"72 Hours" is the nineteenth episode of the fifth season of the American sitcomThe Golden Girls. The episode initially aired on February 17, 1990. It focuses on Betty White's character, Rose Nylund, and her feelings of fear after finding out she may have been given an HIV-positive blood transfusion.
While the girls are preparing for a wetlands fundraiser, Rose panics when she receives a letter from St. Luke's Hospital informing her that a blood transfusion she received six years ago during a cholecystectomy may have contained HIV antibodies, and that she needs to have an HIV test done. When Rose arrives at the hospital for her test, she gives the receptionist (Peggy Walton-Walker) Dorothy's name after being encouraged to give a false name. While sitting in the waiting room, Blanche tells Rose that she isn't alone because she has also been tested for HIV. After the test, Rose's level of fear is heightened when the doctor (Tony Carreiro) tells her that she must return to the hospital in three days for her test results (hence the episode's title).
Rose spends the next three days worrying and wondering about what will happen to her if her test results come back positive. Sophia, meanwhile, reacts poorly to Rose's dilemma by using Dorothy's bathroom and a local gas station bathroom to avoid using the same bathroom as Rose, and she even goes as far as marking Rose's coffee cups with a capital R. After Dorothy calls Sophia out on her ignorant behavior, Sophia remarks that she knows she can't contract HIV those ways, but she's scared, so her actions aren't irrational.
Later, Rose is sitting at the kitchen table with Blanche lamenting her situation. She says, "This isn't supposed to happen to people like me," implying it would make more sense for someone who isn't a good person to have this type of scare. Blanche asks Rose if she is implying that she (Blanche) should be in her position; Rose says no. Blanche yells at Rose and says that "AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose! It is not God punishing people for their sins!" Dorothy, Blanche and Sophia gather over coffee at the kitchen table decide to support Rose regardless of her test results, with Sophia drinking out of one of Rose's R cups.
After three days, the girls all go to the hospital for Rose's test results, which, to Rose's relief, come back negative. The girls all celebrate and plan to attend the wetlands fundraiser that night.
Production
"72 Hours" was written by Tracy Gamble and Richard Vaczy. Vaczy said of the episode, "Tracy and I really loved the idea of showing what must that time be like between knowing something might be wrong and finding out what it is. And with the theater backgrounds of everyone on the show and the people they knew with HIV and AIDS, we thought everyone would appreciate and therefore love it. We guessed wrong. It turned out to be the darkest week I ever experienced on that stage, because the material hit so close to home."
Gamble said, "This episode was based on a true story that had happened to my mother. She got notified that if you had had a transfusion in this certain period of time, you had to get checked. She and my dad were scared to death. It ended up fine, and she knew that the odds were against there being anything wrong. But it was hell to sweat out those seventy-two hours until she got the results."[1]
Peter D. Beyt, the editor of the show, revealed during the editing process of the show that his partner was dying of HIV/AIDS.[citation needed]
Reception
Variety ranked "72 Hours" within the top ten list of their best "Golden Girls" episodes ever.[2]
In the article "What Golden Girls Taught Us About AIDS", Barbra Fletcher wrote about how the episode brought AIDS into viewers' homes in a way that made the uncomfortable things not so uncomfortable.[3]
Sascha Cohen wrote about how the writers of the show direct shame at the behaviors of paranoia surrounding AIDS instead of toward the person being tested for the disease.[4]
Jared Clayton Brown wrote about how in tackling the topic of AIDS the shows writers took a step in introducing the topic to a viewership that considered themselves at very low risk for contracting it and established that they were also vulnerable.
Clare Sewell wrote about how while the show eventually tied itself up in a mostly neat bow it still managed to bring light upon a controversial topic with little judgment.
↑ Cohen, Sascha (2021). The Comedy of the Culture Wars: American Humor, Second Wave Feminism, and Gay Liberation, 1969–1989 (Thesis). ProQuest2582199785.
Further reading
Browne. (2020). The Golden Girls. Wayne State University Press.
Brown, Jared Clayton (2013). Sex and the City, Platinum Edition: How The Golden Girls altered American situation comedy (Thesis). ProQuest1645957184.
Cohen, Sascha (2021). The Comedy of the Culture Wars: American Humor, Second Wave Feminism, and Gay Liberation, 1969–1989 (Thesis). ProQuest2582199785.
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