S02.E05 Stride of Pride 2018.07.03

[Lady Calypso]

Quote

Kat is excited by a potential addition to her department, but when the board’s corporate policy prevents her from offering the job, she decides to challenge the status quo in the hope of championing new voices. Jane finds a job posting she thinks she’d be perfect for, but her response to the job sparks a difficult conversation with Kat about privilege. Sutton is enjoying her single life, until she discovers something surprising about her latest fling.

[KaveDweller]

I find it hard to believe that the woman who didn't understand why Adena ran from the cops last season was so upset about Jane showing her privilege. But I guess Adena is changing her. I also found her being allowed to hire that woman a bit unrealistic. That woman has lots of followers, but so do tons of college grads and I don't see the board being convinced to change their minds.

Very glad Kat's thing with Leah ended up being a dream, but is that what she is all worried about telling Adena next week? Or is there more going on. 

I actually thought there was going to be more to Sutton's hook up then him being a married dude cheating on his wife.

[Washi45]

1 hour ago, KaveDweller said:

I also found her being allowed to hire that woman a bit unrealistic. That woman has lots of followers, but so do tons of college grads and I don't see the board being convinced to change their minds.

Would it be a challenge, in general, to change any company policy? I'm sure, and I guess that's what's unrealistic in a sense, but I'm on board with this scenario and I buy it, since in the real world, a lot of major news organizations are fine with what they call "equivalent" work experience. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Washi45

[twoods]

These last two weeks have not been good to Sutton. I may be the only one that enjoyed her with Richard, but I’m guessing she will try to get back with him only to see he has moved on. I felt sorry for that guy’s wife (was her name Allison?). 

Oh great, Kat has a sex dream about Adena’s ex. The angst continues. I was hoping with her subplot with Jane, this boring relationship will be put on the back burner for a few episodes.

Edited July 4, 2018 by twoods

[retrograde]

4 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

I also found her being allowed to hire that woman a bit unrealistic. That woman has lots of followers, but so do tons of college grads and I don't see the board being convinced to change their minds.

I dunno, my experience is that old publishing execs are terrified of the internet and social media in particular and are very easily dazzled by young people who seem to know what they're talking about, so I can see it. There's no very good reason that someone in social media needs a college degree. 

I found it most unrealistic that everyone was fine with Jane, who does not work at that rec center, "covering" for the Twitter girl.

Edited July 4, 2018 by retrograde

[Cassandre]

I thought that was one of their best episode (can't top 1x10 though). I wasn't expecting Jane and Kat to have that conversation but I'm glad they did. Jane left Scarlet and now she's complaining about having a hard time finding a new job. I know she didn't plan to get fired by Victoria but why did she leave a good job in the first place... Kat  used to say she was just Adenasexual, well that dream proved her wrong...  I'm glad that guy's wife believed Sutton's side of the story. 

[Jillybean]

It was so nice having a break from Katena drama. Looks like that will be short-lived.

Kat's triumph over the board as the result of a 30-second speech by her new hire was not believable.

What a coincidence that this aired the same day that action was taken to roll back affirmative action for university admissions.

Sutton is my favorite this season and I bet she could have Richard back in a heartbeat.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Jillybean

[dubbel zout]

9 hours ago, retrograde said:

There's no very good reason that someone in social media needs a college degree. 

If they really want Angie to get a degree, they can give her tuition assistance so she can finish. That's not an unusual benefit. 

I'm glad the show acknowledged Kat's privilege, though it'd be interesting for that to play out a bit more. What is the bigger advantage for her: her economic status (in that her dad could get her an internship and she doesn't have to worry about paying her bills) or her race when diversity is becoming more important?

Requiring a college degree is an interesting thing. One of my cousins has worked in a bank for years, starting as a teller and getting regular promotions, but she hit a wall eventually because of not having a degree. Her bank paid for it because they valued her as an employee, but it was kind of a waste of time and money for everyone. The degree didn't magically make her more capable or qualified for whatever the next level was. Her work experience was probably much more valuable. Yet she had to have the degree to advance after a certain point.

2 hours ago, Cassandre said:

I'm glad that guy's wife believed Sutton's side of the story. 

I got the impression Sutton wasn't the first woman the husband had cheated with. 

[KaveDweller]

12 hours ago, retrograde said:

I dunno, my experience is that old publishing execs are terrified of the internet and social media in particular and are very easily dazzled by young people who seem to know what they're talking about, so I can see it. There's no very good reason that someone in social media needs a college degree. 

I found it most unrealistic that everyone was fine with Jane, who does not work at that rec center, "covering" for the Twitter girl.

