At the end of Golden Girls (and it was obvious that Bea wasn't coming back), it was a final fairwell.

However, Dorothy had money, her new husband was loaded...in real life people in that situation, wouldn't they have visited once or twice a year
and wouldn't they have kept in constant phone (now they could Skype :lol: )
almost every day?

While it made for a sad farewell, I don't think it rang true.

(same with when Mike and Gloria left for California and Archie and Edith felt they would never in their lifetime see them or their granddaughter again.

Maybe Dorothy did call and write often. How would anyone know? That was the final episode.

Yes I know...but...the romantic in me would think they could have said something like, oh stop it, we will talk and visit and see each other again

But I know it's the last episode, and in a way, the 3 times Bea comes back makes it like a curtain call while still keeping it in character.

The end of the Golden Girls was not a goodbye to their relationship but to sharing life under one roof.
(Dorothy comes back to see her friends in two episodes of the Golden Palace and in the end they do this -we will always be friends and visit each other- thing.)

What Bloem said. Dorothy did visit after GG ended; it was shown on GP.

Yes- even if someone moves 10 minutes away, it's still sad/sentimental when a person moves out of the house, especially if it's been a number of years.

...and why wouldn't Sophia visit her own daughter in Atlanta?

Because she got caught up in helping to make the hotel run and its antics. Plus, in the two part episode when Dorothy visits, Dorothy admits not having a lot of contact with her friends because she and Lucas needed some time to themselves.

Now off camera, Sophia could have very well went to visit Dorothy. Blanche (Between GG and GP) was off screen visiting her brother Tad in Chattanooga, TN and it was later revealed in a Valentine's Day episode on "The Golden Palace". Anything is possible.

Dorothy shoved her poor mother back to Shady Pines after she married again and the 2 women she considered "daughters" abandoned her. No wonder the poor thing visited the Weston home alot.

At the end of Golden Girls (and it was obvious that Bea wasn't coming back), it was a final fairwell.

However, Dorothy had money, her new husband was loaded...in real life people in that situation, wouldn't they have visited once or twice a year
and wouldn't they have kept in constant phone (now they could Skype :lol: )
almost every day?

While it made for a sad farewell, I don't think it rang true.

(same with when Mike and Gloria left for California and Archie and Edith felt they would never in their lifetime see them or their granddaughter again.

As far as Mike and Gloria go, I get it. Archie and Edith were not rich people, and the likelihood of them heading out to CA on any kind of regular basis was pretty small (they did end up going out once). Sure Mike and Gloria could have made it back easier, but Mike's starting salary probably wasn't huge and might make it possible for one or maybe two trips a year to NY. That isn't a 'forever' goodbye, but it sure is a huge change and I think the Bunkers were totally justified in acting like things would never be the same again, because they couldn't be.

As far as Mike and Gloria go, I get it. Archie and Edith were not rich people, and the likelihood of them heading out to CA on any kind of regular basis was pretty small (they did end up going out once). Sure Mike and Gloria could have made it back easier, but Mike's starting salary probably wasn't huge and might make it possible for one or maybe two trips a year to NY. That isn't a 'forever' goodbye, but it sure is a huge change and I think the Bunkers were totally justified in acting like things would never be the same again, because they couldn't be.

re:All in the family
go back to the time frame the show was on
First, Archie was not poor, he was middle class, his house was paid for by then, and he should have had a nice pension plan and retirement money.
BUt, back then, there were some very cheap airlines (remember Laker Air?)
and flying was not only for rich people.
While not too often, but once a year one would go west, once a year the others go east not out of the question if the parents and children wanted to see each other especially during the holidays.
And, why couldn't Edith and Archie move west? What really was keeping them tied down?
(thinking way too much at 3am in the morning).

It wasn't like 1930s or the ultra-sad movie with Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore"Make way for Tommorrow" in the 1930s, (perhaps the saddest and most beautiful tear jerker of all time, saw it on TCM one Saturday night a few years ago.)

bliss said:

"Dorothy shoved her poor mother back to Shady Pines after she married again and the 2 women she considered "daughters" abandoned her. No wonder the poor thing visited the Weston home a lot."

Quite the opposite, bliss. Sophia even went there herself briefly just to manipulate the situation during an episode of Golden Palace. She was irritated with both Dorothy and the other two GG for arguing over where she would live. They both wanted her.

We were never told exactly how she eventually ended up living at Shady Pines again, but there was no reason to assume anyone "abandoned her." Her character showed more and more memory/cognition problems during GP and Empty Nest, so it might have been for her own good, and her own decision. Remember, Shady Pines had changed into a luxury facility after it was rebuilt.

And just FYI, if Sophia were my mother in real life, she would have been back in a nursing home the same day she was caught almost bashing Rose over the head with a cooking pot. She was flippin' dangerous, is what she was!