S02.E07: Shrimp & Grits

[Pallas]

The WGBH crew head down to the nation's capital, where Julia prepares for a special episode filmed from the White House kitchen.

[Words]

Season 1 had 8 eps.  This is Season 2, ep 7.  So is there one more episode or is this the Season 2 finale?

 

[SoMuchTV]

33 minutes ago, Words said:

Season 1 had 8 eps.  This is Season 2, ep 7.  So is there one more episode or is this the Season 2 finale?

There’s definitely a next episode - the previews had me very much looking forward to it. I believe that’ll be the season finale but I’m not positive. 

Related peeve - very annoying that MAX makes you jump through hoops to watch through to the end.  Seems like they’re shooting themselves in the foot, since by default you don’t see the preview for next week. 

[BingeyKohan]

This was a good one!

[Words]

LOVED when Stanley tossed Avis's martini onto his own face!  The scenes with  Zephyr Wright were lovely.

 

[buckboard]

Zephyr Wright was a real person, although Alice is not.  She was a long-time cook for the Johnsons and did have an influence on his positions on civil rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_Wright

[Irlandesa]

I enjoyed this episode too and need to find the previews because I loved how it ended.

I'm bummed for Avis.  Stanley is such a disappointment.  I do wish Avis had brought up the teacher aspect to Stanley instead of just the student.  It's bad enough that he cheated on her but with a 20-something student?  That's just extra awful.

[Yeah No]

I found this video of Julia's actual show on this dinner, narrated by her and including her interviews with several White House entertainment staff including chef Henry Haller.  It appears that both she and Paul were at the dinner as they are shown arriving at one point, so she was not left out of it, and I kind of doubt she was treated poorly by the chef either, which is as I suspected as this show loves to create fictional drama, usually at the expense of some much nicer real life people.  But true to life, Tony Bennett was there!  It's really worth watching, and easy to skip through.  It gets more interesting after about 10 minutes.

It's obvious from watching this that the real Julia was quite dignified and commanded respect wherever she went and I am quite sure she was not treated as poorly as the fictional Julia on this episode.  Tony Bennett just died this past July and Chef Henry Haller died in 2020 at 97, so fortunately he isn't alive to be unhappy with his portrayal.

NET White House Red Carpet with Julia Child

[SoMuchTV]

5 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I found this video of Julia's actual show on this dinner, narrated by her and including her interviews with several White House entertainment staff including chef Henry Haller.  It appears that both she and Paul were at the dinner as they are shown arriving at one point, so she was not left out of it, and I kind of doubt she was treated poorly by the chef either, which is as I suspected as this show loves to create fictional drama, usually at the expense of some much nicer real life people.  But true to life, Tony Bennett was there!  It's really worth watching, and easy to skip through.  It gets more interesting after about 10 minutes.

It's obvious from watching this that the real Julia was quite dignified and commanded respect wherever she went and I am quite sure she was not treated as poorly as the fictional Julia on this episode.  Tony Bennett just died this past July and Chef Henry Haller died in 2020 at 97, so fortunately he isn't alive to be unhappy with his portrayal.

NET White House Red Carpet with Julia Child

The companion podcast (Dishing on Julia) talked about how there were two different dinners (or she did two different tv specials on WH dinners?), and it seems like elements from both were conflated into this episode.  I'm pretty sure they said Chef Haller was in that position for both.

[Yeah No]

11 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

The companion podcast (Dishing on Julia) talked about how there were two different dinners (or she did two different tv specials on WH dinners?), and it seems like elements from both were conflated into this episode.  I'm pretty sure they said Chef Haller was in that position for both.

Interesting, I didn't see any videos or mention of any second dinner anywhere online.  Is there any truth to her being excluded and mistreated at either of them?  I think that was a bit of fiction. 

I find this show's attempts to show discrimination and prejudice against women to be heavy handed.  There are ways to make their point without turning characters based on real people into assholes when they may not deserve it.  And while prejudice certainly happened, in some instances on this show you'd think this was the 1860s, not the 1960s.  Julia was covering a dinner from a purely domestic perspective, she wasn't pushing herself into what was considered a solidly male domain back then so she would have been welcome as a woman in that capacity.  And if they were just making people into assholes for drama, I don't think that's fair either. 

