S01.E03: Two Birds, One Throne

[Whimsy]

Quote

With Anna giving her the cold shoulder, Vivian hunts down sources who can fill in the blanks: Anna's ex-boyfriend Chase and wealthy entrepreneur Nora.

 

[peridot]

I can't believe Chase blew through $3M, and was still asking investors for more money!  I was surprised that he was actually in Dubai, I thought he was hiding out at his parents' home.

I was laughing at the calm and collected Anna loosing her shit over several phone calls to Chase.

Nora was pretty dumb to hand over her credit card and signing powers to a complete stranger, especially one you are snubbing and treating like an errand girl.

[Anela]

I don’t like this girl, but I had to laugh at her buying things with the credit card, when this woman was sucking up to her boyfriend, and treating her like a personal assistant.  

[SlovakPrincess]

I think I'm just hate-watching at this point.  

The handling of legal aspects of this story is going to drive me out onto a ledge.  No lawyer would just leave a journalist alone in their office with boxes of confidential documents.   If Anna wanted to share her stupid "pitch deck" with Vivian, she would just tell her lawyer "please give a copy of my pitch deck to her" and the lawyer would first review the document and determine if it would hurt the case to provide that one document (and then probably argue about it with Anna first).  I also seriously doubt the prosecutor would have given Vivian information about a fraud victim who changed their mind about pressing charges.  

Chase also being a scam artist would be more interesting if Chase himself had a personality.  

I did chuckle at Anna's look of mild horror and disgust at the "live, love, laugh" sign in the garden in Ohio.  Although would she even know that this is a stereotypically suburban middle class kind of decoration to have?  

Edited February 16, 2022 by SlovakPrincess

[nora1992]

What is the point of this show?  EVERYONE is unlikeable.  I feel like bingeing Hallmark channel Christmas movies to balance the hours spent watching the various degrees of malice on this show.

[CrystalBlue]

31 minutes ago, nora1992 said:

What is the point of this show?  EVERYONE is unlikeable.  I feel like bingeing Hallmark channel Christmas movies to balance the hours spent watching the various degrees of malice on this show.

If it was to educate us and reenact the true story, having the stuff that was made up did not help.  The real journalist has a different name but they used this fake composite of Jessica the real reporter and this unlikeable Vivian.

[LuvMyShows]

On 2/19/2022 at 9:34 PM, CrystalBlue said:

If it was to educate us and reenact the true story, having the stuff that was made up did not help.  The real journalist has a different name but they used this fake composite of Jessica the real reporter and this unlikeable Vivian.

What kind of stuff is made up?  I did not read the book or have any familiarity with this before watching.

[SlovakPrincess]

17 hours ago, LuvMyShows said:

What kind of stuff is made up?  I did not read the book or have any familiarity with this before watching.

They not only changed the name of the reporter from Jessica to Vivian, they made Vivian way more obsessed with Anna and tweaked timing and details about the reporter's life to drive the narrative of her sort of identifying with Anna "sticking it to the man".  For instance, the fact that the reporter made a big mistake on a prior story is true, but I don't think in real life her editors refused to support her / punished her for the mistake to the extent claimed in this series.     

Some of the folks scammed in the show (like Val and Nora) are composites of other people.

The idea that Anna's lawyer would leave the office to let a reporter go through his documents on the case -- that's gotta be fictionalized.  I cannot believe any lawyer would ever do that, and I do not think in real life the reporter developed this strange relationship with Anna's lawyer.  

[txhorns79]

On 2/11/2022 at 11:30 PM, peridot said:

 

Nora was pretty dumb to hand over her credit card and signing powers to a complete stranger, especially one you are snubbing and treating like an errand girl.

I was a little surprised Bergdorf's wouldn't have followed up with her at some point.  She seemed like a valuable client, and surely they would have noticed that her spending skyrocketed beyond whatever her usual amount was.

I was also confused about Nora's relationship with Chase and Val.  Were they just freeloading off of her?  Was Chase providing other services to earn his keep? 

[aradia22]

It's honestly kind of offensive at how poorly they handled Chase's character. In casting a South Asian actor, they should have been prepared to talk about race. Instead, it's all white feminism, he's suddenly patronizing (I wouldn't even say it gets to the level of misogyny much as they hint that), and they completely write off his race and how he navigates through the world and all this relationships because he was adopted by white parents? A MESS.

I enjoyed Donna Murphy and the club of rich women who were dismissive to their assistants but the show wasn't brave or smart enough to really dig into that once Nora was convinced to champion female entrepreneurs.

Quote

I don’t like this girl, but I had to laugh at her buying things with the credit card, when this woman was sucking up to her boyfriend, and treating her like a personal assistant.  

That basic credit card theft and needing to keep outrunning the lies is way more interesting to me than the bulk of the show they insist on presenting. The mercenary grift and petty revenge is something I understand from Anna.

Quote

I was laughing at the calm and collected Anna loosing her shit over several phone calls to Chase.

I wish it had been part of a different show. It didn't really seem to fit here but it was a fun idea.

Quote

I was a little surprised Bergdorf's wouldn't have followed up with her at some point.  She seemed like a valuable client, and surely they would have noticed that her spending skyrocketed beyond whatever her usual amount was.

I was also confused about Nora's relationship with Chase and Val.  Were they just freeloading off of her?  Was Chase providing other services to earn his keep? 

I think Nora spent around $27k before Anna added Chase's shirts. And Anna only spent $17k on subsequent visits so it probably didn't send up red flags. The $400k was spread out among other stores and all kinds of other expenses (e.g. travel, online shopping, etc.)

I think Nora just liked having attractive young men around to escort her to events and fawn over her. She wanted the companionship but she was competitive with Anna and also saw her as lazy until she started to pursue ADF (unlike Val who works and Chase who was pretending to work on the startup).