“The Triangle” (S1E05) is the first Golden Girls entry in a fan-favorite sub-genre, that of the girls in competition (real or imagined) with each other. Across seven seasons we’re treated to many such episodes—including “Joust Between Friends,” “One for the Money,” “The Artist” and “The Actor,” to name a few—but “The Triangle” is where it begins, and it’s rather more vicious than playful.

Things kick off mildly enough, with Sophia announcing her intention to watch porn on a big-screen TV at a friend’s house. Dorothy tells her to stay put because a new doctor is on his way over. She’s been concerned by Sophia’s fatigue, elevated blood pressure and lack of color. “I’m an old white woman. I’m not supposed to have color,” Sophia gripes. “You want color? Talk to Lena Horne.”

Blanche, who repeatedly referenced her diminutive stature in the previous episode, “Transplant,” arrives home with a shopping bag and an insult. “I just happened upon the most divine dress sale. I would’ve called you girls, but all they had left were petites.” Dorothy’s riposte matches her friend’s petty spite: “So what did you buy? Shoes?” She returns the subject to the doctor and Rose chimes in, “When I was growing up in Minnesota, the doctor made house calls all the time. For us and the livestock.”

“You and the animals had the same doctor?” Dorothy asks. Rose says “Sure. Worked out fine, until the doctor started drinking hog liniment and tried to neuter the Swenson brothers.” (St. Olaf wasn’t alone. In Dolly Parton’s A Smoky Mountain Christmas, the town doctor pulled double-duty as its veterinarian.) And then the doorbell rings, and in walks Dr. Elliot Clayton (General Hospital‘s Peter Hansen), to whom Dorothy’s instantly attracted.

She sets to work determining his marital status and has successfully arranged a date with him when Blanche enters, modeling her new dress. She, too, is immediately drawn to Elliot, and lays it on thick. “Forgive me for staring,” she drawls, “but I do declare, you’re just about the most attractive man I’ve seen in Florida since Mr. John Forsythe performed Hamlet at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre.” Dorothy yanks her aside to issue a warning.

Dorothy: Listen, you keep your bloomers on, Scarlett. He’s taking me out tomorrow night.

Blanche: (Panting) But he wants me. I can feel it.

Dorothy: Let somebody else feel it. I saw him first.

Blanche: But we were meant for each other. I’m a woman, he’s a man.

Dorothy: And what am I, Little Richard?

The genteel Elliot, who Dorothy begins seeing regularly, is revealed as no prize when he puts the moves on Blanche. She stiffens and he attempts a cringeworthy maneuver that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Sophia’s dirty movies, asking “Blanche, you feel all right? You feel a little flushed to me. Here, let me take your pulse. Ooh, it’s racing. You know what? So is mine.” He tries to pull her into an embrace, telling her she’s very attractive. “I know,” she replies as she rebuffs him.

“No reason to bring Dorothy into this,” he says of his indiscretion, and then they’re interrupted by Rose. After he leaves with Dorothy, Rose tells Blanche, “There is something about that man I don’t trust. I can’t put my finger on it.” As you may recall from “The Engagement” (S1E01), when she clocked Blanche’s bigamist fiancé as a creep, Rose firmly believes in warning friends who have fallen for the wrong guy. When Blanche relays Elliot’s sleazy come-ons, Rose assumes she’ll tell Dorothy about it, urging, “She’s your friend. You’ve got to tell her!”

Blanche has no intention of sharing, having already lost a childhood friend, Anderbeau Johnson, when Anderbeau’s beau made a pass at her. Rose has difficulty following that story but invents an elaborate scenario of how Dorothy’s life, and that of Mei-Ling (a fictional daughter Rose imagines her adopting with Elliot), could be ruined if Blanche doesn’t come forward. When Dorothy returns that night, Blanche takes a deep breath and, after a few false starts, blurts out “Elliot made a pass at me.”

Dorothy: Elliot made a pass at you? You mean, he winked at you. He winks at everyone. He’s a very big winker.

Blanche: No. It was more than a wink. He came up to me and he put his big masculine arms around my tiny little waist.

Dorothy: I don’t believe you.

Blanche: What?

Dorothy: I don’t believe that he put his big, masculine arms around your alleged tiny little waist.

Blanche: Well, Dorothy, why would I make up such a thing?

Dorothy: Because you’re jealous.

Blanche: Jealous?!

Dorothy: You are used to getting all the attention around here, and suddenly someone comes along and wants me and not you and it is eating your guts out.

Blanche: Eating my guts out?!

Dorothy: You know something? You could never be a real friend to another woman, and you know why?

Blanche: Why?

Dorothy: Because you’re a slut!

