Lipstick Jungle: 1.1 ‘Pilot’ Recap
Original Air Date: February 7, 2008
Wall Street Magazine’s annual list of New York’s 50 Most Powerful Women has come out, and just so viewers know who they’re dealing with on this show, we learn WENDY HEALY, president of Parador Pictures, is #12; NICO REILLY, editor-in-chief of Bonfire Magazine, is somewhere in the middle; and fashion designer VICTORY FORD barely squeaked through after last year’s disaster at Fashion Week.
Victory is attempting to redeem herself at her next Fashion Week presentation in Bryant Park, and to beef up her confidence, Wendy gives her a snow globe thingy before the show, with a note telling her she owns the world. The event seems to go off without a hitch, but the next day the press absolutely eviscerates Victory on the front pages of the papers, using headlines like “Out with the Old, in with the Ew,” “No Victory for Victory,” and “The Agony of Victory’s Defeat.”
Comforting Wendy offers despondent Victory her house in Montauk as a temporary escape, but hard-nosed Nico insists she should ignore the setback and get on with her life immediately. So, there we have the central dynamics of this particular girlfriend relationship: down-to-earth Wendy nurtures, tough Nico encourages with stern advice, and emotional Victory reacts and lives in the moment.
The obligatory at-home moments show Wendy with her young son, teenage daughter, sick cat, and stay-at-home husband SHANE as she fields a call from her boss HECTOR MATRICK. He’s in London and concerned about rumors that Dreamworks has snagged Leonardo DiCaprio for their Galileo project.
Wendy assures him that’s not true since their studio is still in talks with DiCaprio for their Galileo project. Things then get a tad tense with Shane over a critical meeting at a school Wendy desperately wants their son Taylor to get admitted to. Wendy insists they both have to attend, despite the meeting her husband has scheduled for the day. He believes she’s insinuating that since he works from home, his appointments are less important than hers.
Meanwhile, Nico is getting ready for work with her husband CHARLES, a middle-aged history professor she later describes to Wendy and Victory as someone who loves writing, reading, and discussing books — and apparently not having sex with her since it’s been awhile. She complains incessantly about her colleague MIKE HARNESS, who tries to take credit for everything when she’s the one who’s made Bonfire successful for her boss Hector — yes, the same Hector Wendy works for — whose publishing empire is half failing.
Charles would rather Nico was putting her talents to use for a lofty goal, such as finding a cure for gingivitis or brokering peace in the Middle East (hey — Lipstick’s writers wrote it first, not me), rather than working at the magazine. But, when Nico suggests he either come with her to that night’s boring, tedious party for the Web launch of Bonfire or that they both play hooky, he declines, knowing she would just complain some more if she didn’t go.
Victory, on the other hand, isn’t complaining because she’s decided to take Nico’s advice to ignore her problems and move forward. When she arrives at work, however, she finds her team just as sad as can be over what happened. The day brightens — or at least gets odder — when, following the depressing news that some of her overseas clients are beginning to rethink doing business with her after the disastrous collection, she receives a call from Ellen, the personal assistant of bazillionaire JOE BENNETT. He was at the fashion show, liked it, and now wants to take her out to dinner after learning on the Internet that she’s single.
While Wendy deals with a director at work who has filled his light romantic comedy with not-so-subtle subtexts indicating the leading man is gay (he grimaces after kissing his co-star and stares at a guy walking a dog at the end of the film, after he’s just won over the alleged love of his life), Nico learns her work rival Mike has once again undercut her by taking credit for the Web launch party she put together (he had his assistant acquire her notes and then discussed the event with Hector before Nico could).
Victory agrees to go on the date with Joe, who exudes a supremely weird Tom Cruise-like persona as he arranges for a car to pick up the designer and deliver her to his house; has his assistant carry a bottle of champagne to the car because he doesn’t drink the stuff they have in restaurants; and explains how he made his assistant set up the meeting because his time is worth $5,000 a minute, and he doesn’t like to waste money. Calling Victory himself would have cost $20,000, money he’d prefer not to spend, even if that sum is like coffee change to a billionaire. Somebody please shoot me — or better yet, him — and make the ridiculousness go away.
We get some useful insight into what makes seemingly steely Nico tick when she meets a younger man named KIRBY ATWOOD (recurring guest star Robert Buckley) at the Web launch party who seems totally unimpressed with the event but very much into her, although she can’t seem to believe it. They end up starting something hot and heavy in the bathroom when he follows her in, but Nico puts a stop to it, at first because she thinks he has an ulterior motive, like trying to score a job.