There's no good reason she needs a degree, I've just found that large companies are not quick to change policies.

I also thought it was unrealistic that Jane was able to cover for Twitter girl.

5 hours ago, Cassandre said:

I thought that was one of their best episode (can't top 1x10 though). I wasn't expecting Jane and Kat to have that conversation but I'm glad they did. Jane left Scarlet and now she's complaining about having a hard time finding a new job. I know she didn't plan to get fired by Victoria but why did she leave a good job in the first place... Kat  used to say she was just Adenasexual, well that dream proved her wrong...  I'm glad that guy's wife believed Sutton's side of the story. 

Jane left a good job for what she thought was a better job. I don't think that was a bad decision, she wasn't really happy at Scarlett.

[GaT]

4 hours ago, Jillybean said:

It was so nice having a break from Katena drama. Looks like that will be short-lived.

Yeah, I thought we actually had an episode without hearing about it, but they just had to throw that ending in. Now we're probably going to be stuck with the Kat & Adena show for many episodes.

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I'm glad the show acknowledged Kat's privilege, though it'd be interesting for that to play out a bit more. What is the bigger advantage for her: her economic status (in that her dad could get her an internship and she doesn't have to worry about paying her bills) or her race when diversity is becoming more important?

I had no idea that Kat was living in her parents condo & they paid her bills too, (did this come up before & I missed it?), I'm glad they threw that in because tit kind of explains a lot about her character, she just does whatever she wants at the job without really worrying about consequence, because there really aren't any for her. Like Jane said, if she got hit by a cab with no money or insurance, what would she do? Kat doesn't have any worries like that at all, but I'm not sure that many episodes of Kat learning about her privilege is going to make good TV.

[dubbel zout]

3 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

Jane left a good job for what she thought was a better job. I don't think that was a bad decision, she wasn't really happy at Scarlett.

Bouncing around in publishing is super common, especially at the entry level. It's often the only way to get promoted.

2 hours ago, GaT said:

I'm not sure that many episodes of Kat learning about her privilege is going to make good TV.

It doesn't have to be many episodes; I don't want it dropped, that's all. If Sutton can moon over Richard for multiple episodes, Kat can continue to confront her privilege. 

[Whimsy]

19 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I got the impression Sutton wasn't the first woman the husband had cheated with. 

Oh, definitely, but is Sutton the first woman to sit down and have an adult conversation with her about it?  Probably.

On 7/4/2018 at 2:10 AM, twoods said:

Oh great, Kat has a sex dream about Adena’s ex. The angst continues. I was hoping with her subplot with Jane, this boring relationship will be put on the back burner for a few episodes.

I hope the preview is a HUGE misdirect because if Kat tells Adena about a dream and Adena goes off the rails I am going to FF all of their scenes from now on.  I've been married for 26 years.  Do you know how many sex dreams I've had with other people in them other than my husband?  Quite a few.  Sometimes about old boyfriends from the past, sometimes about co-workers who I had a mild attraction to that was NEVER acted upon IRL.  A couple times about a manager I am not even remotely attracted to, even though I find him a very nice person and a great manager.  Dreams mean nothing.  If all of a sudden, because of a dream, I was chasing after these guys or doubting my marriage then yeah, it's a problem.  So, hopefully the discussion with Kat and Adena would be more about Kat questioning if she wants to explore other experiences.  

[tennisgurl]

Rose really is a good wine to drink while your contemplating your privilege. 

Poor Sutton. I've really liked her this season, but it sucks seeing her struggle with her private life, while also hitting a bit of a wall in her professional life. I think that the wife she spoke to suspected her husband was cheating, and this was just confirmation. I was worried the wife would freak out on her, but she took it really well. She didnt seem surprised, just sad. 

The Kat and Jane stuff was interesting, and I kind of like that the show is addressing Jane being kind of pretentious and self centered, which I've always thought she could be. I like Jane, but she has her issues, and its good that the show is aware of that. Granted, all the girls have their problems, and Kat admitted to having spent more time examining her own issues with race and class (which we`ve seen this season), but Jane in a lot of shows would be like kind of Writer Surrogate character who can do no wrong, so its nice not to see it here. 

We dont need a damn love triangle with Kat! Can she and Adena not have, like, two episodes of just being a couple without drama breaking out?

[Guest]

Well, that was a doozy! The Sutton adultery plot was very random for a one night stand. Liked Jane/Kat and it was awesome seeing Kat have something to do that had nothing to do with Adena. And then that last scene had to happen, ugh! Yes they're cute, yes they're groundbreaking, but does everything either of them ever do have to come back to their fucking relationship? I love them, but this constant 15-year-old angst is too much. It's the same insecurities every goddamn ep.

