In some episodes, Rose is seen at ridiculous early hours in the morning for whatever reason (i.e. to bake or to look out for robbers). This odd talent makes sense given that she was raised on a farm, where Rose would have to wake up at hours as early as 4:00 AM.
Dorothy being the one to give a Dare to Be Badass to Blanche's grandson makes perfect sense - she's a teacher, she probably sees troubled students all the time. She even says that time they were in jail because they were caught up in a prostitution raid that it wasn't that different from the public school system.
Blanche's initial rejection of her brother Clayton for being gay might seem explainable considering the era the show takes place in, her age, and her southern Protestant background. But the possible true reasons for her reaction become evident once you consider the Golden Palace episode "Tad". In this episode, it's revealed that Blanche has another brother, Tad, who's mentally handicapped. Blanche lets Rose know that she and her family never spoke of Tad because he was considered an embarrassment. With an upbringing such as this, is it any wonder that Blanche would be horrified at her seemingly "normal" brother suddenly coming out as gay after years of heterosexual marriage?
In the episode "Yes We Have No Havanas", Rose tells Dorothy that Eva Braun was her high school gym teacher. Earlier in the episode, Rose enrolls in adult high school classes because she didn't graduate. She got sick from kissing a boy with mono at a school kissing booth, and ended up spreading it to "50 other boys and a confused female gym teacher that smelled like Old Spice". Does that mean Rose kissed Eva Braun?
Even more horrifying is the implication that none other than Adolf Hitler himself, was Rose's History teacher - having somehow escaped with Eva - during the same period of time, she even mentions that it was rumored that "Mr. Stichkelmyer" and Eva Braun used to date.
In the episode "Feelings," Rose reports her dentist for sexual harassment. When he does it onscreen, it's played mostly for comedy; however, Rose mentions being sedated on the previous occasion, leaving us to wonder what might have happened while she was drugged and unable to fight back.
One episode has the girls organizing a funeral for a rather despised neighbor. Only one person shows up to pay her respects...only to discover she went to the wrong funeral. She kicks the casket when she discovers whose funeral she actually attended. Shortly after the guest leaves, the funeral director comes to the girls and says the neighbor was accidentally cremated due to a mix-up. This ends up raising the possibility that the guest kicked the casket of someone she respected.
Crossing over with Fridge Sadness: Most episodes play Blanche's obsession with remaining youthful and hiding her true age for a joke. The second season opener, "End of the Curse," is far more serious—when Blanche starts going through menopause, she has a nervous breakdown. The girls take her to see a psychiatrist, and she explains her greatest fear: "You know sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see my mother's face...it scares me to death. It just scares me to death." But it isn't until the episode "Mother's Day" that we find out why looking like her mother is so terrifying to Blanche—Mrs. Hollingsworth developed severe Alzheimer's as she grew older and eventually reached a point where, on some days, she couldn't remember who she was. That's what age means to Blanche: losing her entire identity and becoming helpless.
Since the risk of developing Alzheimer's is hereditary, her fears might be justified.
The episode High Anxiety reveals that Rose had become heavily dependent on painkillers. The addictive thing about opioids is that they produce a euphoric high that makes the user more relaxed, cheerful, and sometimes more social...and higher doses can make the user seem out of it and not make much sense. Before the revelation of the episode, how many of Rose's scatterbrained moments could've possibly been her under the effects of the pills?
Depending on how long she'd been getting them, they may have been doing a number on her brain function, too.
One has to wonder about how the women couldn't afford a big screen TV/cable and a pool (it's even brought up on many occasions, mostly by Sophia) but could afford their seemingly endless supply of evening gowns that pop up from time to time (which before anyone says anything, are usually bought by the women outright rather than rented or worn a time or two and then returned.)
They probably return the gowns after they attend their big events. I'm pretty sure a dress getting ruined so it couldn't be returned was a plot at least once.
Blanche owning a huge amount of evening gowns for fancy events makes at least a little sense. She mentions early in the series marrying rich and talks about how George bought her many expensive gifts when he was alive. It stands to reason that he left her quite a bit of money. She also implies that the only reason she took on renters in the first place was because it would be good for her equity, so she probably isn't strapped for cash. Rose is probably pretty thrifty when it comes to her nice clothes, especially since Blanche makes many snide remarks about them being polyester and other cheap materials that she passes off for nicer fabrics. As for Dorothy...maybe Stan just sends her a good enough alimony check that she can spend it on nice clothes for herself. I mean, he did buy her a mink stole and a $2000 diamond ring during their marriage.
Sophia being the chief complainer about their money woes may also be due to the fact she can't afford those things. She's the only one of the girls without a steady job, and frequently steals from Dorothy's purse to splurge. Dorothy mentions she tries to be very careful with money, and is probably just too practical to spring for a big screen TV/cable (she reads so much and probably doesn't think it's a worthy investment) or a pool (since that would require permits, inspections, and other headaches they've had to deal with in other home improvement-centric episodes).
The "Wham, Bam, Thank You Mammy" episode displayed that Blanche's father, Big Daddy, was in love with her Black nanny (to the point of them writing love letters to one another), had carried on a long affair and that she was fired after her mother discovered it. Yet other episodes imply that not only was he a racist, but was also a Grand Wizard of the Klan. What's going on here?
He was a Hypocrite. He was hardly the only one. As for why Viola didn't seem to notice or care about the discrepancy, she was hardly the only woman to ignore or make excuses for her lover's more unsavory aspects.
As Blanche says, take away the money and her natural love for them, and her family is "basically trash".
It would explain why he married the young woman from Big Daddy's Little Lady and not her.
Actually, it makes sense on one end or another, depending on how you read into it. On one end, you could read it Big Daddy "compartmentalizing" Viola, where, despite being racist towards black people, she's his exception, in some form, to that prejudice, while, on another end, if ya'll remember that episode of The Golden Palace, he might've been more ignorant, which is to say, he, on a personal level, had no issues with black people but, at the same time, wasn't against any bigotry in any form either, since it was normal to him.
In "Break In," Rose blindly shoots at a man coming in the front door (actually Blanche's date) when the alarm goes off. Why was the alarm armed in the first place? Aren't you only supposed to turn them on when you're not home?
Who says you're only supposed to turn them on when you're not home? Plenty of people leave their alarms on at the house to be on the safe side — at night when they're sleeping, for example. Notice how Rose, Dorothy and Sophia are all in their nightgowns in this scene, and how the latter two came in from the hallway leading to their bedrooms after the gun was fired.
If Dorothy had a Teen Pregnancy, why do neither of her children appear to be older than thirty when she's in her sixties? This is especially glaring when she claims Michael is her oldest child, as he's explicitly twenty-three years old in the episode "Mixed Blessings."
Writers Cannot Do Math. Also, Dorothy is in her 50s (about mid 50s), though the showrunners might have initially conceived her character to really be in her 40s earlier in the show's development before they aired it or Micheal is supposed to be her youngest child but they messed up the script.
