“It’s so easy, I’ll show you. You don’t inhale, that’s the whole point. Boys love it.” That’s the opening to this week’s episode of feud where BD is teaching Joan’s twins how to smoke. At least for the ten seconds it takes Joan to show up and put a stop to it.
Joan’s maid, Mamacita is my favorite character on this show. She tries to get Joan to sign a card to send for Christina’s opening night of her play. Joan refuses to sign it in front of the twins but then she sends them to the bathroom and signs it while they are taking the ridiculous bows out of their hair that Joan insisted on.
This week the focus is on the parenting style of the two rivals. Bette offers to take Joan for drinks after filming. Bette’s motive is to make Joan think it was her parenting advice that caused her to get BD hired as the neighbor in the movie. I’m going to skip over the child molestation conversation if you don’t mind.
Joan got her rigid sense of cleanliness and order from being sent to live with the nuns. Bette also went to boarding school. They find a bit of common ground, trade a few hollow compliments, and agree to a détente for now. Joan even asks a Hedda not to run the story she gave her about Bette having B.O.
That truce didn’t last long. At their previous meeting for cocktails and bonding, Bette said that she didn’t care about awards, and that she was going to support the movie even if that meant supporting Joan. Joan took that tidbit to Hedda and told her that Joan wasn’t going up for Best Actress and instead would be in the Supporting Actress category. And the FEUD is back on.
In a scene where Bette has to drag Joan out of danger, Joan continues to break character so that Bette will have to drag her dead weight over and over again. She’s also secretly wearing weights in the scene. There is a great montage of them fucking with each others scenes. In one scene Bette kicks Joan in the head. It was hilarious. Well, unless you are Joan I suppose.
BD can’t act. I have no idea why they don’t replace her. She’s unbearably bad. As it turns out, BD is adopted as well. Another thing she has in common with Joan. She tells Bob to credit BD with her birth name so no one will know she’s her kid.
Bette really likes the fat gay guy, Vince, who is playing against her. He’s very talented and he makes her look good. Plus he worships her. This mother thing is being pounded into the ground. She has a conversation with Vince about her youngest daughter Margo who she also adopted and who is mentally retarded. She’s in a residential school in Maine. BD wants to run her lines again with her mom because her scene shoots the next day, but Bette sends her to bed so she can run lines with Vince.
Joan arrives home to an empty house. The twins are at camp for two days. Thankfully for me, Mamacita is there. Joan confesses to Mamacita the best part of her day is coming home to a noisy house full of kids. Then she cries because her husband left, her kids will all soon be gone, her career is almost over and she will be all alone. Mamacita is not a compassionate ear. She tells her that is how life is, so she better get used to it. Tough indifference seems to work with Joan. Sort of. Mamacita was remarkable in that scene. She’s stealing this series as far as I’m concerned. On another night, Mamacita and Joan share a bed eating sandwiches and watching TV in near silence.
Joan refused a trailer for the beach scene and insisted on being shuttled back and forth to a hotel. She showed up drunk and extremely late. Then she tells Hedda that it was Bette who did that. Scandalous! The scene was the final scene of the movie. After each take, Joan would insist to go back to her room so that Mamacita could tighten up the contraption under her hair that was pulling her face back. So as she dies she sort of ages in reverse.
Joan overhears Bob complimenting Bette on her work and becomes upset.
Hedda drops by to see Bette to try to get her to give her some dirt on Joan. Bette throws Hedda out for trashing BD’s performance. At the door she says “For your information, BD doesn’t run the picture. Her role isn’t important enough to do that!” Unfortunately, as she is saying that BD is walking downstairs and overhears.
Is this so supposed to be so campy? First the mother theme is hammered to death. Then we see Vince giving head to a young guy in a gay club who knows Vince from seeing him on TV. The guy is asking Vince if he thinks he can be a star, and just at a climatic moment, Vince says, “You have loads of potential” as the cops bust in to raid the place. Vince gets arrested and Bette goes to the jail and bails him out and gets him out of trouble.
When Jack sees the final cut of the movie he is really displeased by the final scene where Joan’s character dies. They end up having to reshoot the whole thing on a set and edit it in.
We get a one last mother scene, or I hope it is the last, where Bette is kind to BD who is upset that she didn’t have a great performance on her first big job. “If Crawford couldn’t ruin the picture, no one could.” she tells BD.
Cut to a scene with Joan alone in her big house playing with toys and crying. So she heads to the orphanage to buy a new kid to keep her company. She gets a kick in the heart when the caseworker looks he straight in the face and tell her she is much too old to adopt a kid. Ouch.
Back at Bette’s house we hear her call Margo on the phone. Margo asked her where she is. Apparently, Margo doesn’t like the answer because she gets up and walks away.
The end of the movie is reshot. The women part ways without a goodbye. Apparently, the last line of the movie is, “You mean all this time we could have been friends?” Which was the other theme shoved down our throats this week. These two hated each other because they are so much alike.
This show is crap. But I still feel like I’ll probably watch the last five episodes.
Are y’all still enjoying this series?
I really wanted to love it … it’s really bad, so I quit watching.
I am still watching, for now. Thank you for recapping it. I hope the child geniuses show comes back. I love it.
I hate that I can’t watch this when it airs. Hopefully I’ll see it tomorrow or the next day.
Sounds like Murphy is taking some extreme liberties with the facts, which is unfortunate, because there is plenty there in what actually happened to make an entertaining series, and many people will think that the “artistic license” aspects actually did happen. Like spreading misinformation. Sigh.
