KarenX

Well… Hetty, when alive, maybe didn’t think Women (as a group) should get the vote but I am certain she never once thought that she didn’t deserve a voice in how things should run in the ghost community she is part of. Because there are Women, and there is Hetty and Flower and Alberta and Sam. Isaac and Nigel are individuals that she knows and loves. She wishes for the happiness of her friends. They aren’t just Gays. (Cue speech about visibility and cultural expansion of rights here.) I think most growth Hetty has shown has been personal growth, and I think Thor has overcome much larger personal problems than she has.

I know you mean nonfiction but House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is a good “darker timeline” story for Marian. Lily Bart is an unmarried society belle with no money, aging out of her role, and some decisions to make. It’s a good companion to the show, and it reads almost like a horror story. This is the last time I will mention it I swear but The Rise of Silas Lapham is another contemporary novel (written in the 1880s about the 1880s) about a darker timeline for a New Rich family with marriageable daughters that lacks the Russells’ confidence (and without Bertha’s drive) and what happens as they make inroads into Boston society.

I thought the image of poor Newsie Butler dozing on a wooden bench in the foyer so Miss Marian wouldn’t have to open her own door was a sobering counterpoint. He doesn’t get to sleep it off, either. ADDING: Richies are going to rich, so excess doesn’t surprise me, but I do think most “grown ups” went home early. Ada was in her robe, waiting up for Marian, I believe. Only the youngsters partied all night. Right?

What surprised me was how little Gladys we saw. I was expecting more ceremony. I don’t know. Maybe after her quadrille they would have all come down the stairs in finery and formation, and someone would have announced her? Maybe that’s a 20th Century wedding thing. Maybe the ball being for her in the invitation is the official announcement. Even if no one came, she would still be “out,” right? Albeit with no cachet or aura to raise her status.

1. They truly had so little to do but go to each other’s houses. 2. They had servants to do their hair, at home. Very convenient.? 3. Bertha didn’t care if it were proper. She was making a point. The actuality of the thing mattered the most here. And the newspaper reporters outside only saw (and documented) the spectacle. She knows it wasn’t true hospitality or society but Those People appeared at Her House, as a group, to fanfare.

Episode 9 is a crossover with Warrior. Marian, Peggy, Agnes and Ada travel by train to San Francisco and are kidnapped by a tong. Bertha convinces George to pay the ransom (putting Society further in their debt), but Ada decides to stay. A young Mark Twain gives Peggy a tour of a newspaper office. Ada’s letters home intrigue John Adams IV, who makes plans to visit. Larry tags along, interested in architecture but ends up in cable cars.

And I’ve been reading it as “Effed up in Newport,” which Bertha and Oscar most spectacularly did.

I mean… if you get caught in someone’s house without really having permission and because you bribed someone to let you in, you are at fault. Totally blameable. All her hard work and she undermined her tenuous position herself in the end. It wasn’t the train scandal at all.

Fingers crossed. I would like a misunderstood Mr Scott a lot more than an evil one. Maybe one of Peggy’s baby cousins is actual her own baby and she hasn’t lost the baby from the family at all. Otherwise it is too sad.

(Oscar)

Maybe because he isn’t heiress chasing they don’t really care. Maybe he has passed the rubicon to One of Those Older Bachelors. He was collected by Mamie Fish, who amuses herself with oddities, so he is a kind of party feature. He’s still society, and as long as he keeps his proclivities to himself they can work around it.

She told Peggy she wants to get married because she is surrounded by dowagers. I couldn’t decide if she means marriage is her ticket out of boredom and she is still nursing the wound of not being allowed to go see the electric lights party, or if the dowagers are something she aspires to. I was startled to hear Aurora call herself Marian’s best friend. Is Marian older than we think?

