Designing Women

[atpeacewithme]

I thought Charlene wanted to spend more time with her family. But maybe that was Jean Smart's reason for leaving.

[Deleted]

You can rent the best of Designing Women from Netflix.

[ladymadonna]

I had no idea that the characters changed in the later cast. How so? Did Julia stop having her tirades? How did Mary Jo change? Letting Delta go was a big mistake. She was the funniest one and she and Julia had genuine chemistry.

Mary Jo was my very favorite character in the first few seasons, but toward the end, she did a 180 in terms of who the character was. Old Mary Jo was kind of timid and shy, yet had a spine of steel, when she was really pushed. She was witty and clever, and yet she deferred to the more dynamic personalities. She was a perfect supporting foil for Suzanne and Julia (and Charlene, to a lesser extent).

But, after Delta and Jeanne left, they tried to make Mary Jo into a bawdy, loud-mouthed conglomeration of the two characters, and it just didn't work, for me anyway. They had to make Julia, Mary Jo, Anthony, and Bernice into main characters to support the new cast, and it failed because Anthony, Bernice, and to an extent, Mary Jo, were excellent supporting characters, not leads.


Umm, yeah, I love this show, and I've spent almost as much time dissecting it as I have Murphy Brown.

Favorite episode: The one where Charlene gets ripped off by Gavin Whatshisname, who promises to make her a Nashville singing star. The scene where Anthony rattles off all the names of Charlene's family, while he's trying not to get his ass kicked by the NFL guy is HILARIOUS!

I also like the one where Julia makes her ascerbic "Ray Don" speech. Something like: "Oh, we know YOU, RAY Don. You are the man who insists on butting in on groups of women everywhere.."

[schmoosie]

Do you remember the breast cancer episode? Charlene found a lump in her breast and went to the doctor. The doctor ran tests and made her wait and wait and wait and wait for the results. When he finally got the results he told her it was nothing. I don't remember the exact details, but I think Julia took Charlene to her doctor where they found out that it wasn't "nothing" or something to that extent.

Julia went to Charlene's doctor and laid the most magnificant rant ever on that stunned doctor, telling him that she had a friend who died of breast cancer that was detected too late because she came to him and told her it was, nothing. SOOOo good

I also liked the episode where they had to buy a new van in order to deliver goods to a customer by midnight. Julia, Charlene and Susanne go to the dealership and had this plan to go in and not let the sales guy rook them, but it all turned into a mess. They all went into the ladies room to discuss what to do next. Mary Jo waltzs in from wherever she had been and completely saves the day...then tells the story of buying a chicken in Guadulajara.

Oh and as for the aids episode. My father's funeral song was "Just A Closer Walk With Thee....." (I got the idea from the show)...because I knew my father would be celebrating his ascention in to heaven, just like that.

[CAgirl]

I also like the one where Julia makes her ascerbic "Ray Don" speech. Something like: "Oh, we know YOU, RAY Don. You are the man who insists on butting in on groups of women everywhere.."

I love that one! The way she says Ray Don is what makes it so great.

I also like the one where Julia gets stuck in the banister. I don't really remember the entire episode, just that Suzanne has to get her dressed and takes it so seriously.

My absolute favorite one is when they go to New Orleans for a convention. Charlens is drunk and asleep under the podium and Mary Jo announces she slept with a married man. And Suzanne trying to prove the woman is really a man pretending to be a woman. That epsiode always makes me laugh.

[Ripley]

What was the episode where Julia laid into some beauty contestants who had made snide comments about Delta's baton routine and she left them bleeding in the dust while Delta lurked in the background?

[Deleted]

I think that episode is the one where Julia is forced to give up her Miss Georgia title to Donna Jo something-or-other due to a miscount. Of course, it turns out that Betty Jo was ... overly kind to the old men on the journal (to put it mildly - IIRC, it sounded like Donna Jo was quite the wild one in the sack), so Suzanne got to keep the title, and got one more walk down the pageant aisle. IIRC (again), this is the infamous "That was the night the lights went out in Geor-gia" speech.

I really wish someone aired it up here. When I lived in the States, I watched it all the time. It looks like the box sets might start flowing near the end of the year.

[swanflake]

Remember the episode where one of them (Mary Jo?) was sexually harrassed by some guy who had her find a glass waterfall to install in his bathroom? I totally wanted one of those glass waterfalls for years after I saw that episode.

[kathy1977]

What was the episode where Julia laid into some beauty contestants who had made snide comments about Delta's baton routine and she left them bleeding in the dust while Delta lurked in the background?

That was actually the episode from the first season when Charlene signed Mary Jo's daughter Claudia up for a beauty pagent. Suzanne decided to be Claudia's "coach". The reigning Miss Georgia World and one of her frineds was in the powder room and they were making some catty remarks about Suzanne. Julia overheard and laid into her.

JULIA: Excuse me, aren't you Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World?
MARJORIE: Why, yes I am.
JULIA: I'm Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker's sister. I couldn't help over hearing part of your conversation.
MARJORIE: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was here.
JULIA: Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, "What would you do to prevent war?" she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie --- just so you will know --- and your children will someday know --- is the night the lights went out in Georgia!

[Deleted]

That's one of my favorite Julia rants ever. Particularly the last sentence.