Known for its witty repartee, satirical comedy, and unapologetic examination of popular topics, The Golden Girls was so much more than a show about four women of "a certain age" living in Miami. It followed their relationships, career paths, and personal struggles by showing that the same things continue to happen in life as we get older, television just chooses to ignore it. By enjoying time with sardonic Dorothy, vivacious Blanche, lovable Rose, and wise-cracking Sophia, we learned age was just a number.
One of the few criticisms of the show was that continuity seemed to hinge on the storyline of each episode, and certain devices introduced during one plot failed to materialize in any others. This went for everything from the number of Rose's children and the ages of Dorothy's, to the number of Blanche's siblings (and their genders). In the worst cases, certain storylines were simply never resolved. Here's 10 of the worst offenses concerning the fab four.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COCO?
When The Golden Girls first aired, the four ladies lived together with a flamboyant housekeeper named Coco. He cooked, cleaned, and cracked wise with them as they settled into their daily routine as housemates. Coco had already been Blanche's housekeeper for a number of years, so when Dorothy and Rose moved in, they availed themselves of his services.
Coco knew all about Blanche's love life, her mannerisms, and was as witty as Dorothy when it came to making fun of his employer. But it seemed that with the arrival of Sophia, Coco disappeared, never to be seen again in any other episodes. His disappearance was never explained, but perhaps producers wanted to focus just on the four women.
DOROTHY'S DISAPPEARING GRANDCHILD
Dorothy has never had the easiest relationship with her son Michael, the traveling musician who would rather pursue his creative muse than hold down the stable career she'd like him to have. So you can imagine how ecstatic she is when, at 22, he announces he's engaged and going to have a child with a much older woman.
Dorothy doesn't approve of the situation and relents only after she witnesses the two of them together and sees how happy they are. After they get married and have the child, it's never mentioned again. In Season 5 when they divorce, Michael doesn't mention what became of Dorothy's grandchild, only that he now needs a place to stay and money to support himself.
SOPHIA BECAME A POLYGAMIST?
There's no denying all the girls got a lot of action over the course of seven seasons, but did anyone really have as many proposals as the grand dame of the fab four, Sophia Petrillo? In the early 20th century, she was a ravishing beauty in Sicily, getting engaged to first Augustine Bagatelli, then Giuseppe Mangicacavallo, and finally Guido Spirelli, all before marrying her true love Salvadore.
In Season 4, long since having been a widow, Sophia agrees to marry Max Weinstock, but it doesn't last. She doesn't divorce him however, due to her Catholic Faith, so what happened to Max when she gets engaged to Marvin in Season 7?
MILES AND THE MOB
In a curious twist in Season 6, it's revealed that Rose's longtime beau, Miles is in actuality, Nicholas Carbone, a mob witness that's been relocated to Miami as part of the witness protection program. If Miles has been running from the mob this whole time, how have we never seen him act paranoid at going to public places? Furthermore, how is he able to have visitors?
When Miles makes the big reveal to Rose, he tells her that if she wants to stay in a relationship with him, she has to cut off all her contact with family and friends. Yet his adult daughter has no problem coming to visit him in Miami and referring to him by his pseudonym.
SOPHIA'S MOTHER
Not much is mentioned about Sophia's mother, but whenever Dorothy has brought up her grandmother, she's said that she was in her '90s when she was a little girl. Sophia is only supposed to be about 25-30 years older than Dorothy, which implies that her mother had to be 52 when she gave birth to her, which seems very unlikely given that she lived in a small Sicilian village.
In a flashback episode, we actually see Sophia's mother (played by Bea Arthur), and Dorothy is already a young woman. How is this possible, if Dorothy has said that the woman died when she was six years old? And if we go by Sophia's brother Angelo, she died 72 years prior to that.
ROSE'S CAT ALLERGY
There were a lot of changes made in the pilot episode of The Golden Girls that didn't seem to affect the nature of the series later on. For one thing, Blanche mysteriously lost her gay housekeeper Coco, who was in the kitchen cooking for the girls one minute and never heard nor seen again for the rest of the series. Then there was Rose's cat, Mr. Peepers, who she's seen carrying in the grocery store when she first agrees to be Blanche's roommate.
How was it even possible that Rose had a cat, when in other episodes she says she never had a cat because she's allergic to them? In the pilot episode, it's not like she got rid of the cat due to her allergies, she just gives him to some random boy and he's never mentioned again.
STAN'S MOVE TO MIAMI
When the series began, Dorothy explained to the girls that her ex-husband Stan lived in Maui with his much younger wife. When her daughter Kate gets married, she explains he probably won't even attend the wedding. Not long into Season 1, he's living in Miami! Dorothy never mentions why he suddenly moved to Florida, just that she's tired of seeing him so often.
It's an odd choice, considering that his children don't live in Florida, and he himself is from New York. So why would he move to where his ex-wife was? Furthermore, they never really explain why it didn't work out with his ex, or what inspired them to separate.
BLANCHE AND DOROTHY'S HEALTH ISSUES
There's no doubt that the ladies are in good health during the course of the show; they maintain healthy sex lives, go on frequent trips, and take up new hobbies. Most of the time, there aren't any major health scares for them except a few aches and pains, or the need for reading glasses. When major health issues did arise, they only existed for the plot of one episode.
In one episode, Blanche has to get a pacemaker put in, which she worries is going to affect her sex life should she get her heart pumping too fast. In another episode, Dorothy realizes she has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and will live with it for the rest of her life, but she only complains of being exhausted all the time for the remainder of that storyline.
DOROTHY'S GAMBLING HABIT
In the fifth season, Dorothy reverts back on a nasty habit she thought she'd sworn off years ago. Only it isn't a habit, but a gambling addiction, and what she first considers harmless turns into a full-blown mania. Dorothy quickly runs through her own money, before beginning to prey on Rose's dim-wittedness, lying to her that she owes money, or that she needs money for her mother's operation.
This gambling addiction starts at the horse track, and soon Dorothy is rescheduling a job interview due to "car trouble" just to spend time there. The girls eventually rally together to stage an intervention, but it isn't specified if Dorothy's gambling addiction is cured.
ROSE'S PAINKILLER ADDICTION
In the appropriately titled "High Anxiety" episode, Rose admits to having an addiction to painkillers. She's had it for decades, and only mentions it casually when she can't find her bottle of pills. Soon, her normally goofy and good-natured self is replaced by an erratic, aggressive personality that the girls have never seen before and attribute to the withdrawal.
The girls decide they'll help Rose go cold turkey. It doesn't work, and she needs to be admitted to a hospital to detox. Rose tells them point-blank the hospital stay didn't cure her, and that she'll struggle for the rest of her life, but her pill habit is never touched on later in the series.