Recap / The Golden Girls S 04 E 04 Yokel Hero

"Yokel Hero" is an episode in the fourth season of The Golden Girls.

Rose is nominated to be St. Olaf, Minnesota's "Woman of the Year" award, but she feels that her accomplishments are too bland for her to deserve it. Dorothy and Blanche then secretly alter her list of accomplishments to ensure her victory, which sends all four of them on a lengthy trip to St. Olaf.

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Tropes in this episode:

• And Your Reward Is Edible: The trophy that Rose receives for winning St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" contest is made entirely of milk chocolate, wrapped in gold foil.
  Blanche: Oh, that's the loveliest trophy I've ever seen! I'm gonna get a knife.
• Crossover: The Tag, which features (and introduces) Dr. Harry Weston from the new Spin-Off series Empty Nest, sets up a crossover which concludes on that show's episode "Fatal Attraction". The two episodes aired back-to-back first run (on November 5, 1988), so the viewer was intended to follow Blanche (who makes her amorous intentions toward Harry very plain) over to Empty Nest and, while there, get to know the new characters on their new show. This would be the first of a number of ambitious multi-series one-night crossovers between the two shows, culminating in "Hurricane Saturday" and "Full Moon Over Miami" in the 1991-92 season.
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!": On the way to St. Olaf, Rose mentions "Mount Losenbaden", which is St. Olaf's equivalent to Mount Rushmore, except it has facial sculptures of four losers in presidential elections, two of which are of Adlai Stevenson.
  Blanche: Why are there two Adlai Stevensons?
  Dorothy: Oh, Blanche, isn't it obvious? He lost twice. (beat) Oh, God, it's making sense.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: Rose's rival for the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award being disqualified ends up netting Rose the award, which happens after said rival was discovered to have been hiding a skeleton in her closet — that of her deceased husband.
• Do Wrong, Right:
  Dorothy: You know something? Maybe all this resume needs is a little punching up.
  Blanche: You mean exaggerate the truth, create wild and colorful stories just to impress people? Dorothy, you can't do that!
  Dorothy: Oh, I know.
  Blanche: That's MY specialty.
• Hypocritical Humor: After Rose leaves the kitchen from her funk due to feeling that her accomplishments wouldn't be enough to guarantee her chance of winning the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award, Dorothy suggests changing the contents in her contest form to improve her odds. Blanche objects... before claiming that exaggerating stories for appeal is HER specialty.
• Literal Metaphor: Emma Immerhoffer was the front-runner for Woman of the Year until the committee found a skeleton in her closet. The skeleton was Mr. Immerhoffer.
• Low Count Gag: This trope is how the previous winner of the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award won the contest for saving the books in the St. Olaf library when the place was burning.
  Blanche: That's amazing. How did she do that?
  Rose: Well, she put two books in one hand and one book in the other and ran like the Dickens.
  Dorothy: Your library only has three books? What happens if someone's read them all?
  Rose: I guess we'll cross the bridge when we get there.
• Mistaken for Gay: Dorothy eventually starts suffering pangs of conscience over faking Rose's application for "Woman of the Year." During the girls' trip to St. Olaf, she waits until Rose and Sophia aren't around, and approaches Blanche:
  Dorothy: Blanche, I'm glad we're finally alone. I think there's something we should do.
  Blanche: (Offhandedly) Dorothy, I like you as a friend, but I think I'll pass.
• Non-Indicative Name: In-Universe. The panel of three men visiting the girls for the purpose of verifying Rose's accomplishments for the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award call themselves "the Topplecopper triplets" despite not looking identical to one another. Then again, they ARE from St. Olaf...
  Dorothy: How odd. You don't look anything alike.
  One of the "triplets": Oh, really? Well, back in St. Olaf, nobody could tell us apart.
  Another one of the "triplets": You can imagine all the fun we had playing tricks on our teachers in school.
• Recycled Plot / Recycled Premise: Dorothy and Blanche previously wrote a fantastical reply to Rose’s personals ad to unexpected consequences in the episode “Love, Rose”. Here, they punch up Rose’s Woman of the Year application, to similarly unexpected results.
• Road Trip Plot: The second half of the episode features one. Getting to St. Olaf requires flying on a small plane, taking a train, and then riding in a donkey cart, all of which the girls do with varying degrees of reluctance.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: For all of the build-up to getting to St. Olaf, the girls never actually reach their destination. Dorothy and Blanche confess to altering Rose's application for the Woman of the Year prize when they've almost reached the town, and Rose is so upset that she demands to go home immediately.
• Sincerity Mode: After being her usual Deadpan Snarker self for the majority of the episode, Sophia genuinely congratulates Rose on winning the Woman of the Year trophy, leading the other women in a toast to honor her.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: Rose wants to win the title of St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year." Blanche and Dorothy decide to help her by exaggerating the achievements in her application, and she earns the prize. Upon discovering that the other girls lied, though, Rose refuses to accept the award... and later ends up genuinely winning because of her honesty (it helps that the woman who received the trophy instead had a literal skeleton in her closet).
• Take That!:
  • When Rose receives a letter of notification of her nomination for the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award:
    Rose: Oh, I never dreamed that someone as unqualified as I am would ever be nominated for anything so important.
    Dorothy: I guess Dan Quayle really opened the floodgates.^note On the original airdate, Quayle had received his party's nomination for Vice President, but was still 72 hours away from being duly elected, hence the comparison to her having been nominated (and not winning outright, as she would later in the episode).
  • Then there's this exchange when Rose feels that her accomplishments are too dull for her to win the St. Olaf's "Woman of the Year" award:
    Rose: I just realized I'm the most boring person in the world.
    Sophia: Did something happen to Regis Philbin?
• Urban Legend: An In-Universe example occurs on the train ride in Minnesota. Rose warns that the girls are about to pass through the Zembro Falls Tunnel—local lore says that any train that goes through it mysteriously loses a passenger when it emerges. After a few moments in the dark, the girls are shocked to discover that Sophia has vanished...only to learn that she used the distraction to head for the bathroom.