Till Death Do We Volley

Till Death Do We Volley is the nineteenth episode of the fourth season of The Golden Girls, and the ninety-fifth episode overall. Directed by Terry Hughes and written by Tracy Gamble and Richard Vaczy, it premiered on NBC-TV on March 18th, 1989.

Summary[]

Dorothy is visited by high school friend Trudy, whose friendship with her is based on competition and practical jokes. The competition gets out of hand when Trudy collapses and apparently dies during a game of tennis and Dorothy must break the news to their assembled classmates.

Plot[]

The episode begins as Dorothy excitedly breaks the news that her old high school friend Trudy is coming to town early to visit before the high school reunion party is to be held in their house. Dorothy reminisces about her friendship with Trudy built on rivalry being in the tennis team and playing practical jokes on each other. When Trudy arrives at the house with her husband, Jack, Dorothy and Trudy are happy to reunite, and trade quips and increasingly personal jabs at each other that seem to worry the other girls. Despite it all, the two seem to get along and are excited to continue their rivalry by agreeing to play tennis the next day, before the reunion party.

The next day, Dorothy is being soundly beaten by Trudy in tennis as the other girls watch. Suddenly, they see Trudy seemingly trip and fall on the court, and remark that she wasn't getting back up. They rush to check on Trudy. However, the next scene shows the girls back in their home, devastated by the news that Trudy has died. Dorothy is especially heartbroken about her friend, and feels guilty for her death from having asked Trudy to play tennis with her. The girls all attempt to cheer up Dorothy and assuage her guilt, but none of them seem to be successful.

When the party begins later that night, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia do their best to field questions about Dorothy and Trudy's absence without giving away the news, as they are expecting Dorothy to tell their fellow classmates about it. They eventually convince Dorothy to stop hiding in her room, and she comes out to make the announcement. However, her composure breaks in the end while delivering the news to everyone, still seemingly feeling guilt over Trudy's death, and she retreats back into her room. Soon after, the doorbell rings and Blanche answers the door, where she is shocked to see an alive Trudy standing. Trudy happily explains that she faked her death as a practical joke for Dorothy, but the girls are upset at the boundaries she has pushed for this. They demand Trudy find Dorothy to apologize immediately, and they proceed to Dorothy's room. Trudy, however, is shocked herself when they enter Dorothy's room to find both Dorothy and Trudy's husband Jack under the covers together.

Furious at this discovery, she angrily berates the two of them for sleeping together so soon after the news of her supposed death. At this, Dorothy throws the covers open to show she and Jack are fully clothed, and reveals she enlisted Jack's help to play a practical joke back at Trudy when she had suspicions about Trudy's "death" and asked Jack about it. Dorothy and Trudy then both praise each other for their successful practical jokes, and Trudy heads back to the party. Blanche and Rose, however, are still upset that Dorothy did not let them in on her side of the practical joke, and admonish Dorothy for making them grieve alongside her. They storm away angrily, saying what she did was unforgivable, and Dorothy seems crushed. Blanche, however, returns shortly with a smile and tells Dorothy "Gotcha," but finds that Rose is not with her and might have been sincere in being upset with Dorothy.^[1]

Tall Tales[]

Tales from the Old South[]

While Dorothy is distraught over Trudy's presumed death, Blanche tells her about Cathy Lee, a friend Blanche had made when she was eight years old, Cathy Lee and Blanche met on the playground, and the two became "thick as Louisiana blackstrap molasses on a stake of johnnycakes as high as an elephant's knee". However, when Blanche brought her to a seafood fry to meet her parents, her mother took one look at Cathy Lee and forbade Blanche from ever associating with her again. As Blanche's servants snickered at Cathy Lee's servants, Blanche's mother told her that Cathy Lee's mother was not a part of The Daughters of the Confederacy, and if Blanche didn't break off the friendship, then she wouldn't get new riding boots for Christmas. When Blanche reveals that she broke off the friendship, Dorothy asks what the story has to do with acceptance. Blanche replies that years later, Cathy Lee slept with Blanche's father to get back at her, and that was something she had to accept.

Picture It...[]

Rather than tell a story from her own past, Sophia tells Dorothy a story from Italy's past. In 1852, a disillusioned Italy looked to the house of Savoy for leadership. Giuseppe Garibaldi held a large party at his beach house to "jump into this Crimean War thing", and everyone who was anyone came to the party. Coincidentally, this was also the night his wife Rosa hit her sexual peak. While Rosa had Giuseppe in the bedroom with his saber around his ankles, two hundred hungry guests were strip-searching mice for a piece of cheese. When Dorothy asks if the point of the story was that she and Rosa both threw terrible parties, Sophia says that was her minor point. Her major f=point was that, like Rosa, Dorothy was screwing around in the bedroom when there are important things to do outside.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

• Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak
• Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux
• Betty White as Rose Nylund
• Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo

Guest Stars[]

• Anne Francis as Trudy McCann
• Robert King as Jack McCann
• Jean Palmerton as Woman

Notes[]

Cultural references[]

• The title is a reference to the promise to be true "until death do is part" in the Christian wedding ceremony.

