I reap rich rewards in life from being easily impressed. Therefore, this episode was a delight for me, beginning with the opening scene when George lights up a little model of a train station. Everyone is astonished! Including me!
Because we’re all about electricity this week, a 30-something Thomas Edison makes an appearance, which is startling because I always think of him as Gene from Bob’s Burgers in an elderly white wig, as we’re only a couple of years post-him-inventing-a-reliable-lightbulb (and a couple of years pre-him-screwing-over-Tesla). As my notes say, what a dillweed.
The Big Event is the lighting-up of the New York Times building. Everyone is organizing excursions to witness it, and if you don’t go, you’re a big loser. This brings us to Marian! Marian isn’t invited. Bertha has a limited number of seats in her two carriages (hahaha, imagine someone saying they’re bringing two carriages but have no room for you), and she tells Marian she has to invite Tom because they need another man there. Why? Who knows!
I know this is probably not following the standards of the time, but if I were Marian, I would be sending those cards to all my friends with a carriage, being like, “Hey, will you go to this with me?” Because FOMO. Agnes doesn’t want to go because ruffians and thieves will be there, which may, in fact, be true. Oscar could accompany them, but Agnes is still mad at him for hypothetically having a dalliance with Miss Turner.
The fired Miss Turner! The unemployed Miss Turner. Agnes, who is not speaking directly to most of the people in her life due to various tiffs, tells Marian to go across the street and ask Bertha to fire Miss Turner. When Marian does, and Bertha obviously asks why, Marian says it’s because Miss Turner is having an improper relationship, but she won’t name with whom. Bertha assumes it’s Oscar but then later sees Larry speaking with Miss Turner and pretty much immediately fires her. I’d feel bad for her if Miss Turner were not the Worst.
Speaking of the downstairs element of the show, is anyone else having a hard time remembering which servants go with which house? They barely get screen time, and lately they’ve been intermingling, and they live literally across the street from each other. I know Bannister and Church, but every time I think of someone like Miss Armstrong, I’m like, “Ah yes, she … works for … someone.”
Anyway, let’s all wait for Miss Turner’s Revenge, which will surely come about eventually. They plant the thought that George might finally give in to her less-than-subtle seduction techniques, and if he does, I will throw this show into the sea. Just give me this power-hungry couple bent on social and economic domination! And they love only each other and maybe their kids, and no one has an affair, because we’re living in stressful times and we would like some stability, thank you.
Things seem a little fraught for the married Russells, as George continues to lose patience with Bertha’s all-consuming focus on breaking into the top social circle. Who can say what drives people? I spent hours and hours studying the spelling-bee words in elementary school, and why? Well. To beat my older brother, and I did, and it was extremely satisfying.
What is Bertha’s version of beating her older brother in a spelling bee? One can only hazard a guess. I hope it isn’t something pedestrian like “Everyone called me common, and now I shall rise above them all!” I want Bertha’s master plan to be to reach the pinnacle of society, only to dismantle it. “YOUR OVERLORDS ARE NO MORE,” she will shout to the assembled masses as she symbolically rips up the printed list of the Four Hundred, spattered in blue ink (another stroke of symbolic genius).
But for the time being, the Russells are in a fight because she’s worried that George possibly going to prison will endanger Gladys’s social debut. BERTHA. George is also busy this episode telling Larry he can’t be an architect because he has to take over the family business. Larry later offers a compelling argument wherein he tells his father that if he follows him in business, he will always be compared to George and found lacking. In contrast, that won’t be an issue if he does something else. This inevitably makes you wonder about the wisdom of all of Meryl Streep’s children taking up acting. George is receptive to this, so maybe Larry will carve out his own destiny after all. And by “carve out his own destiny,” I mean “use his family’s wealth and many connections to ensconce himself in the career he wants.”
What about Peggy! Peggy is still writing for The Globe, and T. Thomas Fortune (I just like writing out his name) asks her to accompany him to the electricity display and interview people in the crowd. As they discuss Edison, Fortune mentions that Black inventor Lewis Latimer improved the carbon filaments in light bulbs. Peggy replies that she’s sure Mr. Edison will give Latimer his due credit at the ceremony. They laugh. Later, at the event, Fortune puts his hand on Peggy’s back, and I don’t know how to feel about that because what if he’s married like in history?
Tom and Marian … are the worst. I can handle Marian with other people, kind of, but her dynamic with Tom is so devoid of any form of chemistry and the show keeps insisting we just DWELL in it. They have so much screen time together. Screen time when we could be focusing on literally any other character. Why was that one servant man spying on that woman entering a house a few episodes ago?! I want to focus on that! Instead, I have to listen to Tom tell Marian, in his fake American accent, that their love will be enough and they should get married while they’re young before they go down the wrong path. What?? What! What does THAT mean? OMG, he’s the worst. I hate this story line. I hate it so much.
The ending is LOVELY. Eating dinner in an open carriage looks extremely fun, and large crowds wait in total darkness as the New York Times building is slowly lit up by electricity. It all feels very awe-inspiring. Ward McAllister calls it a turning point in history, asking if they’re heading in the right direction. Bertha replies that we must go where history takes us, which is good, but I’d expect Bertha to say something like, “A real woman makes her own history.” Bertha is a woman of action! She follows nothing! Except for the social registrar and everything Aurora Fane tells her to do. End of episode!
Meditations of the Middle Class and Unpowerful
• They throw the word “postilion” around a lot in this episode.
• BARE CHRISTINE BARANSKI ARMS.
• What if, in one scene, Tom fell down a hole and then we never spoke of him again?
