User Reviews

Rose's daughter and grand daughter come for a visit. Rose shows her daughter her inheritance and she is shocked that it is not as big as she expected. She is angry at Rose and wants to leave, while Rose has to confess to her daughter that Charlie wasn't such a successful businessman after all.

The episode is a bit of a drag. The story is not too interesting. Don't get me wrong, there are some great jokes and cute moments (such as Rose listening to the national anthem), but they don't improve the episode too much. Also Rose's daughter doesn't seem so nice, a bit too materialistic. Which also makes it weird how fast she accepted that he father wasn't a successful businessman.

Rose's eldest daughter Kirsten and granddaughter come for a visit. Rose is making Kirsten executor of her will and wants to have her review the documents. Rose always led her kids to believe their father was very successful as a traveling salesman and that he left them a sizable estate upon his passing. Kirsten is shocked to discover there is little left and tears into her mother, accusing Rose of squandering his hard-earned fortune. Rose just takes the abuse and offers no defense. Knowing Rose to be responsible with money, Blanche and Dorothy have a hard time believing she lost it all on bad investment choices, but Rose doubles down. What is Rose hiding about the money and her dear departed husband, Charlie? Not wanting Kirsten to leave angry, Rose finally comes clean and reveals Charlie was, of course, a wonderful husband, father and very generous to all who needed help. Where he was lacking was his skills in money management and she somewhat embellished his financial successes. Since his work had him away from her and the kids often, Rose didn't want her children growing up with a negative image of their father. Kirsten understands her mother's noble motives for lying and they make peace.

I get why this episode rates lower. Not a lot of huge laughs here. Kirsten comes off as a typical shallow, greedy and entitled offspring expecting a big payout when daddy and mommy die. Her anger at Rose basically reads as: "How dare you spend MY inheritance!!". The fact that all Kirsten's child seems to know about grandpa Charlie is that "he was very rich" is troubling.

The casting of Christine Belford as Kirsten didn't help. Her personality is too icy...more believable as a Carrington or Ewing than a Nylund.

If there are ever times when you want to strangle a fictional character, chances are it is over an ungrateful child who believes that they are entitled to money from their parent's estate. The visiting Kirsten (Christina Belford) doesn't really have much of a personality, as if she had eaten too much of the honey maple sugar log and was having a sudden crash. The moment she begins to lay into her mother Rose for allegedly squandering the late Charlie's estate, she becomes one of the most dislikable characters in "Golden Girls" history and it is one of the hardest episodes to watch outside of Dorothy's reaction to getting one of the oversweet logs from Kirsten as a gift. In fact, it is ironic that probably my least favorite "Golden Girls" episodes has one of my favorite lines.

Rose doesn't really stand up to her daughter, and considering how she had treated her mother in a previous episode, this shows a lack of character consistency. As for the younger Charley (Bridgette Andersen), she seems to have more of Rose's fun loving personality and it is easy to hope that she doesn't grow up to take after her mother. By the time that Kirsten learns the truth, it is a case of "too wittle, too wait", to quote a later episode, and other a brief appearance played by another actress much later on, it is a blessing in disguise that Kirsten really isn't a part of the story other than to be mentioned on occasion.

People saying this dull or dark, no its not. Its dealing with genuine family relationships. I'm sorry that this is not saccharine, mawkish drivel like Full House but you have that in that show. This was different and people didn't get 'depressed' at anything less sugary than Disney. What has happened to the world? Yeesh!

Good episode and Charlie was delightful, shame what happened to the actress.

Keirsten was quite right to enquire what happened to the money, Rose lied. She also seemed to be more concerned that Rose was silly and got taken advantage of which wouldn't be unreasonable given how naive and gullible Rose can be.

Not only was it important that Keirsten found out the truth it was important that Rose got a weight off her chest.

The B story with Blanche was a parallel but if people weren't too marshmallow brained they'd have noticed that.

Particularly good acting from Betty White here.