"Beauty And The Beast" is an episode in the seventh season of The Golden Girls.
After Sophia injures herself, Dorothy hires a nurse to look after her, but she soon wears out her welcome when she alienates the other girls in her drive to keep Sophia happy, which gets worse when Sophia feigns her injury to keep said nurse around longer. Meanwhile, Blanche has Melissa, her granddaughter, enrolled in a beauty pageant for children while said granddaughter stays over, only for Blanche's obsession with winning said pageant to make her granddaughter unhappy towards the experience of it.
Tropes in this episode:
- Agony of the Feet: At one point Sophia's nurse wheelchairs Sophia into the living room and runs over Rose's foot in the process.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Right after Rose accuses Blanche of being a Stage Mom through an Armor-Piercing Response, Blanche justifies herself by claiming that Melissa has been enjoying the Beauty Contest that Blanche has had her enrolled in, but Rose, having heard Melissa complaining about the event earlier, isn't buying it.Blanche: Now wait a minute, Rose, I'm just doing this for Melissa. She's been having a wonderful time.Rose: Has she?
- Armor-Piercing Response: As the Little Miss Miami Beauty Pageant is taking place, a stranger, a Stage Mom herself, chats with Blanche and Rose about young girls having Performance Anxiety when it's nearly time to perform, before stating that her daughter was like this prior to her fire-baton twirling act before feeling better upon being reminded that she'd have baking soda in hand, all while her daughter keeps saying she's afraid of fire and, as her mother takes her away, whispers "help me" to Blanche and Rose. Blanche questions how anyone can be like this, only for Rose to insinuate that Blanche herself is no different.Blanche: Did you see that? I tell you, some people should not be allowed near children. That poor girl. What could be worse than having a mother like that?Rose: Having a grandmother like that.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the disastrous Beauty Contest performance, Blanche returns home to talk to Melissa and finds her and Rose reading the story from a fairy tale. Rose insists that Blanche wait until the storytelling session ends, and Blanche obliges to listen to the end of the story... which is read by Melissa to Rose.Melissa: "And they live Happily Ever After". The End.
Rose: They didn't get married?
Melissa: That's implied.
[Rose leaves with a bewildered expression] - Battleaxe Nurse: Nurse DeFarge, according to Sophia. Played with in that DeFarge essentially waits on Sophia hand and foot while she's recovering, but that means stepping all over the girls to cater to Sophia's whims.
- Beauty Contest: Three examples, with one being shown and two only mentioned.
- The Little Miss Miami Beauty Pageant that Blanche has Melissa signed up for is the plot-relevant example.
- Rose mentions that she participated in the Little Miss St. Olaf beauty pageant and lost — 23 times in a row.
- Dorothy herself competed and lost in the Little Miss Brooklyn beauty contest — where Sophia was a judge and didn't vote for her.
- Beware the Nice Ones: When Dorothy makes a wisecrack about Rose participating in the same beauty contest twenty-three times, Rose casually remarks that at least her mother voted for her. Dorothy is visibly shocked by this.
- Gone Horribly Right: Dorothy hires a nurse to help Sophia recover from her injury, but they end up bonding with each other so much that Sophia resorts to Playing Sick in order to keep her nurse around for as long as possible, the other girls' disapproval of said nurse be damned.
- Ignored Epiphany: After Rose gives Blanche an Armor-Piercing Response and then an Armor-Piercing Question about Melissa's feelings towards the Beauty Contest that Blanche has subjected Melissa to, Blanche asks Melissa about how she really feels regarding the event, offering to allow her to skip out on the talent show and take her home right away if that's what she wants. Before Melissa can say anything, however, the crew member comes saying Melissa is up, and Blanche promptly pushes her on stage at once. It backfires badly because Melissa is so sick of the event that she simply stands still silently on stage instead of singing like she's expected to do.
- Literal Metaphor: Rose's account of her repeated participation for the Little Miss St. Olaf beauty pageant, all of which ended with her losing said contest, includes the part where she lost out to another girl's imaginary playmate.Rose: Sure, she was more talented, but... still, I smelled a rat.
