#toshiros been really getting it after the last episode like leave him alone

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: Vacation

Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose go on a Caribbean vacation and everything goes wrong. Back at home, Sophia flirts with the gardener.

Picture It...

Dorothy is gathering suitcases in the living room, fussing over Sophia. Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche are going to the Caribbean for vacation, meaning Sophia will be home alone. Sophia protests she’ll be fine. Rose fusses about traveling abroad, which drives Dorothy insane. Blanche has packed a ton of luggage. After leave for the airport, Sophia greets the Japanese gardener, Mr. Mitsumo, and tries to flirt with him. He doesn’t understand very much English, but he flirts back with her.

The Girls get to the hotel, and find their supposedly luxurious hotel room is a grungy shoebox. Not only are the telephone and the air conditioner not working, but their “ocean view” is a brick wall seen through a window the size of a porthole. They ask the very hostile porter to send the manager up. The Girls complain some more. The very slimy manager enters and claims their room does have an ocean view if you lean extremely far out of the window. When the Girls protest, it turns out Rose pre-paid for the room and they can’t get a refund, meaning they have no choice but to stay.

DOROTHY: You call that an ocean view? You have to be a contortionist to see! MANAGER: Hey, it doesn’t say “great ocean view.”

Back at home, Sophia is having dinner with Mr. Mitsumo, who asks that she call him Toshiro. He plays Japanese music and has made sushi for Sophia, also showing her how to eat with chopsticks. Sophia’s a little grossed out at eating raw fish, and puts most of it in her purse when Toshiro’s not looking. She still compliments his cooking and tells him she thinks he’s cute. He says she’s cuter, and I just can’t with these two.

Back in the hotel, the Girls get set up in the bathroom and Rose talks about how she’s planned out their day as mosquitos bite them up. When Rose tries to enter the bathroom again, the door is locked. They discover that there are three men in the bathroom, as it’s shared with another room. Dwayne, Rick, and Winston are all obnoxious 30-somethings who try to be rude to the Girls, but Blanche isn’t having it. She tells them off, saying to go into the jungle to relieve themselves.

ROSE: You... you... you rude person! DOROTHY: Go easy on him, Rose.

The Girls are sitting in the hotel lobby, having just eaten an awful dinner, when the boys rom the other room enter. They apologize for being rude earlier, and offer to buy the Girls drinks. When they ask how their vacation is going, the Girls admit they’re having a terrible time. Winston says he’s rented a sailboat and offers to bring the Girls along on an evening cruise, which they agree to enthusiastically. Dorothy goes to call Sophia before heading out.

Sophia and Toshiro are now eating Italian food, which he’s enjoying. She tells him that she’s attracted to him, which he understands, but there are still some communication issues. These two are honestly adorable. Sophia goes in for a kiss but is interrupted by the phone call from Dorothy. She’s not pleased, and gets the phone call over with as quickly as possible. This time, it’s Toshiro who initiates the kiss.

Sometime later, Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose are on a beach with the three young men. They sailed into a storm and are now shipwrecked. Naturally the Girls are not pleased with the boys and Blanche and Dorothy start a huge argument. It’s Rose, of all people, who stands up and takes charge, citing her survival knowledge as a Scout. She starts barking orders, telling the other Girls to make a campfire, and Dwayne, Rick, and Winston to follow a path that might lead to a waterfall. Everyone leaps into action, with Blanche and Dorothy being a little scared at how commanding Rose is being.

Hours later, the Girls are grouped around the campfire and the men haven’t returned. Rose, now considerably less confident, thinks they might die and confesses that her confidence earlier was mostly bravado, and she can’t actually help them survive. Under the pressure, the Girls start confessing secrets to each other, including Rose once read Blanche’s diary, Rose once had her nose done and she and Dorothy hid it from Blanche, and Blanche and Dorothy both slept with Rose’s cousin Nolan. Finally they all shout each other into silence.

BLANCHE: You don’t think anything happened to them? DOROTHY: No, I think they probably just stopped to rest. BLANCHE: Yeah, or maybe they’re looking for something to carry the water back in. ROSE: Maybe they were clawed to death by bloodthirsty animals.

After a few moments they start apologizing to each other and say that, if they’re going to die, at least they’re together. Rose bursts into song -- specifically “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing” -- and suddenly the boys emerge from the trees with tropical drinks. They discovered that they never left the resort island and were in fact wrecked next to the actual resort. The Girls agree to keep their confessions to themselves, and they all go off to the Hyatt Regency together singing “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.”

“If I put cracked ice and an umbrella on your head, you’d be a Mai Tai.”