Yet, Kirby just genuinely seems taken with her, despite her explanation that she’s much older, married, and doesn’t sleep around. He writes his phone number on her thigh with a black magic marker anyway (a significant detail because the number stays put for the rest of the episode), in case she changes her mind. Later at home, Charles doesn’t even notice the big, black numbers as he drones on and on about some boring work-related things, and the dejected look on Nico’s face says it all.
At work the next day, she manages to detect yet another attempt by Mike to keep her out of the loop when she shows up as he has lunch with Hector. The boss sends him to retrieve some documents about a Zurich trip Mike initiated without telling Nico, and while he’s gone, Nico pointedly states she thinks Hector is grooming Mike to be creative director. She’s right, and Hector’s reason is a comment she made to his wife at someone’s baby shower a couple of weeks ago that indicates she’s ready to start a family.
Never mind the fact that Mike has two children already. Women and men are different [Duh!], and the last woman Hector gave a powerful position to had a baby and her work priorities changed. I’ve no idea how much this type of outdated, sexist thinking impacts businesswomen in real life, but we’ve seen it too much on TV shows for it to be believable or compelling. Please update the plot for 2008, Lipstick Jungle writers, or at least think of something original for the characters to say.
After an interesting interlude with Wendy’s husband Shane, who arrives at his restaurant investment meeting only to find everyone expecting his wife to swoop in with her money and celebrity pull (it’s not gonna happen because this is Shane’s project, and he says so in no uncertain terms), Nico finally calls Kirby to get the loving she’s been missing. But, it’s her first time cheating on her deathly dull husband, and she’s a bit reluctant at first. That is, until Kirby tells her she has a great body. Afterwards, she cries in a cab as the driver looks at her in the mirror like she’s a basket case.
Over at Parador, Wendy solves a Leonardo DiCaprio crisis after Hector calls with the news the actor’s been spotted boarding a plane to go film Dreamworks’ Galileo project. How? She gets everyone in the office working the phones to find Leo, and when he calls, she wishes him luck and lies that they have Russell Crowe onboard. Of course, shallow, egotistical Leo calls right back to snatch the deal away from the competition. I bet that would never happen in real life.
Yet, the glow from the victory fades when Shane fails to show up at the school meeting for their son because his restaurant meeting runs long. When he arrives after everything is over, the big blowup occurs, and we learn he resents Wendy’s success not necessarily because she’s the breadwinner, but because he feels she treats him like either her child or her assistant. It also doesn’t help that many people suck up to him because they know she’s a prominent executive in the movie industry.
On the other hand, she thinks he’s had many opportunities to succeed but runs away from responsibility and potential failure. That night, for the first time ever, Wendy has to face the fact that her marriage isn’t as solid as she believed when Shane admits it’s getting harder and harder for him to cope with people’s reactions to her success in the outside world.
In La La land, Victory — who sees a dimpled little boy beneath Joe Bennett’s scary, stomach-turning exterior — receives dozens of bouquets of flowers from the money man as a “tip” since she shocked him by paying for dinner on their date [Are these writers for real?!].
Victory travels to Japan soon after to meet with a displeased client who wants to hire a second designer to create knockoffs of her older lines. She refuses and cries like a teenager when Joe calls later, so he sends his private jet to return her to the States. When she arrives, she’s not happy, though, because she doesn’t like being rescued — but she did really like riding in the plane. Of course, this means Joe can kiss her now, which means the pair are officially an item — a very dull, clichéd, and uninspiring item.
The closing scene finds all three women meeting for a nightcap together. Victory enters complaining about being rescued, but Nico attends to Wendy, who’s feeling down about the situation with Shane. Nico mentions they can all retreat to the woods to make moccasins if things don’t improve, which leads Wendy to get in the last jab of the episode: she reveals she remembers she was wearing moccasins when she lost her virginity because that was the only memorable detail of the event.
MY TAKE: The pilot of Lipstick Jungle was the longest hour of television I’ve watched in ages, and not in a good way either. I kept thinking — hoping and praying, in fact — it was over, and yet there was always more.
On a positive note, I like Jungle better than Cashmere Mafia so far, if only because I like the characters and their backstories better. The women seem more believable, and both they and their lives have more depth than the women on the ABC rival.
That assessment doesn’t extend to Lindsay Price’s Victory Ford, however. If the show were just about Wendy and Nico, it would be twice as good. With annoying Victory and her even more annoying billionaire boyfriend in the mix, the series is that much sillier and tedious.
How she hooked up with the older women remains a mystery, as well, so I hope there’s at least an attempt to explain why worldlier and wiser Wendy and Nico would let her into their inner circle. As it stands now, I don’t get it. I hope you don’t have to read the book to find out why, either, because what I saw in the pilot was nowhere near good enough to make me take that drastic a step.
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POSTED IN: Lipstick Jungle, Recaps, Series Premieres
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