Raikes is doing better because he is an actual uncloseted heterosexual. Oscar is faking it, and you can tell. Women can tell. They may not have language for it but they know something else is there. Oscar admitted it, too. His ability to be an unblemished single gentleman has an expiration date. Oscar might have been written as a confused, not even out to himself character, which might have made his interest in young heiresses more sincere, and he would have had more of Riakes’s luck. But… he is out to himself. He is in what appears to be a full-bodied openly romantic gay partnership. I think they are monogamous even.* He can’t commit fully to the role of suitor, even if he hadn’t been woefully miscast as a swain. It’s too much baggage. He simply can’t achieve the levels of Adventurer-ing that Raikes can. *Maybe Oscar and John are the true foils to Bertha and George. I’d put Oscar opposite Bertha. John, like George, seems more content with his position. Oscar is the one reaching for the stars here.

So… did McAllister set up Bertha? Did he prank her? Is this a test?

On that note… here are the marriages in the show, compared to each other. George & Bertha: True Partners. We have more info about their marriage as a marriage than anyone else. The Fanes: Seems to me they are a “400 Family” power couple. They probably are also a mutually respectful power couple. The Chamberlains: A love match sure, but if he’d really respected her he wouldn’t have tolerated her outcast status. At least he didn’t outwardly abuse her I guess. She also could move away and doesn’t so I don’t really know what she is punishing herself for. The Morrises: They maybe could have been another Fanes. He sort of confided in her, sort of asked for advice, she felt like a partner, but something else was in his head that didn’t allow him to bear the shame or feel like he could let his family down/face his family. It’s very sad. If she had been more like Aurora she might have been able to intervene. (Aurora is pretty flexible and pragmatic and more fun.) But she is a different person, and the tragedy hit differently for this couple and I do not blame her for any part of that. Agnes: We don’t know anything about her marriage except that it was ugly. I believe her hard shell and inflexibility about Marian and Raikes is a learned self-protection mechanism playing out. She is wary, overprotective, and afraid of marriages and is trying to make a good match based on what she knows. The Scotts: They seem like a partnership to me, too. Peggy is at odds with her father but not disinherited. Her mother is playing go-between, which is problematic if the father has harmed the daughter but not if the daughter and father are just butting heads. To me it seems like the father is mad about Peggy’s Mystery Lawyer Thing more than a steady career/artistic career conflict, but arguing about the career is easier/safer. Peggy honestly doesn’t seem estranged so much as Tired Of Talking About It and so she moved out of the house to get a break. If he would let up and get over it, she wouldn’t be so exasperated. Until we find out what the Mystery Thing is though, we can’t judge the father and therefore we can’t judge the marriage.

They do watch a lot of television. Texting is a thing characters do and talk about. Emoji language is shown and explained. He knew about tablets and apps. I think he’d get it. But they were communicating far more deeply than jokey emoji strings. It’s true that it would take too long for Trevor to realistically accomplish.

1. It’s just an expression, with an idiomatic meaning rather than a literal meaning. Bertha means it in that way. 2. You are presenting a Marxist critique of the show. I agree that it applies here. The show is making the capitalist the hero and gives him credit for the output of the laborers. A lot of capitalists, present day capitalists included, are given praise and rewards possibly out of proportion to their contribution. A show critiquing capitalism certainly has its place in modern times. I say “possibly” for a reason and will decline all offers to debate the greatness of CEOs and their vision. 3. Is Julian Fellowes performing Marxist critique here? I doubt it. The show is using the expression totally without subtext. Bertha is half of the power couple. Power couples have power because of their coupled efforts. George owes a lot to her contributions that made his efforts so successful. Married men today make far more money than unmarried men, and I am sure that was true then too. That George and Bertha consider themselves in a partnership is something I believe is written in the show, on purpose. We have lots of marriage examples to compare to each other. If the Morrises had a stronger partnership Mr Morris might have been more resilient and less desperate. He might still be alive.

They had a spat. She stormed out. It was childish but I think it is their dynamic. In their next scene she told him not to worry about the party and that he had her full support. I don’t think she cares more about her social standing than him going to prison. I don’t remember what episode but we saw this before. They took sides about some Russells in Society issue (maybe the Secret Hotel Boyfriend Breakup) but later we saw Bertha explicitly soothe her husband, re-commit her support to him, and embrace him. I had an old butane camping lantern that had a “bulb” that was a silk bag wick thing. It didn’t flicker, and you could brighten and dim it with a knob.

