Mr. Selfridge 1x04

[jedi_of_urth]

Mr. Selfridge 1x04

A Pavlova Moment
Or The Chicken Dance

There isn’t a lot in this episode that I need to comment on as far as my usual issues with timing. Some time has passed between episodes, Ellen keeps dropping off letters and Roddy is farther along on the painting but still not done (not that we know how often Rose comes over to pose for it) but that’s about the only piece of data we have as to when this happens relative to the previous episode. Things happen pretty fast in episode, but none of it feels paced badly that I noticed. That concern is not too much a concern this time, on with everything else.

Pavlova moments
As usual, the gimmick of the episode is mostly just an excuse for all the stuff that happens around it. I do recognize that it does have a story purpose beyond that, to ground the show in its time and to show the kind of people they were rubbing elbows with at Selfridges in those days, people we still know about today (however little I actually know about Pavlova, I have heard of her).

That said, this one does provide some amusement even on its own rather than just through the other characters. Pavlova and her...escort (we’ll go with that) are excellent swindlers, taking Harry for all he can offer (and some he didn’t intend to offer).

But because I’m me every time I hear the phrase “A moment of perfect beauty” my mind goes to a Babylon 5 place. Also, I don’t get ballet, maybe up close in person I’d get swept up in it, but I am not with everyone so enraptured this episode.

And while I question a little how they got bus advertising up so quickly (maybe Selfridges already had the ad space and sent them Pavlova specific signs), this is a much better version of what could have been going on with Ellen last episode. Because they advertised it ahead of time, people were in the store while there was random dancing going on; there was intent behind the appearance and performance that was entirely absent in last ep

Mae moments
Let’s just throw it out there that Mae’s big scene with Victor is weird. She came in and clearly ordered lunch, then sent it back to be made more exciting, then ate precisely one bite of it. Yes she was using it as an excuse to flirt with Victor, but I don’t understand the way that scene is structured (nor do I understand what a gentleman’s relish is, maybe it was a terrible flavoring choice). I always half expect Mae to go full Rocky Horror on the antisi...pation of things, though Victor is less into that.

Sandwiched in among Mae’s come-ons that even Victor can’t miss (is that fair? Aside from ep 2 Victor doesn’t really have a problem spotting come-ons, though that’s also most of the evidence we have so far; and he does has trouble spotting Agnes’ lack of interest) is Harry getting a weird line about how his wife’s company grows on him with each encounter too. Which I guess wouldn’t be that bad a line if he didn’t sound so surprised by that fact; if it were something a man married for 20 years might say about his wife that he also still likes her more all the time, it could be sweet, but he sounds like he’s just realizing it now that he’s broken with Ellen.

I feel like I should have things to say about the opening parts, as Mae gets embarrassed by her exuberant American friends and tries to teach Rosalie how to be proper, but it kind of just is what it is and I don’t have much to add.

Fashion fiasco
The scene about firing Ms. Bunting has some weird elements to it. I’m not quite willing to throw the fact that it’s done so publically out entirely as badly done, but only if it was near the end of the day as it seems since Harry goes home right afterward. I don’t think they would have made such a scene if the store was still full of customers; in front of the staff is still pretty terrible to watch but at least there is a reason in letting it be known exactly what is happening and why. That said, I still think doing it in the middle of the shop floor might have been a little excessive.

I do see that part of the reason for doing it this way -in story- is to make Agnes even more sure she can’t count on understanding from the higher-ups. But that almost seems like it would have been better if they didn’t know why Bunting was fired. If just pieces of it had been seen and gossiped about rather than everyone being able to clearly see that she was fired for stealing, Agnes certainly could have gotten it in her head as something relevant to her situation at the end.

Also, I don’t really understand why Henri is along on the big dramatic march in there. Harry and Grove yes, maybe even Crabbe (though I’m not sure the CFO needs to be along to say stealing is bad); but Henri? He’s not even ‘store deputy’ in s1, he’s just the creative director. Maybe he heard they were heading down to the ground floor and he thought he could get some flirting time in.

And I’m never quite clear on Ms. Bunting’s plan with her stolen fabrics. Do they fetch that good a price on the black market? Did she have a side business of making her own dresses to sell? That especially just doesn’t seem like a long term strategy to deal with her mother’s illness. As someone who definitely understands not feeling capable of discussing my troubles with others, I do sympathize with her position to probably a greater extent than I should, but I would appreciate having a better idea how this was supposed to work in her head.

I’ve always thought this storyline felt very sudden. I can’t quite go so far as to say it feels like the creators changed their minds on the character of Ms. Bunting, it’s not like we knew her very well before this happened, but it does feel like a very strange shift to make to start episode 4. She’s a character that’s been there from the beginning but hasn’t had any focus, it’s not like she’s suddenly gone from the series so I don’t assume there was a problem with the actress that they wanted to switch out; this is more the start of her actual character arc the season, it just feels like she’s too unimportant to actually have one in the store.

