10 goofs and inconsistencies in The Golden Girls

The Golden Girls cast
The Golden Girls cast – Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White

We all watch TV shows and notice that there are aspects of the story that don’t quite match up to the way they were laid down in previous episodes.

For example, sometimes the ages of certain people change throughout the serie. Or people will have one sibling in one episode and a different one in another episode.

Writers generally tend to expect the audience not to notice.  But mistakes can’t get past shows’ most diehard fans.

Here are 10 inconsistencies and goofs from The Golden Girls.

10 Rose doesn’t like hospitals

In one episode, Rose reveals how she hates hospitals and gives Sophia a long explanation as to why: Basically she does’t like being around all of the germs.

She even said she had to hold her breath in the elevator because she didn’t want any of the bugs getting inside her.  But in a later episode she VOLUNTEERS at a hospital.

If she didn’t like hospitals, why choose to work at one?

She also visits Dorothy, Sophia, and Blanche when they are at the hospital, and is a patient herself a couple of times but never mentions the germs or not liking hospitals.

Had the writers forgotten she didn’t like them?

9 Stan living in Miami

In Season One of the show, Dorothy’s ex-husband Stan lives in Maui.  When their daughter Kate gets married, Dorothy makes reference to Stan living there with his new wife.

Fast-forward a few episodes and he is living in Miami.  When did he move there?!?!

There was never any reference made to him moving from Maui to Miami.

Dorothy never makes reference to how he moved to the city she lives in whenever she complains about him being around all of the time.

Also, Dorothy and Stan were married and living in New York.  What are the odds that he chose to move to the same state as her?

8 Phil’s funeral

This one is a nitpick and not an inconsistency.  Sophia’s son Phil lived in New Jersey when he passed away.  For some reason, his funeral was in Miami instead of New Jersey.

Why would Phil’s wife have the funeral in a different state from the one he lived?  Phil never lived in Miami so there was no sense in his funeral being held in Miami.

Also, why didn’t his children go to his funeral?  Did they not care that their father passed away?

Phil also has a sister named Gloria who also didn’t show up to the funeral.  Again, did she not care that her brother died?

7 Dorothy’s reunion in Miami

Another nitpick. Dorothy went to high school in New York, and her class decides to have a high school reunion.  When they have it, they have it in…Miami.

Since Dorothy and her class didn’t go to school in Miami, why would the reunion be held there?  Also, why would the reunion be held in Dorothy’s house?

High school reunions don’t take place in people’s houses.  They are usually held in a banquet hall or something like that.

An easier solution would be for Dorothy to fly back home instead of everyone meeting at her house.

6 Everyone can find them, when they shouldn’t be able to

Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche were all married and used their husbands’ last names.  With that said, people who visit them who aren’t from Miami never have any trouble finding them.

In one episode, Rose’s ex-boyfriend Buzz is able to find her after he left her years ago.  She lived in St. Olaf when they were together.

She also married Charlie and went by the last name Nylund.  How did Buzz know that Rose was living in Miami?

She also had a different last name so finding her should have been difficult. Dorothy’s ex-boyfriend finds her too.

She was single when they were together so how did he know to look her up with her married name?

A man that rejected Blanche in college is also able to find her house.  She was single when they were together.  How did he know that she married George Deveraux?

There are plenty of examples of this throughout the series.

5 How did they get home when they were on the game show?

When the girls are waiting to appear on the game show Grab That Dough, they are robbed.  All of their suitcases as well as their money is stolen.  They only get home because they win money on the game show.

The problem is, how did they get home when they didn’t have any identification on them?  They flew to go to the game show so they most likely needed identification in order to get a plane ticket.

They were in California one minute and back in Miami the next minute.  You need identification to get on an airplane.

Their trip home seemed effortless, but that is unlikely!

4 Sophia and Blanche’s siblings changed

During one episode, Dorothy surprises Sophia by bringing her sister to her birthday party.  When Dorothy tries to get Sophia and Angela to get along, Dorothy says Angela is Sophia’s only sister.

When Angela moves in with them, Sophia says they are the only two left out of their siblings. However, in the later seasons, Angela is replaced with Angelo.

Where did Angelo come from if Angela was the only sibling she had left?

Also, Blanche had two sisters when the show first started.  During a later season, she suddenly has a brother who was never mentioned before.

He appears in two episodes, with the sisters seemingly a thing of the past.

3 How long did they live together?

In Season Three, the girls say during a psychiatry session that they lived together for five years.

During Season Seven when Blanche wants a hot tub, she is told she needs to have a permit in order to have all three of the girls living in the house.

When Blanche sells them each a share of the house, they make reference to living together for seven years.  How is that possible when they said they were living together for five years in Season Three?

By Season Seven, they should have been living together for nine years instead of seven.

2 The number of kids Blanche and Rose have

The number of children Blanche has changes during the show.  At one point she acknowledges having her two daughters and about four sons.

The next thing you know the sons are never mentioned again.  She only mentions Rebecca and Janet throughout the entire show.

The number of Rose’s kids changes too.  One episode she has a lot children.  In another episode, she names the number of children she’s had when she tells the girls how they were conceived.

She only mentions having three children.  What happened to the rest of the children she had? Did they just disappear into thin air?

1 The ages of their kids

Dorothy’s oldest child was conceived when she was in high school or college depending on the episode. Kate should have been in her late 30s, but the actresses who played Kate were not as old as her character should have been.

Michael is in his late 20s when he hooks up with Rose’s daughter.  He comes back in another episode when he is engaged to an older woman — but is now in his early 20s.

Blanche’s daughter Rebecca was also one age one minute and older in another. She was 24 in Season Three and appeared much older in later seasons.

Then there’s Rose’s daughter Kristen, who is an older woman when she visits to check out her father’s will.

But when Rose has a heart attack, Kristen seems to have gotten younger.

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Miss W.
Miss W.
3 years ago

#8 Phil’s Funeral (watching this episode as we speak). Sophia mentions that she convinced him before he died to be buried in a family plot in Miami. It’s highly likely there was a memorial service in New Jersey prior to his body being transferred to Miami. Previous episodes indicate that Phil and “Big Sal” were very poor, so a plane ticket for their children wouldn’t be financially possible. In regards to his other sister, a few episodes later share that she was went from rich to broke following her divorce.

Jim
Jim
3 years ago

Dorothy and Stan were together “38 years” before the divorce. That fact is mentioned often thru out the series. The two were married while Dorothy was pregnant with their first child. So, which child was the first? Michael or Kate? I was always under the impression that it was Michael. However, Michael’s age is revealed as being “28” by Dorothy during a discussion about his inability to take responsibility and direction with his life and career. So, either Michael isn’t the first born or we have a inconsistency with the duration of Dorothy and Stan’s marriage by ten years. Kate’s age was never mentioned. But, when she gets married in a first season episode, she looks to be in her twenties, not late thirties.