1. A lot of people in society must be bored out of their minds. Mamie Fish amuses herself with bizarre themed parties. I think Aurora is delighted by Bertha. Bertha probably a lot of fun to sit next to and to talk about. 2. One can love electricity and hate light pollution. It’s not all or nothing. Just because the first people to deploy it widely failed to anticipate that problem doesn’t mean we have to give up attempts to solve it. 3. Turner. Maybe she is no longer employable in service but she is another character who could provide a view of a middle class woman supporting herself. Maybe Oscar will help her start up some service kind of business. Maybe she’ll find another family of society wannabes and work to take down Bertha that way. 4. I don’t see any evidence from the show to believe that Bertha will not allow Gladys to marry for love or like. None. Making your teenage daughter break up with your secret adult hotel boyfriend is not that. Telling your husband you have bigger plans for your daughter is not that. There are PLENTY of wealthy young men Bertha would approve of. She just has to find them. Gladys can pick the one she likes from a curated list. Parents have always done this. Parents do this now. Parents choose school districts and universities to put their kids in the way of The Right People. Until I see Bertha ruin Gladys’s life by forcing her into a marriage she doesn’t want for the purpose of gaining position I will not believe she is so cold.

I don’t know to what extent service was considered a profession or middle class but it didn’t leave you much time for a family if you lived in a house with staff. We have seen white middle class women, though: Clara Barton and George’s employee. Both of them are occupied during the day in ways that seem modern and allow choices.

I mean… if Peggy can do it… I don’t think George cares if Larry doesn’t want to enter the family business but going into architecture kind of seems tied up in serving at “society’s” whim. Needing clientele is not the same kind of career at all. But George loves his children and so maybe the compromise will be something like yes, but non-residential. Maybe skyscrapers! When did those start showing up?

My thoughts jump off from this point. If the Russells were less rich, they would still be sending Larry for an education with the assumption he would work for a living. His conflict is Peggy’s conflict: my career path is not what my father wants for me. Do we know how many students of Harvard at the time were actually there to learn a profession? Larry couldn’t possibly be the only guy there not in the 400. I think Gladys just wants friends and Larry wants to be interested in work and Bertha is learning from and through her children what society is supposed to be. I know her relationship with Mrs Funes is transactional but I think they are warming to each other personally. Bertha is not boring and the food has to be better. I was so bummed when they compromised the menu. I think the servants are all upward mobility minded there, too. I love how they are all learning together.

At least this time when she was with Peggy she walked past Bloomingdales without even a glance. I did see her hail a cab after Peggy’s lesson but I am unsure if that was because she already forgot or if it was because they were traveling on to different destinations.

She was definitely defeated and deflated. I think mostly by the fact Mrs Funes and her own niece were at a party across the street and she wasn’t even invited, but also at the bright display of the house. We can knock it as tacky and overdone but it was fresh and new, and her place (literally) is so dusty and tired. I kind of think she understood why Bannister, a consummate professional and master of his craft, took the job. What’s he doing in her house what’s she doing in her house what’s the point of her life no wonder Marian hates her… All that hit her at once. She plays chess, a king’s game, but with the most fragile and anemic pieces you ever saw. She plays Solitaire. And her spinster son is mingling with servants in the street. She has no legacy. Marian and Mrs Funes covering for her out of pity was hard to watch too. You just felt bad. I’m hoping we see an Agnes Makeover and some power moves.

Maybe Marian isn’t personally cut out for a life among the 400. I am not saying that as a slight. Maybe “plenty of money” and a nice stable life is what she actually wants. Maybe she and Bertha are the narrative foils here. Bertha wants it but has to work so hard for it. Marian has it through no effort and doesn’t care about it at all. She may get rid of it and be happy. Bertha may get it and be miserable. A morality tale.