She additionally calls Blanche “an amoral, backstabbing, self-centered Jezebel.” Rue McClanahan’s false eyelashes are enormous in this scene, and her hair seems to join her in huffing, as if it’s also appalled by Dorothy’s boorish behavior. The next morning, Rose tries to smooth things over, asking if Dorothy would like to join them for coffee. “Frankly, Rose, I would rather use Willie Nelson’s hairbrush,” she replies. (“Must you attack everything Southern?” Blanche asks.) Next, Rose suggests confronting Elliot with the accusation, which he naturally denies.

“Dorothy, you just have to believe me,” Blanche pleads. To which Dorothy witheringly responds, “It’s not enough that you have had half the men in Dade County. You have to have everyone else’s men. It is pathetic.” Blanche declares she’s never felt so betrayed in her life, adding “All right, I haven’t been a good friend to a lot of people, but I have been a very good friend to you, Dorothy. And you take some stranger’s word over mine? I’m not gonna stand for this, not in my own house. I want you out of here.” That’s fine with Dorothy, who says she’ll be gone as soon as she finds a place.

Sophia is AWOL for much of the Elliot action, but doesn’t doubt that Blanche’s story is true. When she’s told what happened she exclaims “I can’t believe it! My daughter is finally dating a doctor—he turns out to be a scuzz bucket!” At the kitchen table later that night, she tells Rose our first Sicily story. Her catchphrase still required minor refinement. “Let me tell you a story. Sicily, 1912. Picture this,” she says, and launches into the tale of a bitter feud (her nemesis: frozen pizza-maker Mama Celeste) before warning Rose to stay out of their roommates’ drama.

Rose, whose fear of living apart from the girls was also central in “The Engagement,” decides to set a honey trap for Elliot, asking “Has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Jerry Vale? He’s the only man in the world that can make the hair on my arms stand up.” Betty White arches an eyebrow and shifts from one leg to another throughout the scene, as if she has to pee. It’s not difficult to believe Rose might find that seductive. “Is something wrong with your leg?” Elliot asks. “Nothing you can’t fix, doctor man,” she replies, and continues embarrassing herself.

Rose: I know I look square, but I’m like my father’s tractor. I take a while to warm up, but once I get going, I can turn your topsoil ’til the cows come home.

Elliot: Rose, please.

Rose: Wanna see some Polaroids of me in my tennis skirt?

Elliot: Look, Rose, I’m flattered, and please, no offense, but you’re just not my type.

Rose: But Blanche was.

Elliot: That never happened.

Rose: Oh, yes it did. Blanche told me all about it.

He continues his denials, but she’s finally able to extract a Scooby-Doo confession that Dorothy overhears. Rose apologizes for bursting her bubble, but Dorothy waves her off, saying “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I have to go talk to Blanche. I’ve been an idiot through this whole thing!” She heads off to Blanche’s bedroom, which is now on a different side of the house than in the pilot, and apologizes. “Nobody ever believes me when I’m telling the truth,” Blanche laments as she puts on makeup. “I guess it’s the curse of being a devastatingly beautiful woman.”

It doesn’t take much thought for Blanche to offer her forgiveness. Rose excitedly walks in on their embrace, exclaiming, “Oh, Blanche, Dorothy! I’m so glad you made up. I knew you couldn’t stay mad for long.” She merrily adds, “Oh, it takes a big woman to forgive somebody calling her a slut!” They pull her in for a hug and Sophia, still stewing over that ancient beef with Mama Celeste, enters with pizza. “One of these is mine, one is Mama you-know-who’s. Taste them and tell me which you like better. If I’m right, this could be worth millions.” After they make their selections, she erupts in anger: “You can’t pick men and you can’t pick pizza!”

Five episodes into the series, Dorothy’s romantic insecurities were already somewhat established. “Guess Who’s Coming to the Wedding?” (S1E02) focused on her betrayal after Stan’s unceremonious departure from their marriage, and in “Rose the Prude” (S1E03) we learned her first post-divorce fling was with her lawyer. What was new in “The Triangle” was her desperation, which becomes a longstanding joke until she finds lasting love in the final two episodes of the series. We get a fuller and more poignant view of her willingness to demean herself for unworthy men later this season in “That Was No Lady” (S1E14), when she begins her tortured affair with married coworker Glen.

Introduction: Thank You for Being a Friend

Previous Episode: “Transplant” (S1E04)

Next Episode: “On Golden Girls” (S1E06)

Where to watch

All seven seasons of The Golden Girls are available on DVD. You can also stream it at Hulu and Fubo with subscriptions, or buy it by the season (or episode) on platforms like Amazon and YouTube.

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