With that said, I find it fascinating that Kat is the one struggling with a wandering imagination. With most TV lesbian ships, the aloof more experienced one cheats on the infatuated one because they feel smothered (actually, with any TV ship). Every word out of Kat's mouth is about how great Adena is and Adena was complaining about Kat being lackluster in bed just weeks ago (not to mention last week implied she'd fucked her way through half of the NYC lesbian art scene,) so having Kat rather than Lesbian Sex Goddess Adena fantasize about someone else is intriguing. 

Although from a narrative standpoint it makes no sense - Adena is her first girlfriend, they're in total honeymoon phase, they have sex all the time, their only fight was about vaguely mediocre sex which they promptly fixed with mind-blowing sex, and suddenly Adena goes on a weekend retreat and Kat's dreaming of being fingered by a woman she's talked to for all of three minutes? Is it a power fantasy because we're supposed to assume Adena has had sex with Leila and Kat subconsciously resents all of Adena's experience? 

[marny]

I wonder if the $500 worth of cocaine (miscellaneous) being charged to the Scarlet credit card is ever going to come up again for Sutton. They made it seem like a big deal last week, but no mention of it this week. 

[dubbel zout]

The cocaine is Chekov's gun. Eventually it will go off. I think they're saving it for a big moment.

[KaveDweller]

I have a feeling Richard being a lawyer for Scarlett will come into play when the concaine thing comes out.

[GaT]

On 7/5/2018 at 5:38 AM, Whimsy said:

I hope the preview is a HUGE misdirect because if Kat tells Adena about a dream and Adena goes off the rails I am going to FF all of their scenes from now on.  I've been married for 26 years.  Do you know how many sex dreams I've had with other people in them other than my husband?  Quite a few.  

Oh, do tell. In detail. The internet is interested :-)

[Whimsy]

7 hours ago, GaT said:

Oh, do tell. In detail. The internet is interested :-)

Lol. That’s all you get. The point is, you can’t contol dreams. ?

[BigDfromLA]

Didn't Sutton say that she had been with 28 men recently? I guess it's 29 now. Jane went from 4 to 5.

[CurlyATX]

I actually liked the privilege discussion between Jane and Kat but found Jane's quick acceptance of it to be unrealistic.  I'm usually the only WOC in my peer group (work, friends, etc) and most of the folks around me claim to be "color blind".  I 've had some discussions about race and most of these folks say something about how they've been discriminated at times for being white.  I think most of the folks I know seem to think that they can't benefit from a privilege if they have any adversity at all.  So, there is no white privilege if they are a woman/grew up poor/have big boobs (I've heard this!).  The idea is that "everyone has some issues to overcome". 

What I liked the most about Kat's talk is that Jane assumed that the person they went with wasn't qualified.  This is the tipping point for me.  Jane assumes that she was the number one on the list and then, someone who is "a diversity hire" was number 45 and got the job.   I can't count how many "marketing assistants" we've hired who were the daughter of a principal/some big client/dating principal's son.  No interview- just "guess what, you have an new marketing assistant"!  

As for Kat's privilege as a well-connected POC, that is true.  She went to a great university, her parents are connected, she's "well spoken" (to use a phrase I hate).  Kat may be a "safe minority" hire- she gives them credit for being diverse but she's from the same world.  However, her interaction with the other AA staffers is making her see that she can be an agent for change, helping others who may not have had her advantages.   I'm a big advocate for the business case of diversity since it often brings innovation.  When everyone thinks the same, it's really hard to have growth and change.  Sometimes you need a few folks who "don't fit" to help bring depth. 

Edited July 10, 2018 by CurlyATX
grammar is my friend

[dubbel zout]

6 minutes ago, CurlyATX said:

When everyone thinks the same, it's really hard to have growth and change. 

Exactly, and that's a big reason why diversity is so important. Why is that so hard for some people to grasp? Answering my own rhetorical question: I guess if you aren't a proponent of "a rising tide raises all boats," you cling to whatever advantage you have.

[JasmineFlower]

Just catching up on the last 3 episodes now, sorry for the late post on this episode, but reading through several of the comments I thought I'd post.