But we do get Ms. Ravillious out of it, and I do like her a lot. Right from the start she feels like the piece this show has been missing without having realized it (which may be part of why I at least wonder if Bunting just didn’t work for something the writers wanted to explore). She brings some conflict to the ground flood departments beyond Kitty’s snippiness (which has really only been reserved for Agnes anyway). She has her eyes towards the future of fashion and its role, not to mention ideas of women’s place in the world that we weren’t getting among the original crew. Though I think this is the only time when we hear that her first name is Irene, not the it matters, it’s not like we know what Mr. Perez’ first name is (I’m never quite sure why Perez is at the big staff meetings, having fashion and accessories at the same meetings makes a degree of sense, though there’s a lot of other departments that probably should be there, and then we have to question why the Palm Court is).

For all Ravillious is introduced with Wicked Witch music while riding her bicycle.

Losing it Love
The end of the Harry-Ellen affair also seems to come pretty quickly, even though it is spread across these two episodes. While I’m sure it was always intended for the relationship not to last, probably not even running very long, the way it ends feels out of step with how it was set up and that make me again question whether intent changed behind the scenes or if it’s a continued example of the different writers’ views. Because Ellen in the first couple episodes was clearly quite experienced with the world, and while she was a little dim she was far from naïve the way she seems to be by this point. Ep 3 sort of split the difference, she and Harry clearly weren’t on the same page with their relationship, but they were still in the same book; she thought she had more power in the relationship than she did but she didn’t entirely misunderstand what their relationship was. Now she’s gone fully round the bend. It’s not that you can’t get from point A to B to C in this fall of hers, but it’s not exactly the smoothest character arc.

Ellen and Frank’s dynamic is one that...well I don’t really understand it, especially the more we see of Ellen’s reactions to Harry. It seems fairly likely that Ellen and Frank have some...sexual but probably not romantic past. Now, she may just have him on the hook and they don’t actually hook up, but when we start out it definitely doesn’t seem like a problem for either of them to have some kind of super casual thing going on where they’re also both banging plenty of other people among their occasional hook-ups together. But that’s reading her as basically a younger Mae just with a little less savvy, a reading that works less and less the more we see her. The way Ellen is with Harry makes it harder to see her as casual with anything.

Once one has seen s2 it’s a little hard not to read into Frank’s lack of comment when Ellen brings up Mae’s marriage to Loxley. He has a scene in s2 that has a similar setup but he does comment something like, “we all know how well that worked out.” Maybe it’s not as well know at this point, or maybe he finds out from Tony later in the season, but I retroactively want it to be here.

Another element of Frank that makes me turn on my analytical hat is how Harry treats him. Mostly when it comes to Ellen, Harry just expects Frank to handle the matter when he doesn’t want to. On one hand, Harry does indirectly pay Frank to hang out with him (it’s good for Frank’s career if he keeps Harry happy and wanting to buy ads in his paper), but that ‘indirectly’ means Frank really shouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up Harry’s messes. The funny thing is that the show treated Frank as if he were Harry’s press manager long before the show finally works out that Frank should have been Harry’s actual press man all along. As is, protecting Harry from scandal is far more a job for a press relations man than a man working for the press.

And because I’m me, the way Harry treats Frank leads me around to the way he treats Henri. How often has Henri been pressed into friend (and subordinate coworker) duty to control Harry’s side pieces? Granted he clearly had no interest in bothering last episode, partly because he despises Ellen (and I always figure usually disliked Harry’s mistresses), but still, it’s easy to see echoes between the ways Harry treats him friends.

Revelations of Rose
I’m only partially willing to give Roddy any slack on his behavior here, because he’s got maybe a toe to stand on, though much less than a leg certainly. But in that toe I will admit that Rose lied about who she was and that realizing just who she’s married to (rather than some random unseen and unknown rich guy out there) does change the balance of whatever he thought was going on between them.

But what does it really change? That’s always bothered me. He knew she was married, while she may not have told him when they first met she hasn’t made a secret of it since then. Her willingness to consider cheating isn’t changed because Roddy knows who her husband is. His chances with her have not changed, they were near zero with Mrs. Buckingham and they’re near zero with Mrs. Selfridge. If Roddy had thought about it he probably could have guessed there was some trouble in their marriage long before this, just not knowing it was specifically Harry and Ellen.

The problem isn’t so much that I think Roddy is an idiot (although he is), the problem is that I’m not sure the show isn’t on his side about Rose’s lie, that it somehow did make a difference. I can allow for Roddy’s idiocy, he’s shocked and overreacting because he feels like it’s changed things even though it mostly hasn’t. But the script doesn’t have anyone point out to him that nothing has actually changed. I’m not sure how it would have sounded natural, since Rose is the only other person in the scene and she just wants out of this argument, but her apology feels like the script thinks she’s apologizing for a bigger lie than just her name.

