Tonight's excellent episode of The Bold Type followed the shows usual formula of tackling topical subjects, lots of drama and an equal amount of fun.
Jane was the centre of this week's episode. The last article she wrote for Scarlett before resigning was up for a Mandy Award. As a result doors once again began to open in her professional life, but it was doors of the past which were the focus. As part of the nomination she was expected to write a follow-up piece, and that meant more victims reaching out to her.
Specifically a woman who had worked at the same firm as Jacqueline, was assaulted by the same monster and in the same way. At the time Jacqueline had made the difficult decision to stay quiet, knowing the times she was working in, and convinced herself that she was the only victim.
Her view point was of course understandable. Even living in the age of the #MeToo movement, speaking up about sexual abuse and harassment is extremely difficult for women. As much as it can be proclaimed that we'll have support, it is nowhere near a universal thing. Every woman that is brave enough to tell their story immediately faces accusations of her behaviour in the lead-up to events, and can and probably has already been blacklisted from the industry. Since the incident Jacqueline has grown into an extremely powerful woman, never afraid to back her staff and stand up for what she believes in. With that comes the acknowledgment that staying quiet was not for the best. Of course she's not to blame for what her former boss did, but both she and the other victims have to live with the 'what if' of if she'd come forward at the time. They'll never truly be able to get over what has been done to them, but instead of playing the blame game, they're channeling their energy into safe guarding other women and making sure they don't go through the same thing as them.
This nomination storyline gave us some wonderful scenes with Jane as she awkwardly at first greeted Jacqueline at their photo-shoot, but then had the confidence as hard as it was to inform her mentor of other women's plights, accepted her award with a shout-out to Jacqueline, decided to leave the other victim's statement out of her article and of course got her job back at Scarlett. I won't lie, Jacqueline previously rejecting Jane brought my heart into two. She was of course correct in her approach and beliefs that Jane at the time wanted Scarlett back because she was scared and now she's not. Jane's presence has sorely been missed at Scarlett, both by her best friends and those around her.
Sutton continued to prove why she is an awesome person this week. Anyone else in the world might've found it tricky to style their ex-boyfriend's date, especially when she revealed her long and winding history with Richard. The way the two of them have almost to an extent always been in each other's orbits but something has always come up. It's the type of near miss relationship that romantic movies are made of, and I guess the question is whether Richard truly is ready to move onto the next stage with his newly requited ex or may find himself brought back into Sutton's orbit. For her part, she's completely accepting the relationship as something she can't compete with and trying to drown her sorrows in booze.
With Jane and Kat's minds otherwise occupied, Sutton is down a shoulder or two to cry on and has been exploring her friendship with Brooke. Except, it's not really a friendship since Brooke is only interested in partying and burying feelings. A Sutton spilling her soul is a boring Sutton that Brooke doesn't want to know, and no amount of fashion connections is worth associating with someone who cares that little about you. It's a lesson Sutton came to realize after going into work with yet another hangover, Oliver commenting on her disheveled appearance and Jane giving her and Kat the night off from being her best friends. She didn't want Sutton to have to deal with seeing Richard at the awards, and knew Kat wouldn't be able to focus on anything apart from Adena. Thankfully Sutton kicked hers and Kat's butts into gears, realizing before it was too late that their personal issues could be on hold for the night; the Mandy awards was a massive deal to Jane and they needed to be there for their best friend's achievement.
That they were, but a big question mark is still hanging over Kat and Adena's relationship. She was so shaken up by her Leila sex dream that she didn't want to sleep. She tried and failed to convince herself, Sutton and Jane that she was just missing Adena and it didn't mean anything.
But then curiosity came for Kat!
On a night out at a gay bar, Kat being the new kitten on the block was high on the popularity scales. As she tried to soak it all in, a girl tried to soak her all in and honestly? Never in my time watching a TV show has a song ever felt so perfectly executed over a scene. Of course the Queen of 20gayteen Hayley Kiyoko's 'Curious' would play over a scene of Kat grinding and then kissing a girl and liking it.In her defense she did first back away from the girl, was obviously swept up in the music and after a 3am house call to Jane and Sutton confessed everything to Adena.
Any other show on TV would've milked this situation for all it was worth. Kat would've gone full throttle with the lovely club lady, lied to Adena, that catch up with her and everything go to crap. Understandably Adena didn't exactly take Kat's confession well at first. Who when they're seeing their girlfriend for the first time in a few weeks, is gonna like hearing they've kissed another girl and had a dream about their friend? When they did later talk, Adena accepted that Kat's curiosity over women wasn't going to go away and left the two of them somewhat at a cross roads.
They do both love and want to be with each other. But Kat is having to do an awful lot of learning in such a short space of time as she comes to grips with her sexuality, all that entails, and the question is whether they'll stay together, go on a break, or have an open relationship. I know there's been a tremendous amount of speculation over the latter and all of the potential controversy but I'm just enjoying the ride of how this storyline is playing out. Far too many times a show will have a previously known straight woman get involved with a girl and declare her sexuality to be all about the girl as a way around calling her bisexual. We saw in season 1 after Adena left that Kat was still exploring the dating scenes with guys because she didn't want any other girls and now she's having to rethink that.
Yes I'd have preferred the show to let them have more of a honey moon period before throwing every obstacle under the sun in their direction, but life likes to throw the unexpected at us.
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