This is a really hard episode to judge, because it’s got very funny parts even if I find the scenario kind of silly. Several of the individual scenes make me laugh, but the episode doesn’t hang together terribly well, and it kind of sucks that the B-plot, as cute as it is, doesn’t last for very long. I would have enjoyed seeing the Girls come home after their ordeal and finding out exactly what Sophia had been up to while they were gone.

ROSE: *on her millionth question* Did you call a cab to take us to the airport? DOROTHY: No Rose, I called two cabs. One for Blanche and me, and one for you, cause you’re making me crazy with all your questions! ... ROSE: Now whose cab is this? Is this yours or mine? DOROTHY: Rose, there’s only one cab. ROSE: Well how am I gonna get to the airport? DOROTHY: Run behind it!

This is one of those “away” episodes where we spend the majority of the episode somewhere other than the Girls’ house. The Girls are off to what they think is a luxurious Caribbean resort, only to find everything not exactly as advertised. Oh the days before online reviews, when you just had to trust that everything was as it looked in the brochure. That’s not to say this couldn’t happen today, but it does make this episode feel like a product of its time.

So much of this episode is memorable, even if in a weird way: The argument over the girls’ “ocean view,” the porter stomping on the bed, Rose snapping and taking charge after the shipwreck. Even if the whole episode doesn’t make a lot of sense, those scenes stick in the mind. And the final scene plays out like one of those single-scene arthouse plays, and it’s always great to see Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy just sit down and talk, as it capitalizes on the actresses’ tremendous chemistry with each other.

I guess if I have one problem with this episode, it’s that the writers felt like they were trying to cram too many different ideas into one episode, any of which would have made a perfectly satisfactory A-plot on their own: The Girls go on a vacation that turns out badly; they end up having to share a bathroom with three men; they get shipwrecked on an island. The young men are a good example of this. For starters, how did the Girls not notice another door leading out of their bathroom when they arrived? They’re in very little of the episode comparatively speaking, and are a plot convenience to get the Girls shipwrecked. Also, if the Girls can’t leave their crappy hotel because they already prepaid, how do they expect to afford a room at the Hyatt Regency?

It’s almost a pity Sophia couldn’t accompany them, because I can’t picture her putting up with even half of the hotel’s foolishness like the rest of the Girls do. This is yet another one of those episodes where Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy go away for some reason and leave Sophia out of things. They do invite her along, but she actually turns them down this time. Turns out there is one reason why Sophia won’t complain about being the “Tonto of the group:” She’s trying to get herself a date.

DOROTHY: Ma, I hate leaving you like this, I really do. Why don’t you come with us? BLANCHE: Yeah, come on, Sophia! It’ll be fun! ROSE: *taking out the brochure* Oh, and the resort is absolutely gorgeous. Look here, here’s our room. Isn’t that beautiful? You can have the king-sized bed. SOPHIA: There’s already two people in it.

I almost wish that B-plot took up a little bit more of the episode. One, because I hate it when Sophia is in less than half of the episode and disappears before the final third. Two, because this is the first time Sophia’s had a romance plot in the series, and it deserves more screentime. I always enjoy how this show makes it so clear that women can have love lives no matter what age they are, and while we’ve been aware that Sophia dates around from her saying as much, this is the first time we’ve seen it happen onscreen.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Toshiro Mitsumo, Sophia’s Japanese gardener love interest, was played by Keye Luke, the actor who played Lee Chan in the Charlie Chan films. Those films may not have aged well in terms of a white actor playing the role of a Chinese detective, but I always enjoyed Luke’s performances as Chan’s “Number One Son.” Here he doesn’t get much to do as Mr. Mitsumo, but he still manages to look very cute flirting with Sophia.

RICK: So, how have you ladies been enjoying your vacation? DOROTHY: As a child, during the Depression, I had to have my wisdom teeth extracted by a shoemaker. That was more fun than this.

I mean, part of me finds it ironic that the episode acts like sushi is exotic and disgusting, to the point where Sophia slips it into her purse rather than eat it. I know that, at the time, most people probably weren’t as familiar with sushi, so it probably didn’t sound appealing to the average Golden Girls viewer, but it’s hilarious considering you can now get sushi very easily in most major American cities (including Miami), and probably a lot of minor ones too.

In the end, while I do love parts of this episode and they gave me a few laughs, it’s a hard one to judge. Still, if nothing else, it gave us some very memorable scenes of our favorite Girls out of their element, and Sophia her first love interest of the series.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰 (three cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode:

The Girls contend with their poor accommodations and Rose has another of her flights of fancy:

#golden girls #stay golden #stay golden sunday #dorothy zbornak #s02e08 #sophia petrillo #blanche devereaux #rose nylund #picture it #vacation

[lanliingwang]

Akoya and Yumichika: Just the beauty aesthetics? [Comparison]

Note: This is merely based on the observations of me, a nerd who has not watched the whole of Bleach and got most of what I know from the smatterings of episodes and chapters I’ve seen (as well as summarized stuff from elsewhere).Thus, I may or may not be wrong/inaccurate on the Yumichika front--or the Akoya one, for that matter, given I haven’t really watched Boueibu in a while, either.