All that said, I do wish Rose could have somehow continued to hang out with the arthouse scene, these are clearly her type of people and she could really use some of her own friends.

I do like Rose’s description of Harry’s behavior, that it’s his nature to risk the things he loves. Maybe I just like the delivery of the line, because it could have come across as just a very pointed description of the character, considering he’s a showman and a gambler and endangers the relationships he has with those he loves. But I do end up liking the line.

Joyless Josie
This is kind of our first episode that really explores the Mardle and Grove relationship and it doesn’t exactly come off as great. I don’t say that as a criticism, the show isn’t trying to portray this as particularly good relationship. It’s presented very much as what it is at this stage. Grove is a man who’s cheating on his sickly wife, a man who may to an extent love Josie but puts her quite a bit down on his list of priorities. And Mardle is someone who, while professionally successful and confident in that environment, is very personally insecure; she’s been in this relationship for a while, and she knows – but has a hard time admitting – that there’s no real future in it; she feels old and at once cut adrift and trapped. I’m not quite comfortable calling Grove’s treatment of her here (we’ll talk about down the road when we get there) abusive, but it’s very uncomfortable to watch especially knowing where it’s going (barring that s4 is weird).

The only complaint I might have is it isn’t quite clear how long their affair has been going on (and I’m not sure the show is ever entirely consistent with that). I sort of get the feeling the writers had some different ideas when they say they’ve been together for a while, nobody actually committed but they were coming from slightly different initial assumptions.

One question I’ve had for a while, is what is Josie’s living situation at this point? S2 implies that she wasn’t living with her brother in his big house or at said house while he traveled around. Is she living in any kind of situation where she had a landlord/lady or even just a doorman who notices her lover coming and going every Tuesday? He’s able to walk right up to her bedroom (which seems to imply more of a house-share situation), and they’re able to take over the bathroom a few episodes ago (which would imply more apartment situation).

Agnes angst
It’s weird analyzing this time around how little Reg is in the show, for as large a shadow as he casts over not just these episodes but Agnes and George’s whole characters (and, oh, assuming I’m still reviewing this come s3, we will be discussing how much I still see that shadow). And yet, at the same time, this feels like it should have been the end of this arc. Not that it isn’t realistic that this doesn’t actually get Reg out of their lives, but Agnes’ arc involving her father is done at this point and George never really does get to say his piece on the subject.

I can’t quite make up my mind if it’s laying it on a little thick having Agnes talk about how Harry couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to have a father like hers. Granted, at this point in the story we don’t actually -know- anything about Selfridge Sr.; although even on first viewing it’s not hard to read between the lines on what little we do know that yeah Harry certainly might understand what Agnes is going through, so in part it ends up feeling like foreshadowing we don’t actually need. However, I will allow that it doesn’t feel out of character for Agnes to assume she’s alone in having to deal with her problems. She’s always had to face her problems alone; she’s had George but he’s younger and a little dim and most importantly usually looks to her to be the one with the answers instead of being a support she can turn to.

Which is where Victor thinks he’s doing the right thing by her, but misses the mark so badly. He could be someone to support and protect her, but he wants to control her more than she’s prepared to allow. She never actually denies that she was keeping her distance from Victor because of Victor when he assumes it had to do with Reg. It’s not that she doesn’t or couldn’t like him, but she doesn’t want to be with him because she doesn’t see it as a relationship she wants to be in. She’d happily be his friend, she would love to have friends that she could let herself get close to, but really isn’t interested in anything else.

As for the other side of this love triangle taking shape, I weirdly don’t remember noticing the first time I watched the series (partly because it the struck me so hard the second time) that Henri is clearly contriving reasons to hang around in accessories at this stage. I also think his headspace during that scene is something like ‘Look, I don’t really like these two other ladies, but maybe it’ll make Agnes jealous if I talk to someone else here. Oh shit, she’s talking to that waiter, now I might be jealous and must stage a “Look at your man, now look at me, notice how he isn’t me” moment.’ The only person who doesn’t seem to be jealous in that scene is Agnes, who still seems a little unsure how she feels about Henri’s attention on her (both him respecting her opinions of designs and having this super attractive man who may be flirting with her); Victor on the other hand is super jealous, and so is Kitty.

Now, I sometimes question where Henri was in the end in the awkwardness after Reg bursts in. But for one, I think he was on the other side of the room; for two, he’s never really her protector (he tries a bit in s2, but it never quite fits). It would have been more in his character to comment when Harry sets him on a fast window treatment to say he wishes Agnes was around to help out, thus ‘protecting’ her from the naysayers who think she should be fired by showing she is essential at the work; but I think he figures (rightly) that now isn’t a good moment to call her back that way. He surely knows that Harry won’t want to lose her talent over her father’s behavior, but now isn’t the time.