Goofs[]

• The necklace Blanche is wearing at the reunion part changes between shots.
• In this episode, Dorothy says she went to the prom in her tennis outfit with her brother Phil. In "What a Difference a Date Makes", she was supposed to go to the prom with John Noretti, but ended up with Stanley because he didn't show up.^[2]

Site Navigation[]

V - E - H List of The Golden Girls episodes
Season 1	The Engagement • Guess Who's Coming to the Wedding • Rose the Prude • Transplant • The Triangle • On Golden Girls • The Competition • Break-In • Blanche and the Younger Man • The Heart Attack • The Return of Dorothy's Ex • The Custody Battle • A Little Romance • That Was No Lady • In a Bed of Rose's • The Truth Will Out • Nice and Easy • The Operation • Second Motherhood • Adult Education • The Flu • Job Hunting • Blind Ambitions • Big Daddy • The Way We Met
Season 2	End of the Curse • Ladies of the Evening • Take Him, He's Mine • It's a Miserable Life • Isn't It Romantic • Big Daddy's Little Lady • Family Affair • Vacation • Joust Between Friends • Love, Rose • 'Twas The Nightmare Before Christmas • The Sisters • The Stan Who Came to Dinner • The Actor • Before and After • And Then There Was One • Bedtime Story • Forgive Me, Father • Long Day's Journey into Marinara • Whose Face is This, Anyway? • Dorothy's Prized Pupil • Diamond in the Rough • Son-in-Law Dearest • To Catch a Neighbor • A Piece of Cake • Empty Nests
Season 3	Old Friends • One for the Money • Bringing Up Baby • The Housekeeper • Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself • Letter to Gorbachev • Strange Bedfellows • Brotherly Love • A Visit from Little Sven • The Audit • Three on a Couch • Charlie's Buddy • The Artist • Blanche's Little Girl • Dorothy's New Friend • Grab That Dough • My Brother, My Father • Golden Moments, Part 1 • Golden Moments, Part 2 • And Ma Makes Three • Larceny and Old Lace • Rose's Big Adventure • Mixed Blessings • Mister Terrific • Mother's Day
Season 4	Yes, We Have No Havanas • The Days and Nights of Sophia Petrillo • The One That Got Away • Yokel Hero • Bang the Drum, Stanley • Sophia's Wedding, Part 1 • Sophia's Wedding, Part 2 • Brother, Can You Spare That Jacket • Scared Straight • Stan Takes a Wife • The Auction • Blind Date • The Impotence of Being Ernest • Love Me Tender • Valentine's Day • Two Rode Together • You Gotta Have Hope • Fiddler On the Ropes • Till Death Do We Volley • High Anxiety • Little Sister • Sophia's Choice • Rites of Spring • Foreign Exchange • We're Outta Here, Part 1 • We're Outta Here, Part 2
Season 5	Sick and Tired, Part 1 • Sick and Tired, Part 2 • The Accurate Conception • Rose Fights Back • Love Under the Big Top • Dancing in the Dark • Not Another Monday • That Old Feeling • Comedy of Errors • All That Jazz • Ebb Tide • Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas • Mary Has a Little Lamb • Triple Play • Clinton Avenue Memoirs • Like the Beep Beep Beep of the Tom-Tom • An Illegitimate Concern • 72 Hours • Twice In a Lifetime • Sisters and Other Strangers • Cheaters • The Mangiacavallo Curse Makes a Lousy Wedding Present • All Bets Are Off • The President's Coming! The President's Coming!, Part 1 • The President's Coming! The President's Coming!, Part 2
Season 6	Blanche Delivers • Once, In St. Olaf • If At Last You Do Succeed • Snap Out Of It • Wham, Bam, Thank You Mammy • Feelings • Zborn Again • How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sophia? • Mrs. George Devereaux • Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... Before They Die • Stand By Your Man • Ebbtide's Revenge • The Bloom Is Off the Rose • Sisters of the Bride • Miles to Go • There Goes the Bride, Part 1 •There Goes the Bride, Part 2 • Older and Wiser • Melodrama • Even Grandmas Get the Blues • Witness • What a Difference a Date Makes • Love for Sale • Never Yell Fire in a Crowded Retirement Home, Part 1 • Never Yell Fire in a Crowded Retirement Home, Part 2 • Henny Penny — Straight, No Chaser
Season 7	Hey, Look Me Over • The Case of the Libertine Belle • Beauty and the Beast • That's For Me to Know • Where's Charlie? • Mother Load • Dateline: Miami • The Monkey Show, Part 1 • The Monkey Show, Part 2 • Ro$e Love$ Mile$ • Room Seven • From Here to the Pharmacy • The Pope's Ring • Old Boyfriends • Goodbye, Mr. Gordon • The Commitments • Questions and Answers • Ebbtide VI: The Wrath of Stan • Journey to the Center of Attention • A Midwinter Night's Dream, Part 1 • A Midwinter Night's Dream, Part 2 • Rose: Portrait of a Woman • Home Again, Rose, Part 1 • Home Again, Rose, Part 2 • One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest, Part 1 •One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest, Part 2

References[]