Break-In

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The Break-In
Episode Information
Series	The Golden Girls
Season	1
Episode Number	8
Network/Country	NBC-TV / United States
Air Date	November 9, 1985
Production ID	1.8 / 008
IMDb link	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt589834
Written by	Susan Harris
Directed by	Paul Bogart
Episode Chronology
←Previous	The Competition
Next→	Blanche and the Younger Man
Series Links

Break-In is the eighth episode of the first season of The Golden Girls and the eighth episode overall. Directed by Paul Bogart and written by Susan Harris, the episode premiered on NBC-TV on November 9th, 1985.

Summary

The girls return home after a Madonna concert and find their home has been burglarized. Rose is traumatized by the experience and eventually buys a gun to defend herself. However, after accidentally kneeing a parking attendant she mistook for a mugger, Rose discovers she can take care of herself without the use of weapons. Blanche obsesses over her "stolen" jewels, which turn out to have just been misplaced.

Plot

After a Madonna concert, the girls arrive home to discover their house has been broken into. This leads the girls to seek out means to protect themselves. First, the girls have a burglar alarm installed. Also, at Rose's insistence, the girls take home a guard dog from the shelter, that turns out to be quite cowardly, hiding in fear from a hungry Sophia.

After returning from an errand, Rose finds Blanche in distress on the couch. Blanche tells her that she borrowed Rose's pocket hairspray and went to the police station for an update on her jewels and Dorothy's mink stole but, in a horrifying experience, discovered that Rose's hairspray was mace. She blinded herself and was detained and later let go by the police, who originally thought she was on drugs.

Rose then tells the girls she purchased a handgun, which she later used on "intruders," that turned out to be Blanche and her boyfriend, Lester. Destroying Blanche's favorite Chinese vase, She realizes that she is not okay and may be permanently affected by the experience. However, after subduing a parking attendant she mistook for a predator, she had a revelation and learned that she could defend herself in a violent situation. The thieves were caught, the cops found Dorothy's stole and Blanche forgot she put her jewels in the Freezer.

Tall Tales

Tales from the Old South

Blanche mentions that whenever she and George heard a noise in the house, he'd get his gun and go to find his bullets, because Blanche would always hide the bullets. When he found the bullets, they would make love.

Cast

Main Cast

• Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak
• Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux
• Betty White as Rose Nylund
• Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo

Guest List

• Robert Rothwell as Lester
• Christian Clemenson as Security Salesman

Notes

• When told that one in four people will be the victim of a violent crime, Rose says one out of every three people will get cancer and that means one of the ladies will get cancer. Bea Arthur would later die of cancer in 2009.
• The background shot during the closing credits features the ladies in a huddle by the doorway looking on at the mess in the house.
• Rose tells a story about a jeweler from “Little Falls". It's likely that the writers hadn't come up with St. Olaf at this point in the series.

Production

• The scene of the ladies all huddled up and walking further in the house when they see it was robbed, a close-up of Sophia and Dorothy and Blanche congratulating Rose for overcoming her paranoia are all included in the series' opening credits.
• A deleted scene from this episode was included in the series' opening credit sequence. The scene shows Blanche pulling her arm into the sleeve of her red jacket as Dorothy and Rose gasp. No dialogue is heard during the credits, but it appears Blanche is telling a story of someone losing their arm.

Cultural references

• When trying to intimidate whoever might still be in the kitchen, Dorothy quotes the 1971 action film Dirty Harry.

Continuity

• Rose says that she's afraid of large dogs but she has no problem bringing home large dogs in "Joust Between Friends". Additionally, she loves the fact that the girls got her a large dog in "Questions and Answers", helped look after Dreyfuss for Harry Weston, and wanted to keep one of Dreyfuss's puppies in "Stand By Your Man".

Goofs

• At the beginning of the episode, the girls mention they went to see Madonna in concert. When this episode originally aired, the only show Madonna played in Miami was at the now-demolished Hollywood Sportatorium on May 11th, 1985, six months before the episode's November 9th airdate.
• When Dorothy is imitating Dirty Harry, she says her gun is a .375 Magnum, one of the most powerful handguns in the world. Dorothy transposed the numbers, and meant a .357 magnum. A .375 Magnum is a rifle. Additionally, one of the most powerful handguns in the world is a .44 Magnum.
• In the parking garage, you can hear a woman's footsteps moving at the same pace throughout the entire sequence. Even though Rose walks, stops, speeds up, runs and stops again, the footsteps don't really change and at times aren't even in sync with her steps.
• When Blanche is recovering from maceing herself, she tells Dorothy she was wearing the wrong underwear. In "The Custody Battle", Blanche admits she never wears underwear.
  • Additionally, when Blanche is lying on the couch and Dorothy is preparing washcloths for her, there is clearly no water in the bowl. However, the cloth Dorothy is wringing out produces several drops into the dry bowl.
• In this episode, Rose shoots the large floral vase that sits by the door and breaks it into pieces. In later episodes, you see that vase sitting in the same place in perfect condition.
• Dorothy says that her mink stole was given to her by Stan. In "The End of the Curse", Dorothy says she always wanted mink, but Sophia says that Stan was so cheap that he wouldn't buy Dorothy popcorn at the movies.