Blanche: You mean the contest was fixed?
Rose: No. That was my talent: smelling rats. - Noodle Incident: Sophia's nurse interrupting the girls' nighttime activities, leading to a famous outburst from Dorothy.Blanche: Dorothy, at 2 AM this morning I was entertaining a gentleman caller, when she opened the door, at the most inopportune time. I could have lost my balance and chipped a tooth!
Rose: You think that's annoying? She came into my room last night when I was reenacting the gangplank scene from Peter Pan!
Dorothy: WHAT THE HELL GOES ON AT NIGHT IN THIS HOUSE?! - "Not So Different" Remark: After a Stage Mom chats briefly with Blanche and Rose about girls having Performance Anxiety prior to going on stage, Blanche wonders how anyone could behave that way, only for Rose to deliver a Armor-Piercing Response insinuating that Blanche herself is no better.Blanche: Did you see that? I tell you, some people should not be allowed near children. That poor girl. What could be worse than having a mother like that?Rose: Having a grandmother like that.
- Playing Sick: Sophia fakes the severity of an injury that has confined her to a wheelchair in order to keep the nurse waiting on her hand and foot (and annoying the hell out of the other girls at the same time).
- Rage Breaking Point: Dorothy loses it when she finally proves Sophia was Playing Sick to keep Nurse DeFarge around.Sophia: ...well I'm off to bingo!Dorothy: Get back here you deceitful little Sicilian gecko!!!Sophia: I wuv you!Dorothy: Too wittle, too wate.
- Repeated Cue, Tardy Response: Melissa is expected to sing "Put On A Happy Face" for her part of the Beauty Contest talent show, but she is so sick of the whole arrangement that she simply stands still silently on stage. Blanche tries to remind Melissa of her cue initially, before she gets on stage personally to "walk" Melissa through the process and ends up taking over the performance, with Melissa leaving the stage before the song was over.
- Shout-Out: To the recently-released Terminator 2: Judgment Day.Dorothy: Hasta la vista, baby.
- Stage Mom:
- Technically "Stage Grandma", as Blanche is Melissa's grandmother, but the trope applies the same way otherwise, since Blanche is so obsessed with winning the Beauty Contest she has Melissa enrolled in that she takes up all of the free time that might be spent on other activities solely to get Melissa rehearsed for the contest, causing Melissa to resent the arrangement in return.
- A stranger, after overhearing Melissa telling Blanche that she might not feel up to performing onstage, tells Blanche and Rose that her daughter used to suffer from Performance Anxiety before her fire-baton twirling act until she was reminded that her mother would have baking soda ready for her afterwards, all while her daughter complains that fire scares her. When she takes her daughter away for the onstage act, her daughter whispers to Blanche and Rose "Help me".
- Tempting Fate:
- When the nurse Dorothy hires talks to Rose about having once worked at Shady Pines while Dorothy goes to get Sophia to get reacquainted with her, she expresses doubt that Sophia would recognize her. The moment Sophia sees her, she immediately wheels herself away into the kitchen, screaming in horror all the while.
- After Blanche and Rose complain to Dorothy about Sophia's nurse interrupting their nighttime activities, Dorothy insists that, as much as she dislikes Sophia's nurse, she doesn't see enough reasons to have said nurse fired. Cue the nurse entering the kitchen and telling Dorothy that a man called for Dorothy but she forgot to get his number before hanging up. After the nurse leaves the kitchen, Dorothy decides that she's had enough.Dorothy: Hasta la vista, baby.
- Toilet Humour: It's implied that the reason Sophia has to sit on the counter when the girls eat inside a Mexican restaurant is because Sophia farts after consuming Mexican food.Sophia: Well, it's your fault I sprained both my ankles.Dorothy: Ma, you were the one that sneezed that blew yourself off the stool.Sophia: It wouldn't have happened if you'd let me sit at the table that night.Dorothy: Look, Ma, you know the rules: When we eat Mexican food, you sit at the counter.