I also don't get the point of not having her down on the list to attend the dinner, or any valid reason even from a 1960s perspective why she would have been excluded from it.  She was instrumental in getting permission for GBH to cover the dinner in the first place by writing letters and making phone calls to make it happen.  She was invited to be there to cover it and would most likely have been sent an invitation to attend the dinner as well.  She wasn't a member of the press either so any White House rules about that didn't apply to her (and even if so GBH was allowed to have cameras at the dinner covering it).  Especially back then people stood on appropriateness and inviting her to the dinner definitely would have been seen as the appropriate thing to do.  And even if they weren't on the list to attend (which I doubt) the woman telling them that would not have been so impolite about it.  This was the White House of a president that just signed the Civil Rights Act, not a private event in the South.  I think this show sometimes takes liberties with what would have been realistic for the time.  It's like they are superimposing today's attitudes and values on it (and erroneous presumptions) and I don't think it fits and gives the wrong impression about the time.

Here's another article on Julia and the dinner:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87058/how-julia-child-got-white-house-state-dinner-television

[LisaM]

I thought the final scenes where Julia tells Paul that she is being blackmailed were very well done. 

I cringed at how Julia was treated by the White House staff and the Chef. I was very surprised that a relatively famous woman would have been disinvited from the Dinner in this fashion. That did not ring true for me. 

[peeayebee]

I generally enjoyed this ep. One thing that I've become more and more fixated on is how the show often has a Marvelous Mrs Maisel vibe. Some of the acting and scenes are so over-the-top, heightened, and near farcical, like MMM. For instance, Stanley throwing the martini in his face. I also didn't like how the White House protocol woman was so exaggerated. (Took me a while to figure out she's from Hacks.)

On the other hand, I thought the actress playing the student Stanley had sex with was very good and entertaining. I wouldn't mind seeing the character again, though I doubt that will happen.

I had no idea Blanche was going blind. My guess all along was that she was losing her mental faculties. 

Were bowling balls that small back then or was that a different kind of bowling?

I had to google to see who played Hunter's wife. Melanie Mayron. I don't remember her from the earlier eps. (I realize she played the wife's twin sister.)

[Yeah No]

36 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

Were bowling balls that small back then or was that a different kind of bowling?

No, they weren't that small in regular bowling, that's just candlepin bowling, a type of bowling said to have been invented in Massachusetts and peculiar to certain areas of New England.  I found out about it when I moved to CT years ago.  BTW they filmed those scenes at the Wakefield Bowladrome.  Wakefield is a town North of Boston.

[grawlix]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

On the other hand, I thought the actress playing the student Stanley had sex with was very good and entertaining. I wouldn't mind seeing the character again, though I doubt that will happen.

...

I had to google to see who played Hunter's wife. Melanie Mayron. I don't remember her from the earlier eps. (I realize she played the wife's twin sister.)

With this show, I have a feeling that Avis' new side story will be her mentoring the female student for a few episodes.

 

It was good to see Melanie Mayron do double duty as an actor and director.

[Alexander Pope]

Judith speaking up for Blanche at the big Knopf dinner and Blanche then speaking up for herself gave me all the feels.  I have no idea if such a thing really happened, but what a great love story those two had, even though at times it was abusive on Blanche's part.  It's still rare, in my world at least, for women of different generations to give each other credit.

[LisaM]

On 12/18/2023 at 12:06 AM, Alexander Pope said:

Judith speaking up for Blanche at the big Knopf dinner and Blanche then speaking up for herself gave me all the feels.  I have no idea if such a thing really happened, but what a great love story those two had, even though at times it was abusive on Blanche's part.  It's still rare, in my world at least, for women of different generations to give each other credit.

Agreed. I have always loved Judith Light and watching her face while Judith spoke was wonderful. 

[iMonrey]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:35 PM, peeayebee said:

I also didn't like how the White House protocol woman was so exaggerated. (Took me a while to figure out she's from Hacks.)

OH! That's where I knew her from. I actually thought that part was funny, but I agree there's sometimes an uneven comedic tone to the show.

On 12/17/2023 at 8:35 PM, peeayebee said:

I had no idea Blanche was going blind. My guess all along was that she was losing her mental faculties. 

Yeah she told Judith that several episodes ago. Maybe even last season?

[peeayebee]

That she was going blind? I don't remember that, but then, I don't remember a lot of stuff.

[Hanahope]

It was last season, and Judith offered to help her.

i know the show takes liberties with some facts, but i think it’s saying good things.