BD (Barbara Davis, named for Bette’s sister) was actually Bette’s natural child. Her father was Bette’s third husband, William Sherry. Bette then adopted Michael and Margot with her fourth (and last) husband, Gary Merrill. I believe Gary Merrill (but not certain) adopted BD; she is billed as “BD Merrill” on Baby Jane.
It’s true that Bette and Victor Buono got along well. Did they change his name to Vince? He was a quite respected actor and very popular on the talk-show circuit, as he was quite a wit and raconteur.
I was wondering if the series would merely span the making of Baby Jane or if it would encompass the following Oscar season and the making of Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte. It was during the making of Charlotte that the feud really heated up and got much more interesting. Besides, it’s the superior film by far! With 5 episodes left, I’m hopeful it’ll be included.
Agree on all counts, ericzku. I suppose that Murphy changes facts. large and small, as evidence this is not a documentary.
The making of Sweet Charlotte is a wild tale and would make a great sequel if they bypass it this season.
Lange crushed that scene on the “sand;” she was eerily like Crawford in delivery and appearance. She and Sarandon are doing their best with the material they were handed.
Hope you’re doing well in Florida.
Margot was mentally retarded and institutionalized for most of her life. B.D.is Bette’s natural daughter and she did write a bio on Bette which Bette answered in her own book just prior to her death. Interestingly enough B.D. got married at 16 to an older man and had children immediately. A quick search will show she has had some interesting business dealings prior to becoming a born again Christian and having her own show on one of those Christian cable networks. She is quite the character as is Christina Crawford. Michael Merrill, B.D.’s half brother, had disputed everything that B.D. wrote in her memoir. So have the twins about Christina’s claim to Joan Crawford/Mommie Dearest.
Ya’ll missed the punch line in the Victor/Vince scene with his boy toy. The hustler says he recognizes him from the stage. “You’re Charles Laughton!” I thought that was hilarious and Victor/Vince just smiled and did not correct him.
The young actress from ‘Mad Men’, who is playing BD, is just gorgeous.
I’m thoroughly enjoying this series, but I’m old than dirt and have always loved old movies. I’ve tried to see all of Bette Davis’ movies when they run on my beloved TCM. I shed a tear when Robert Osborne passed recently.
I thought Charles Laughton was the name of the character on the Hawaii something show he mentioned.
LOL
TT, Charles Laughton was a famous English stage and screen actor, very accomplished, but also quite rotund and doughy like Victor/Vince. You might remember him as Quasimodo in the 40’s film version of the ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame”,
ALso Sparticus; Witness for the Prosecution..and many others. By this time Laughton was very aged.
Henry VIII. The capon and cards with Elsa Lancaster. Feast for the eyes.
Oh my God! Turn in your Hag Card! As others have said, Charles Laughton was an actor. Although gay, he was married for decades to Elsa Lanchester (Bride of Frankenstein).
I saw the episode today. I took Victor being called Charles Laughton as two things:
A) The trick was none too smart, and:
B) An insult. Laughton was 30-40 years older than Victor Buono. I mean, I may not be walking perfection, but if someone mistook me for an obese, not particularly attractive guy 30 years my senior, I wouldn’t be thrilled… to say the least.
I am intrigued with this show. As a huge fan of all the movies in that era, I am enjoying watching what Ryan M. has in store for us all. For the all the feuding that these 2 ladies have done, they did have a lot in common and may have been one of the reasons they didn’t get along.It might have been like looking in a cracked mirror and seeing each other looking back at them. They both were not the kindest of parents, both wrote off their daughters later in life due to books written about them, and even wrote the daughters and a son out of their wills. I don’t want to give out any spoilers, so I’ll just say that I hope we get to see more of what I know about these 2 ladies to be true. It is worth staying tuned for.
Thanks for this recap TT ❤️ Your hard work recapping all these shows and articles is very much appreciated! ❤️ xo
There is one big difference on the book thing: Christina waited until Joan died to publish “Mommie Dearest”. BD put her book out while Bette was still living, so Bette had to endure and answer to the accusations hurled at her.
I have been living for this show. I will say, this week’s installment was a misstep and a bit heavy handed on the mothering theme, but I will stick it out to the end.
While I agree this show is crap, it is still better than some of the housewives shows. I’ll continue to watch.
Mamacita is wonderful.
I love the opening credits on this show. Very throwback, mad men kind of vibe. Just perfect. I adored Ryan Murphy’s OJ series and I like this to. Sunday night has so much I like I have to tape and watch much of it later. Susan and Jessica are going to be nominated for Emmy’s I predict. I love Old Hollywood and they are doing a fantastic job of capturing the essence of these two stars. I agree that Judy Davis is fantastic as Mamacita!
I thought Judy Davis was Hedda Hopper.
You are correct, Peachy. Judy is Hedda.
Tanks. Wish I knew the name of actress that plays mamacita. like Kathy Bates channeling Joan Blondell and Catherine Zeta Jones as Olivia DeHavilland. Maybe more of Zeta Jones if they venture into the making of Sweet Charlotte.
According to our friends at 2 Paragraphs, Mamacita is played by Jackie Hoffman.
http://2paragraphs.com/2017/03/who-is-joan-crawfords-maid-mamasita-on-feud-bette-and-joan/
They also cleared up the Mamacita Mamasita issue as I have seen it both ways.
I also stole their photo, so give them lots of link love. LOL. It’s a great site.
Many thanks..Jackie Hoffman is great.as Mamasita/Mamacita. Hope she gets a nomination for an emmy.
Oh my bad. Both actresses are great!