Hello friends and welcome back to The Bold Type where things continue to be fraught but prescient, which is how we like it, right?
This week, we’ve got a pretty decent story about white privilege, which honestly could’ve gone really wrong but the writers pulled through in my opinion, so let’s start there.
Tiny Jane is still Big Unemployed and starting (continuing?) to feel desperate. For some reason Pinstripe is still a character on this show and is still mildly stalking her at her coffee shop perch, this time with another job lead at Yes Girl, which is another magazine. Her interview goes better than any she’s had so far, but the interviewer does ask her pointedly where she lives. When she responds Greenpoint, the interviewer makes a comment about how everyone lives there, which the audience knows is foreshadowing but Jane doesn’t. She’s really excited about a job she assumes she has in the bag, until later that night when Pinstripe (who knows everything?!) calls to give her a heads up that she’s not getting it because they’re doing a big “diversity push” and she’s white.
This leads Jane to complain to Kat and Sutton that it’s not fair that a job she’s perfect for should be given to someone else just because they’re a person of color. YIKES Jane! Is basically Kat’s response. (Sutton, for her part, doesn’t take sides and stands there awkwardly and silently, other than to protest the use of the word “racist,” so). Jane gets defensive as Kat tries to explain why access is not the same thing as giving a job to an unqualified person but everyone, including Kat, agrees that Jane isn’t racist. Which all white people are, on some level. But the show doesn’t go there.
The next day, Kat finds Jane at her coffee shop/office and again tries to talk it out with Jane. She asks why Jane assumes that the person who did get the job isn’t as perfect for it as she is, which is a really good question that seems to get Jane thinking a little. Despite Jane snapping that Kat lives in her parents’ loft without paying rent and got into Scarlet because her dad helped get her an internship and has never paid a bill in her life (harsh! But also this loft thing is news to me, doesn’t Kat have a high-power job now? I digress), she does sit with it for a while and (mostly) realizes she’s in the wrong. Later, she and Kat drink make-up wine and hug it out, but only after once again agreeing that no one is racist.
Also, Jane and Perfect Ben are having a lot of sex.
Meanwhile! Kat is having a Diversity Hire storyline of her own. She’s bored with the candidates for her social media staff position. While saying as much to Alex in the break room, Oliver comes in and plants the idea that maybe she’s looking in the wrong place- after all, the reason he got into a fashion job was that Naomi Campbell saw his potential from where he was working at craft services and took a chance on him. So Kat puts out a call on Twitter and gets tons of responses from great candidates, one of whom is a rad Latinx woman named Angie who couldn’t afford college and therefore doesn’t meet the Safford-wide policy of needing a college degree to be hired.
This leads Kat on a crusade to not only get Angie hired but take down the policy altogether. After she and Angie present to the board (the whitest, cis-male-ist room in the world), they achieve partial success: Angie gets hired, and the degree requirement is lifted for Scarlet, but not the rest of Safford. Mama Jacqueline is proud, and so is Kat, as she should be, despite the alive-and-well-ness of the patriarchy.
Kat’s romantic exploits this episode comes in the form of a sex dream about Leila. What? Leila is one of Adena’s old friends, who Kat runs into at karaoke night and asks if she can come by to borrow Adena’s tripod. Adena, we find out, is out of town at a retreat, but sure, you can come by, beautiful woman (is what Kat is thinking). Leila never does come by, but Kat dreams that she does, and it is very steamy! Knowing how seriously Kat takes things (too seriously, much of the time, imo), I foresee her telling Adena about this next week and it causing some tension! (I also foresaw this in the trailer; I am not psychic).
Lastly, we have Sutton, who hooks up with a guy she met at a bar and wakes up in his bed late for work. After doing the “walk of shame” to get to work (and with the help of her besties), she half-cleans-up and successfully pitches the “Stride of Pride” as a fashion statement to Oliver. That night, she invites Hookup Guy to karaoke night, where she, Kat, and Jane sing a Mama Mia! song because the movie is cross-marketing with this show, and they look real cute doing it despite the cheese factor.
Unfortunately/fortunately, the lyric prompter breaks, so Hookup Guy hands Sutton his phone, on which he’s pulled up the lyrics. There’s also a text from his wife on there though! So Sutton promptly tells him to GTFO using her microphone, which he does. Later, she finds his wife on social media and decides to tell her that her husband cheated on her. They meet up and it becomes clear that this poor woman is just a plot device to make Sutton realize that Richard is the only good guy out there and she should go to him! (Ugh). But just as she walks up to his building, she sees him get out of the car with a date, so she turns away and goes home. Sutton! Remember all the excellent reasons you had for not being with this guy?
That’s it for this week, dear readers! Come back next week for some lesbian melodrama! Maybe Jane will get a job too, who knows? Thanks for reading!
All images courtesy of Freeform
