and Franz were later a year apart in school.
In their hotel room in New York, Rose tells Dorothy about Gustav Ljungqvist, who became sick with a mysterious illness and later died. At the cemetery, Gustav's wife Beatrice became hysterical to the point where she had to be sedated. When Beatrice woke up, she explained that she heard her husband say "We never paid our '78 through '86 income taxes." Gustav's business partner Bergstrom concluded that Gustav had to be alive, because only Gustav would know that, so everyone raced to the cemetery to dig him up. However, when they opened that coffin, Gustav was dead. An incredulous Dorothy asks her what the point of the story was, Rose says that Gustav didn't die from his mysterious illness -- he lived and recovered, though he unfortunately died from the lack of air in the coffin. She adds that to top it all off, the IRS was waiting for Bergstrom at the cemetery to arrest him, so Bergstrom grabbed the sheriff's handgun and killed himself. Since the grave was still open and everyone was there, the town decided to bury Bergstrom with Gustav. Unfortunately, they later found out that Bergstrom wanted to be cremated.
Cast[]
Main Cast[]
- Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak
- Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux
- Betty White as Rose Nylund
- Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo
Guest Stars[]
- Jeffrey Tambor as Dr. Stevens
- Michael McGuire as Dr. Budd
Notes[]
- Rose's $6 glass of tomato juice would be ~$12.00 in 2019, adjusted for inflation.
Production[]
- This episode marks the start of an updated opening sequence. Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty now have new clips during their credit. When shown in Lifetime syndication, this version of the opening is shown only during several episodes from Season 7.
- Series creator Susan Harris based this two-part episode on her own experiences with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Goofs[]
- Dr. Stevens seems to miss the fact that Dorothy has a constant sore throat, swollen glands, and fevers, which don't suggest anything to do with depression or, as Dr. Budd calls it, getting old. Yet, that actually happened often when chronic fatigue syndrome was first discovered. Chronic fatigue syndrome was officially classified by the CDC in 1987, which had previously been labeled as "myalgic encephalomyelitis" and still used in other parts of the world.
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References[]
- ↑ The Golden Girls, Season 5, Episodes 1, "Sick and Tired, Part 1". Harris, Susan (writer) & Hughes, Terry (director) (September 23rd, 1989)