FWIW to those who think that 30-second speech to the board was completely unrealistic. I didn't find that part, or any of the discussion on race and privilege, unrealistic. I'm a black woman and when I was in college at my overwhelmingly white private university, I was in a room with several deans and provosts of the university since I was involved with student government. There were several things discussed, but there were probably four students present including myself and we spoke about student concerns on a few matters. One of the things I spoke about were dorm assignments, especially freshman dorm assignments since my 350-person dorm had 4 underrepresented minorities living in it. That's it. The numbers barely climbed when taking into account all people of color. The school was definitely predominantly white, but it wasn't enough for those numbers to make any sense. I didn't speak long about this, less than 3-minutes I'd say, and the part about the dorm numbers were under 30 seconds, the rest of that time was what kind of environment that created for students of color. They started the process of changing the policy based on that conversation, it was too late to implement it for the incoming class but it was changed starting the following year, but their action on the issue was immediate. They were so busy paying attention to diversity in admissions, they hadn't thought to make sure there weren't such imbalances when applying those numbers to dorm assignments, even though the dorm I lived in was the #1 requested dorm on campus. It literally just never occurred to them to check on the implementation of the dorm room requests until it was brought to their attention. 

So, Kat's storyline doesn't seem as outlandish to me as it does to others, because I think they've shown this board as being fairly receptive to new ideas, rather than stodgy stick-in-the-muds. I think it just takes a receptive audience who is willing to listen, and while that can be hard to find in many, many workplaces, at certain ones, like a university or in the show's case, the publisher of a seemingly liberal women's magazine who likes to push the envelope, it doesn't seem like quite as big of stretch that it would have a board who is willing to entertain a change to a policy that they likely hadn't considered being so limiting before.

Edited July 17, 2018 by JasmineFlower

[dubbel zout]

2 minutes ago, JasmineFlower said:

I think they've shown this board as being fairly receptive to new ideas, rather than stodgy stick-in-the-muds.

I think the show kind of has it both ways with the board, i.e., it depends on the story how the board reacts. Jacqueline is a known quantity, so her constantly having to convince the old white men of something is getting a bit tiresome for me. Admittedly, the Angie situation was a bit of a one-off, since it was more about a company-wide policy than something Scarlet-specific.

And speaking of the board, who are these people? We know Richard is a company lawyer, but what do the rest do? If this is an editorial board, it's ridiculous everyone is white and male.

[JasmineFlower]

5 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I think the show kind of has it both ways with the board, i.e., it depends on the story how the board reacts. Jacqueline is a known quantity, so her constantly having to convince the old white men of something is getting a bit tiresome for me. Admittedly, the Angie situation was a bit of a one-off, since it was more about a company-wide policy than something Scarlet-specific.

For me, the Jacqueline storylines have shown that the board can be pushed into the modern ages with the right influence or angle. I don't find them boring. To me, they are interesting and realistic, because in my experience, unfortunately, getting that one win (like with Jacqueline getting her way with that body issue), doesn't mean you won't have to go to bat again on a similar issue again in the next month or the next year. It is rare in my experience that you change thinking with that one win.

The board did also approve the new HR policy for dating that's more reflective of modern times, which I think was company wide but I'm not positive. And Kat presented to them at least once prior to this and it went well despite it not being something they were too familiar with. I'm sure there have been things that swung the other way, but they don't stand out to me as being the norm when they are dealing with Scarlet. They seem to me to be more open to letting Scarlet be more reflective of the magazine they are creating.

There was a woman sitting on the board in that scene. The only thing that stood out as odd to me, was that the new board member we've been subjected to recently was missing.

[Gothish520]

On 7/4/2018 at 2:10 AM, twoods said:

These last two weeks have not been good to Sutton. I may be the only one that enjoyed her with Richard, but I’m guessing she will try to get back with him only to see he has moved on. 

You definitely aren't the only one who likes Richard and Sutton together. I'm surprised that people find him boring and don't like them as a couple - I think he's a good guy and was always supportive and loving to Sutton. I'm with him - choosing career over real love makes no sense to me!

[dubbel zout]

8 hours ago, Gothish520 said:

choosing career over real love

This isn't quite accurate: Sutton wants to be taken seriously as a stylist/fashion editor, and she was afraid if her relationship with Richard—a man who has a fair amount of influence in the upper echelons of the company—became known, people would think any advancement and/or opportunity was because of who she was sleeping with, not because she has genuine talent, drive, and ability.

[Gothish520]

54 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

This isn't quite accurate: Sutton wants to be taken seriously as a stylist/fashion editor, and she was afraid if her relationship with Richard—a man who has a fair amount of influence in the upper echelons of the company—became known, people would think any advancement and/or opportunity was because of who she was sleeping with, not because she has genuine talent, drive, and ability.

Yes but to put it in simple terms, she was choosing her career over love. She all but said that. And when Richard said he felt completely the opposite, I understood exactly where he was coming from.