Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, creator of Designing Women, wrote that line, which is part of “Of Human Bondage,” the first episode of this seventh and final season. Thomason and this company of actresses in once-great roles, including Annie Potts as Mary Jo Shively (and that’s it, because there still isn’t much to Carlene Dobber, played by Jan Hooks, who only inspires missing Jean Smart as Charlene like she was a beloved relative who died), had gone through so much already, what with the public departure of Delta Burke at the end of the 5th season, and then Smart leaving at the beginning of the sixth season, only appearing in that first episode to provide a transition to Carlene. Two of the anchors of the series gone. A sitcom without the rudder that kept it going.
It’s tempting to be diplomatic about the final season, since there’s a few mild chuckles across the episodes “On the Road Again,” and “Viva Las Vegas” (which finds Anthony (Meshach Taylor) married to a star Folies Bergére showgirl (Sheryl Lee Ralph) at the end of the episode), that make one feel sorry for what has transpired to bring this show down lower than it ever has been, and hope that it at least goes out with a modicum of dignity.
That doesn’t happen. First there is the misfortune of Judith Ivey joining the cast as B.J. Poteet, a rich Texas widow living in Atlanta who becomes a partner in the Sugarbakers design firm, helping out the desperate women after Allison Sugarbaker (Julia Duffy, who we thankfully don’t see ever again) has pulled her money out of the firm, substantial enough to foster worries about bankruptcy. Poteet doesn’t do it out of sympathy, but rather because she likes these women, and even though she’s hired them to decorate her house, that night in “Of Human Bondage” leads to drunken revelry (quite silly, and not a funny silly) and a card game in which Julia has bet Sugarbaker’s and lost it to B.J., and then wins it back.
Ivey is part of the history of actors who join sitcoms very late in the run and never fit in, much like Josh Meyers as Randy in the final season of That ‘70s Show. They’re not able to establish any chemistry with any of the other actors because the show is so firmly entrenched in the annals of pop culture that viewers can’t imagine seeing it any differently, without the actors that made it famous and made it great. There is not one moment of any connection to B.J., not while watching it, and not between the women. Oh they like her well enough, as the scripts dictate, but there’s no close feelings as there were when these women were whole, with Delta Burke and with Jean Smart. It’s pathetic to watch this once-very funny series fall even further, enduring even more pain that doesn’t quite sully its reputation, but doesn’t encourage goodwill.
Julia and Mary Jo are just there because we expect them to be there. They no longer have the character traits that made them wonderful to watch, Julia standing up for herself from the start and never backing down, and Mary Jo exhibiting the strength she had even through insecurity. They all just look on, looking for something, something better-written, something better to do. The entire cast, while Ivey keeps trying her best to fit in, just looks like they’re there out of contractual obligations, no longer for the love of the characters. It doesn’t feel like Linda Bloodworth-Thomason paid much attention in this final season. She gave up and threw it over to Norma Safford Vela, who ran the show without any talent in writing or supervision. Each actress looks like they want to leave, that this is it, that they’ve had enough. Even Alice Ghostley as Bernice performs half-heartedly. She gets her own scene in “The Woman Who Came to Sugarbakers,” but even she doesn’t get much out of that. She’s just there to say wildly inappropriate things and that’s it, the basic arc of her character, even though there was more in previous years. All the life has been sucked out of this series.
The final season provides only two nice surprises: Pat Carroll (the voice of Ursula in The Little Mermaid) as Mrs. Beecham, Julia’s former headmistress, and Patrick Warburton early in his career as the dumb Craig in “Too Dumb to Date,” and the two-part series finale “Gone with The Whim.” He’s funnier than the main cast, and gives more than them by the end because he has to. Here, he’s not yet at that point where he can phone it in if he wants to.
“Gone with The Whim” isn’t even a proper series finale, which is about B.J.’s assets being frozen during an attempted takeover of Poteet Industries, which puts Sugarbakers into a bankruptcy tailspin. It has Gone with the Wind fantasy sequences, and nothing that lets the cast take a well-deserved bow for the good years they had. Life will go on for Sugarbakers, but it’s not enough for those who have stuck by all those years, who may delve into this DVD set to relive memories of who they were when they watched this series, and particularly this season. It’ll be a sad, sorry journey for sure.
And Shout! Factory is brave for releasing this four-disc set. Not because there’ll be any protest, but how could anyone there stand putting this on DVD? I know it’s part of Shout!’s mission to make sure that all facets of pop culture are well-represented, and they had to do it since they released the entire run, but wow! This is one chance to watch a sitcom completely flatline before your eyes. But instead of it being like slowing down to look at a traffic accident with that perverse interest, it’s more head-shaking than anything. Why, why, why?! Why indeed.
