(We’re a little behind due to some technical difficulties on my end! All my apologies, and let’s dive in!)
We’re back at Scarlet in this episode, folks, with the leaking of all the Scarlet emails to the public. When an article comes out about Jacqueline “sort of enjoying” watching one of the company’s biggest investors “almost die” in her office due to a peanut allergy, Jane, Kat and Sutton recall their part in the accident. This episode was mostly a flashback to the trio’s first interactions with each other, four years’ prior to the show’s events.
It’s funny, it’s light, it’s emotional. It’s got everything: laughter, breakdowns, a funny scrape and a killer soundtrack. I genuinely loved the music in this episode so much! Let’s get to it!
Jane’s first day at Scarlet begins with her stuttering while introducing herself to Jacqueline, who notes that she “looks like a writer.” Andrew, then the head of interns, assigns her to Lauren, who we all remember as Sutton’s very intense boss from Season 1. At this point, Lauren, a top editor for the magazine is without assistant, so she grabs Jane and warns her that working for Scarlet won’t be an affair for the lighthearted. While Jane had dreamt that being at Scarlet would be super-glamorous, she gets sent to get coffee for a Very Important Meeting with the investors. Unsurprisingly, as no one told her where to get the coffee from, she got it from the lounge….
Which, uh, clearly won’t sit well with the fancy men in suits.
At this point, she runs into Kat who quickly tells her that Lauren would prefer coffee from some fancy place a few blocks away. So before Jane can make a total fool of herself by bringing in the wrong coffee, she rushes off to get the right coffee order and comes back a little bit later with two trays of coffee orders. Lauren, at this point, reminds her that there are plenty of girls willing to grab at her opportunity and that she won’t last long if she continues to underperform.
Harsh, but okay. Speaking of underperforming, Kat is working as a social media director under this boring old white guy and helps him record Andrew do the Ice Bucket Challenge. (Ah, 2015, you were so gloriously odd.) She’s upset that her boss insists they follow trends, as opposed to “setting them,” which she says is the Scarlet brand. Every time she tries to bring it up with her boss, he kind of just turns her ideas down, which is honestly all we can expect from a middle-aged white man. Who put him in charge of social media anyway?! So Kat’s upset about that, which is unsurprising because when is Kat not upset about something.
While Kat and Jane are struggling with the jobs they have, Sutton is struggling with the one she doesn’t. At this point, Sutton was working as a temp, assisting one of the other editors while Sage was out of office due to an unglorified sex injury. Sage pops into remind Sutton that she’ll be back to work the next morning and Sutton is faced with unemployment, and also, well, nowhere to live.
And so she seeks out the fashion closet for a well-needed fashion fix. While she tries on dresses and drools over their heels, Kat finds Jane in tears over Lauren’s comments. The two go to find the fashion closet which Kat promises Jane is better for crying than the bathrooms. In that one magical moment, a beaaautiful friendship is born as the three try on some clothes and confide in each other about their respective problems.
Jane suggests that Sutton find a way to become Lauren’s assistant, Sutton recommends that Kat ask Jacqueline directly if she can incorporate more on-brand content onto their social media, Kat tells Jane to fight for her right to write at Scarlet. (Say that three times really fast!)
Hungry after this closet drama, the trio seek out some sandwiches. Andrew comes in a few minutes later freaking out about how the sandwiches were for Jacqueline and her lunch meeting with the investor guy. As usual, Sutton comes to the rescue, telling the three that she’ll bring down sandwiches from the board room upstairs where all the good food is, and runs off.
And lo and behold, there’s Richard. They have a cute as heck encounter that I can’t even begin to describe for how adorable it was, and he pretends he didn’t notice she took the sandwiches down to Scarlet. I love this so much. I’m going to talk about it a bit later.
Anyway, they send the sandwiches to Jacqueline. Fancy Investor takes a bite, has an allergic reaction to the peanuts, they call 911 and he’s fine! Later that night, they’re hanging out, having some wine and that’s when Jane offers Sutton move back in with her. It’s a heartwarming moment.
The flashback ends with the trio in Jacqueline’s office, telling her they’re super sorry for the fact that she’s getting media backlash for her email. Jacqueline just laughs, tells them the guy is an old friend and that he understood she was joking. Which he totally did, he even issued a press release the next morning telling the media to back off, and kept his ad spaces in the magazine! Also confessed he was still in love with Jacqueline, but they don’t tell us much more about that.
(Genuinely, I would love a spin-off series about Jacqueline Carlyle’s rise to fame!)
Anyhow, so in this point of the episode, we come back to present day Sutton and Richard at dinner together. Richard pulls out an email he sent to his dad the day he met Sutton, telling him all about the Scarlet Sandwich Thief and how he fell in love almost instantly. That’s the thing about these two, who have quickly become my favourite ship in this show, their love is quiet, gentle and so… genuine. It’s the kind of love that makes you want to keep watching, as opposed to the often over-done over-the-top TV love. It just… hits the spot, you know? Absolutely brilliant writing for these two!
Also in the present day, Tia and Kat kiss! Which I’m pretty sure means Tia is back as her campaign manager. So, this is another thing I loved about this episode: Tia’s confusion and hesitancy with her queer identity. Unlike Kat who embraced her feelings for Adena with little hesitation, Tia is conflicted. I think this is a great part on the move of the writers to better represent the range of experiences that come with accepting parts of our identities.
While The Bold Type is a show about three fictional women living very fictional lives (I’m sorry, but magazines do not pay well enough to be living the lifestyle these Manhattan babes are living), it’s a show that isn’t afraid to tackle the real, the gory, and the frightening. Earlier in this episode, Sutton had to decide between getting herself a sewing machine and helping her mom pay for car repairs, and she chose her mom. Kat offered her the money but she turned it down, while Jane, (a la Charlotte York) sat quietly and listened.
What The Bold Type does is a spectacular sort of storytelling: you can find yourself in the stories of these three women. You’ve likely been them, at some point. Maybe you are them, right now. And with everything going on in the world right now, the forty some minutes of this episode were the best I’ve had all week.
Stay tuned for Episode 7!
The Bold Type airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Freeform.