With that in mind, let’s delve in!

On the surface level, Akoya and Yumichika already seem plenty similar--they both adhere strongly to their conceptions of beauty (which are remarkably similar, tbh), are generally disdainful/condescending of most others (especially those that don’t follow said conception of beauty) under a relatively polite veneer, tend to have one of their motifs being some sort of flowers, etc etc. In short, it really does seem like they’re birds of the same feather (no pun intended regarding Yumichika’s peacock motif). They even both use “boku” as the pronoun to refer to themselves I ca n ‘t

However, is that really all there is to them that’s similar?

One could argue that, yes, they’re only superficially similar. But for me, the answer to that question is--more or less--”no.” Delving deeper reveals a fair amount of hidden depths that actually parallel each other very well.

For starters, the few people Akoya and Yumichika have let into their hearts are people they’re fiercely loyal to--for Akoya, that’s Kinshirou and Ibushi, while for Yumichika, that’s Ikkaku (a longtime friend, if manga and expanded anime flashbacks are any indication) and more or less his division Captain. Those are the people they would go to great lengths to please and care for; this is easily shown when Akoya was implied to be furious on Kinshirou’s behalf in episode 12 of season 1 upon finding out that they were tricked (as well as his frequently amiable interactions with Ibushi, such as when they discussed feng shui in episode 10 of the same season), or...well, when Yumichika leapt to avenge Ikkaku after the latter was cut down by zombie!Toshiro during the last arc of Bleach.

Although admittedly, Yumichika did sacrifice a fair bit more initially due to his loyalty (read: hiding his zanpakuto’s true powers to avoid ridicule by the people he’s loyal to), the two of them still are similar in their loyalties in how they clearly appreciate the people they’re loyal to--and to some extent, this loyalty is reciprocated. Kinshirou and Ibushi both treat Akoya on equal terms and clearly come to appreciate his presence, while Ikkaku similarly entrusts Yumichika with some of his greatest secrets and leaps to the latter’s defense when he was clearly in great danger.

Moving on--it also should be noted that both Akoya and Yumichika are notably very observant and cerebral to some extent. In Akoya’s case, he best shows this side of him in season 1, episode 6, where he very nearly singlehandedly destroyed the existence of the Defense Club by some rather clever manipulations and tactics (ostensibly based on a reasonable-sounding “rule” and playing on Io’s desires; this bit is honestly best said by elucida here), but what’s perhaps less talked about is how, in episode 11 of season 2, he’s implied to have deliberately taunted Ryuu to get him back on his feet, knowing that the tone he used would have had that effect--which more or less indicates his strong intuition and ability to read people’s personalities:

Basically, he’s a manipulative and clever little shit who knows how to use his observations to his advantage--or to his sassing. Either way, it’s effective--and also very much like Yumichika, especially in the cleverness and sass.

On the Bleach side, given what kind of series it is, Yumichika doesn’t get those same moments very often. However, that’s not to say he doesn’t have his moments, as this moment indicates:

He literally got slammed into the pillar he was guarding and almost immediately knew that he’d broken his arm in three places due to his opponent’s attack. Which is a pretty big feat, keeping in mind that he’s not a part of the Medical Division, was likely dazed from the impact, and in general should not have been in the best place to make that sort of exact observation. This shows some fairly impressive observation skills (and likely anatomical knowledge), let’s be real.

And of course, the final arc shows this aspect of him a bit more--one instance that comes to mind from memory is that he’s able to conclude from Giselle’s taunting alone that she was purposely making them attack, further indicating that he also has surprisingly strong intuition.

Sound familiar? It probably should. Because it’s very likely what Akoya would also be capable of.

With all that being said, there’s probably more I could say on these two’s hidden depths, but I can’t really think of them at the moment. So I’m just gonna leave these here:

#first time writing this kind of analysis tbh #sorry if it's not in-depth or all that accurate! #lulas's randomness #lulas's meta stuff #yumichika ayasegawa #akoya gero #boueibu #bleach #this kinda assumes you know something about the series so I' #m sorry if this is a bit confusing ;; v ;; #there's probably more but this is all I can think of and it's a bit jumbled up #aaa @elucida I hope you don't mind me referencing your post/meta on akoya b tw