Hello friends, and welcome back to The Bold Type, where this week all three of our women are faced with difficult decisions, some of which have easier fixes than others.
Let’s start with Jane, whose storyline dominates this episode. Last season, Jane discovered that she’s positive for the BRCA gene mutation, which puts her at high risk for developing breast or ovarian cancer. She took the test as part of research for an article, both despite and because of her fear around it due to the fact that her mother died from breast cancer when Jane was very young.
We’ve circled back to this storyline because of a little mishap involving a broken condom. My least favorite part about this Jane-Perfect Ben sex scene is that the song in the background played in the background of a WayHaught sex scene once so it is a WayHaught song forever now. My favorite part of the sex scene was that afterward Jane FaceTimed both Kat and Sutton into their otherwise private crisis as she waited for PostMates to deliver her Plan B pill. This show is so goofy sometimes and I love it.
But the Plan B has some nasty side effects the next day, i.e. cramps, nausea, etc. So, Jane sees her gynecologist to treat the symptoms, and is confronted with the surprising fact that she, at age 25, will need to make some tough decisions in the next few years regarding whether and how to have kids, and whether to have preventative surgery. As another aside, when the doctor told her she should consider and oophorectomy, all I could think about was Orphan Black. But I digress.
Naturally, Jane’s article pitch of the week involves interviewing 20-something mothers, ostensibly to find out if “babies are the new bling.” Really, the point is to try and figure out if they can give her an idea of whether she wants to be a mother so young. Obviously, no one can make that decision for her, not Kat and Sutton, who are doing their best to help. Not even Mama Jacqueline, who eventually gently weasels the truth out of Jane as to why the article is taking so long to write. The permission she gives the women who work for her, and the empathy, is probably pretty unrealistic but I don’t care, I love her and think she’s a great boss.
Speaking of Jacqueline being a boss, she regularly gets her eyebrows threaded in her office I guess?
Anyway, in the end Jane doesn’t reach any decisions. She does, however, share her BRCA status with a very wide-eyed and obviously worried Ben. She also calls her older brother to ask him questions about what their mom was like in an attempt to better understand motherhood from a daughter’s point of view.
Meanwhile, Sutton’s been left in charge of the fashion department while Oliver is in France. When confronted with the need to cut the budget for the month in order to expand the Paris Fashion Week issue, she does what Oliver told her to do: smile and nod. This puts her in a pickle when suddenly they don’t have enough money for a location shoot at a dive bar that Oliver is 120% set on.
So, Sutton drags Jane and Kat to a flea market to grab a bunch of stuff to build a set that looks exactly like the bar, which they succeed at. Sutton finds out she’s going to Paris Fashion Week (presumably as a reward for always pulling everything off and being talented and driven), at which she literally jumps with joy. In the back of my mind I’m wondering if the $800 “drinks” charge Brooke put on the Scarlet credit card will ever come back to hurt Sutton, but I’m happy for her.
Lastly, Kat’s storyline is 100% sans Adena this week, which is ok because she is her own person! Cleo approaches her and asks if she’d like to meet with a rep from an all-organic eco compostable everything beauty brand to talk about being an Instagram spokesperson/”influencer.” The company really wants her because she’s Black, queer, and the youngest department head ever, and that’s exactly their brand! Kat is flattered into signing a contract she doesn’t read (red flag!) only to find out from Pinstripe (who has decided to hang around the Safford building to work on his freelance writing) that a reporter friend of his is doing an exposé on the beauty company founder. Turns out, he donates to hate groups! Hence the reason they wanted Kat so badly: clean up their image when shit hits the fan.
Obviously Kat is having none of this and manages to do everything she is contractually obligated to while also disparaging the company founder. Then Mama Jaqueline chews Cleo out for putting Kat in that position while also encouraging Kat to find some brands/organizations she *does* believe in and do some “influencing” or whatever for them.
All in all, this was a pretty average The Bold Type episode, which I appreciated because it’s been a little all over the place this season. It was nice to see our protagonists navigating the professional and/or “adult” world and leaning on each other while doing it; their friendship is the heart of the show and it’s always a plus when we get to see that heart beat for all of them.
Come back next week for more drama, probably! I’m just waiting for the other pin(stripe) to drop tbh.