Episode Report Card Mollie: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bombay Dreams
By Mollie | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 02.27.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.This week starts where last week left off, with Nico denying she knows (or has sexually harassed) Kirby Atwood. Company head Hector buys her denial and puts the company's lawyers on the case, and they draw up a statement for Nico to sign that paints Kirby as a predator. Nico tells the girls about all of this, and gets support mixed with concern from Wendy, and anger and hurt from Victory. Not wanting to ruin Kirby's life by signing the statement, Nico tracks him down and finds out that it was her work rival, Mike, who put him up to making the claim. Meanwhile, Nico begins to suspect that husband Charles may be putting in some extra office hours with a pretty grad student, and ponders how she likes them apples.
When Wendy's not having heart-to-hearts with Nico, she's devoting all her attention to the premiere of her new pet project, a film about 1930s India that she wants to turn into a hit. All her hopes are pinned on a blowout premiere party, and she gives Victory the task of designing a fabulous dress for the movie's star to wear. This collaboration leads Wendy and Victory to fight over the design of the dress, and over Wendy's alleged patronizing attitude toward Victory. Worse, the starlet gets drunk on the night of the premiere and takes the wheel of her limo in an attempt to run over her cheating rock star ex. No one even sees the dress -- that is, until Wendy leads the booked-and-printed star out of the prison and in front of the TV news reporters, who naturally want to know what the actress is wearing. The publicity ought to be good for Victory, and Sal (Wendy's assistant) hopes it will be good for the India movie, too.
Meanwhile, Joe's trying reasonably hard to be a decent boyfriend, so that's another victory for Victory. Shane and Wendy are having no problems in the bedroom (nor in the laundry room, for that matter). And Nico...well, Nico ends the episode by going home with Kirby. So she may have missed an opportunity to learn from this experience. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: A lot happened, all of which I have already covered. I prefer a quick montage at the top of the episode to lots of creaky exposition throughout, but these sequences try to pack so much information into such a short time that they leave me feeling dizzy, and I saw all of this the first time around! The important thing about this one is that we revisit Victory's Mildred Pierce line. Never liked her better.
That done, we pick right back up in Hector's office, with Nico in the hot seat, lying that she's not sure whether she's ever met Kirby Atwood. Why, then, is he complaining of sexual harassment? Oh, you know how those things are; Nico pinches so many assistants' asses, one of them was bound to complain sooner or later. This is essentially Nico's story -- that it's possible that she accidentally offended some photo-shoot peon -- and in spite of the fact that she has gone completely white and can't quite make eye contact, and in spite of the fact that she very recently came close to losing her job because Hector felt she couldn't be trusted to act in the company's best interests, Hector believes her now. In fact, he's a total pushover, concurring, "People like us are easy targets." If I may: Hector is obviously an easy target, but Nico is mostly just "easy." Gullible Hector promises, "We'll investigate the claim. If needs be, we'll tap into a slush fund we have set aside for this sort of thing." He gives Nico a reassuring smile. Do you get the feeling Hector has sent his share of inappropriate text messages to interns? Now, he says, he wants valuable Nico to get back to her important work without distraction. Nico, stunned to find herself off the hook (and after she worked so very hard to get caught!), sits there staring and thinking, "...That was a freebie." (Yes, I have to watch this show, but sometimes my brain prefers to pretend it's watching Arrested Development, and I won't apologize for that.)
In a Parador screening room, the gals are just finishing up a showing of Wendy's new pet project, Bombay Highway. Wendy wants Victory and Nico to give her their honest opinions of the movie, which should not be influenced in the least by the fact that she absolutely loves it and really, really wants other people to like it, too. Victory bites first, saying that she loved the clothes. Oh, that Victory -- so flaky/dedicated to her craft (pick one)! Nico responds more thoughtfully, saying that she thinks the film is well made and a potential hit. She doesn't look like she means it, so either she's doing a typically bad job with the lies or she's just thinking about something else. Maybe both, but definitely the latter; once the opinion-giving is out of the way, Nico blurts, "I'm sleeping with a twenty-five-year-old." The other girls are surprised, to say the least. Wendy's irritating assistant Josh (am I supposed to think he's funny? Cute? Incompetent? Will the show ever tell me?) knocks on the door to remind her of her 5:00 conference call, but she shoos him away, snapping, "Can't you see I'm in a meeting?" Aw, she calls it a "meeting" when she's just gossiping with her girlfriends. Just like Kristy from The Baby-Sitters Club. When Josh has gone, Wendy asks Nico whether Charles knows about her affair. Nico says that he never will: "It's over. ...Unless you count the sexual harassment suit." On hearing this, Victory proposes alcohol. 5:00 might be conference-call time, but it's also happy hour, am I right, gals?!
...So the BFFs gather at a bar, and Nico tells them how "fantastic" and "amazing" her fling with Kirby has been. Wendy wants to hear what it's like to have sex with someone new after so many years with the same person: "How do you make that leap of faith with a stranger?" I'm not sure how "faith" comes into it. Kirby's interest in having sex with Nico was never ambiguous. Unless she's referring to Nico's faith that Kirby wouldn't try to sue her later, which was obviously misplaced. Victory wants to know what took Nico so long to share, since they "tell each other everything" -- like which boys they have crushes on, and whether they got their first period yet, and how many R-rated movies they've seen, OMG! In fairness, I will admit that the ensuing exchange is pretty funny. Victory: "I tell you guys about things that I'm afraid to show my dermatologist!" Wendy: "You still haven't had that looked at?" The Brooke has a way with a punchline, what can I say. Something about the note of genuine concern and the mouthful of bar nuts just made that delivery work. Nico says she didn't tell them about Kirby because she was hoping to avoid the inevitable judgment. Victory is upset because she has lost her "role models for the perfect marriage," and she also contends that by waiting this long to share the news, Nico has cheated on her friends as well as her husband. (Again, they hang out with Victory why? Is it her maturity?) Victory is angry, Wendy is hurt, and Nico is now hurt and angry that they are, respectively, angry and hurt.