It's not a secret that the episode considered the worst Golden Girls episode of all time is the season 2 finale, "Empty Nests."
Used as a "backdoor pilot" by NBC, the episode didn't center around The Golden Girls at all, but rather on a couple -- played by the lovely Rita Moreno and Paul Dooley -- who had an "empty nest" of a home and had to figure things out all over again. It actually became a show called Empty Nest, which hilariously didn't match this episode's vibe much at all.
Rita Moreno has called it a "very, very bad show," primarily because Susan Harris was very ill and couldn't do the rewrites -- and the butchered lines were changed so many times Rita Moreno couldn't even remember who her character was supposed to be.
Here at Enough Wicker, we don't even consider "Empty Nests" an episode of The Golden Girls, really, because it's an episode about a doofy doctor man, a skeevy pervert, and a woman who wants to give the Palestinians Greenland. Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia just make an appearance.
We kinda like the episode, anyway. But regardless of your feelings about it, there are many things to be said. Who better to chat with about this infamous episode than the foremost Empty Nest scholar we know?
Matt Browning (a soon-to-be Golden Girls scholar in his own right!) runs emptynesttv.com, and stopped by our podcast for a raucous and robust chat about multiple personality syndrome, dancing cigarette boxes, and a hell of a lot more.