The Bold Type – No Feminism in the Champagne Room

By: Frances Nieves

This week we start off with ⅔ of our “The Bold Type” girls at a strip club due to Jane’s (Katie Stevens) most recent fascination. Kat’s (Aisha Dee) MIA and Pinstripe is apparently covering a nudist golf camp in Florida, a/k/a land of the crazy headlines. They find themselves at the club because Jane has written what she considers to be a pretty awesome piece on Wall Street mogul turned stripper Morgyn Stanley (Amber Goldfarb) and she’s ready for her read it. It turns out Morgyn already has and isn’t too happy about it as Jane and Sutton (Meghann Fahey) find themselves promptly kicked out.

Jumping over to Kat’s world, we find her waking up in Adena’s (Nikohl Boosheri) bed, while Adena is praying. They have a coffee and talk over their night together. Adena feels guilty, like she cheated on her girlfriend, Coco, while Kat doesn’t consider their kissing cheating. After talking things through they both realize they are into each other and don’t regret the decision they made. Adena makes a promise to talk to Coco and break things off the right way.

The next morning at Scarlet could not be more buzzy for our trio as Sutton is about to start her new position as Oliver’s apprentice, Kat has some rather exciting news about her recent adventures and Jane…Well, Jane gets sued. The Katy Perry reference was just enough when Kat spills the deets to the girls about her night with Adena, but the money doesn’t seem to be for Sutton who learns she will be taking a significant pay cut to pursue her dreams in fashion. Oliver (Stephen Conrad Moore) seems unbothered and unlikely to budge. Jane is preoccupied with her “beautiful and inspiring” article when she gets the news of the lawsuit Morgyn Stanley has filed for defamation.

Jane’s apology for getting sued leads us down another mini lesson in badass womanry (yes, I’m making this word up) from Jacqueline (Melora Hardin) where she tells Jane not to apologize and that she was only doing her job. Jane has a hard time accepting that though and goes running to the girls to give them the news. All the while Kat is getting the rundown from Sutton about her pay grade. Jane seems a bit in her own world this episode (rightfully so) so we get to see the girls look for advice with other people too. Sutton gets some encouragement from Alex who is quickly becoming a favorite who I hope does not go underrated.

Jane sits with Richard (Sam Page) to go over the lawsuit with little to no evidence from her notes to help back her up. Richard seems a little frustrated and honestly things don’t look good for Jane or Scarlet. Kat has been waiting for Adena to break up with her girlfriend all morning, but when she finally receives the call it doesn’t go according to plan. Seems Adena is having a hard time letting go of Coco and their three year long relationship. All Adena needs from Kat is a little confirmation that what they have is real and that there are feelings involved, which in turn scares Kat to end and you can see the panic in her face as she tries to play it cool and agrees to meet Adena later that night. Sutton and Jane have been texting Kat during her call, which leads to Kat accidentally posting one of her texts on the Scarlet Twitter account reading “This lesbian shit is intense!” Luckily, she took it down immediately and the only person who saw it was Jacqueline who just wanted to make sure Kat wasn’t having any personal problems.

As for Sutton, this whole episode has been a journey in self worth. She decides to confront Oliver about her pay and explain to him that she is worth much more and he should know that. She really makes her case to him and yet he has nothing more to say than, “I’ll think it over and I’ll let you know.” On top of all this, Sutton meets Taylor Livingston (Aiza Ntibarikure) a/k/a “the new Sutton,” which just makes her more frustrated about the situation. Between her and Jane’s problems their nightly (?) wine is a must. Jane gets a call where she learns that Richard and the team are able to convince Morgyn to meet and discuss a settlement option, Scarlet will pay her some money but there won’t be a lawsuit. Jane has to sit in on the meeting because she is one of the parties involved, which ends up being trouble as Jane also can’t seem to keep quiet when she has to. She loses it on Morgyn, who coincidentally changes her mind real quick about settling. Jane is really going to get sued.

Adena finally breaks up with Coco, which freaks Kat out a little more than she anticipated and starts to make her think she is not ready for a relationship, any relationship regardless of who it’s with. Kat then pours all her energy into preparing for the upcoming Scarlet soul wheel class and stalking Coco on social media. This fear starts to take control though and leads her down a somewhat self sabotaging path where she pushes Adena away (via text nonetheless) and eventually tells her to work it out with Coco,. This would be well and good if that’s really what Kat wanted. Adena knows something is up and confronts Kat at Scarlet, which leads to a semi public dismissal from Kat where she claims “it’s not a gay thing,” she’s just not a relationship person.

Post her outburst in the meeting, Jane feels like a failure, but it doesn’t last long because Jacqueline is not having the pity party (thank god). Jane later finds out (from Sutton who heard it from Richard who didn’t tell Jane…) that when her article outed Morgyn as a stripper, it got her son kicked out of private school. This hits her hard and she starts to realize writing and reporting isn’t as easy as she thought it would be. Jane decides she can do nothing but take matters into her own hands and ends up visiting Morgyn to apologize, this time sincerely. Surprisingly the apology works, Morgyn drops the suit and decides to accept the original settlement.

Sutton has been battling with her inability to take Oliver’s job offer and still live her normal life and also hasn’t been feeling heard by her friends. She ends up walking out on them and tries to figure out her issues on her own to no avail. Luckily for her though, her girls aren’t going to give up on her yet. Instead, they find a very reasonable and supportive solution: they apologize for not listening and offer her a safety net – a/k/a a room at Kat’s (rent free) and to sublet her place with Jane until she is well and ready to move back in.

The episode ends with a very distracted Kat having to attend the Scarlet Rides soul wheel class that starts an epic end of episode montage that shows the final meeting with Morgyn. Sutton is having her Nora Ephron moment with Oliver and Kat comes to terms with her feelings to the extent of tears. She eventually shows up at Adena’s place apologizing and saying she’s all in; however, she is too late. As if the few days haven’t been enough of an emotional rollercoaster, Adena has booked a flight to Paris, having decided to work things out with Coco and leaves a devastated Kat on screen.