Lipstick Jungle: 1.2 ‘Chapter Two: Nothing Sacred’ Recap

February 17, 2008 by Chandra

VICTORY

JOE wants to take VICTORY to a seafood lunch in Miami for the afternoon, but she has to decline because after firing 15 of her employees and relocating her office to her house, she’s now down to one assistant, REESE, and 26 boxes.

Working out of her house, Victory can tell something’s on Reese’s mind, and she correctly guesses that another designer has offered the younger woman a job. Victory doesn’t want to hold her assistant back, especially if she’ll get to design some of her own work in the new position, so she gives Reese her blessing to move on.

How does Reese repay Victory’s kindness, which isn’t common in an ego-driven industry like fashion? By stealing pages of designs out of her sketch book when Victory leaves to have lunch with her girls. The assistant then tells her new employer that because Victory was overwhelmed when she first started working for her, she asked Reese to create some designs. How long will it take for Victory to find out what Reese has been up to since the designer remains oddly oblivious throughout this episode?

In a total creative bind and unable to come up with anything fresh, a frustrated Victory goes out for a little sidewalk shopping later. While browsing, she spots a hat that was one of the last things she designed in fashion school before transitioning to the real work world. She tries to buy the item, but an androgynous person grabs it up first and refuses to listen to Victory’s pleas about why she wants it. When she’s out with Joe that night, he suggests she return to the person’s house — Victory followed him/her earlier that day — and truthfully admit why the hat is so special to her.

Victory does eventually return to the shopper’s apartment building, and she spots an elderly lady wearing her hat as she leaves. It turns out the shopper gave it to her, and the older woman won’t sell it to Victory, either. Finally, Joe intervenes and presumably pays the woman a ton of money to part with it. By that time, however, Victory has already had a little chat with NICO, who assures the designer that starting all over again is both scary and an exciting opportunity to do something new with your life.

WENDY

WENDY arrives at work on a high because the studio’s recently released Western made an impressive $40 million over the weekend. Yet, everyone at the office avoids eye contact with her. She soon learns why. A former nanny named MARISKA HAVEL, who barely spoke English when Wendy hired her, has written a nasty, gossipy tell-all book that’s clearly about her. It characterizes Wendy as cold, but Wendy insists she’s not going to let the author intimidate or blackmail her.

Still, the accusations that her husband is a neutered hound dog and she’s a self-involved bitch get to Wendy, and she ends up taking a trip to Flushing, Queens, to pay her ex-nanny a visit. The woman is just as timid as ever, and her so-called agent FREDDY DIVOLLA shows up while Wendy’s on the stoop.

Wendy informs them both that she’s not going to be intimidated into giving them money, especially when they’ll never find a publisher willing to print the book anyway. Freddy has news for Wendy, however — they already have a publisher, and he tells her she can get her copy from Barnes & Noble soon.

Back at work, Wendy learns that a publisher is in fact shopping the nanny’s book around — Bainbridge Press, where an agent named JANICE LASHER works. Lasher became a rival of Wendy’s two years ago when Wendy pulled out of the bidding for a Hillary Clinton book Lasher was shopping that turned out to be a pack of lies. When Wendy calls Lasher to get a temperature on the situation, Lasher rudely informs her that the nanny book has been shown to two studios already — Warner’s bid $300,000 for it — so if Wendy doesn’t want to bid, Lasher doesn’t have time to talk.

At home that night, an exasperated Shane advises Wendy to stop obsessing over the book. The more she worries about the details, the more she’s validating the fiction. Wendy has cause to be concerned, however, because she discovers that Mariska has surprising recall of everything, including arguments that occurred when the nanny wasn’t even present. The guilty look on Shane’s face says it all — Mariska knows about those conflicts because he told her.

Amazingly, Wendy — who, in the episode’s best one-liner, informs her husband she can’t handle being screwed by two people at once — still doesn’t get that Shane is Mariska’s source. She drags him along to Flushing when the former nanny leaves a contrite phone message indicating that she’s basically been forced to have her book published. It’s not until they arrive on the street in front of Mariska’s house that Shane confesses he’s the guilty tattletale. Wendy’s response is to get in their car and have the driver strand Shane in Queens.

Shane is such a patient man because I definitely would not go to her office later to discuss the situation further like he does. And there wouldn’t be any reassurances that Wendy’s a good mother either. But, Shane does both, and he asks his wife why she cares what anyone else thinks when her family already knows she’s a wonderful mother. Vanity, my dear man, vanity.

Wendy still can’t let it go, so she heads to Lasher’s office to attempt damage control one last time. Lasher clearly gets a huge kick out of seeing and making Wendy squirm. As a result, she refuses to call a truce with Wendy.

Lasher’s hostility toward Wendy is so strong, when the film executive goes downstairs, a hidden photographer is waiting to snap candid pictures of her in distress. Lasher then personally chooses the most unflattering snapshot to stoke her raging vendetta and instructs an assistant to send it to the New York Post’s notorious gossip column Page Six with the suggested caption “Tsunami for Bad Mommy.”

NICO

Nico learns at work that Prince William is considering turning down appearing on the cover of their magazine and accepting an advertising gig with another publisher instead. Apparently, Bonfire’s approach is too stodgy for the young royals, who prefer a hipper and edgier image. So, Nico decides to bring in publicity expert Patty Bloom. When the woman arrives for a meeting, she brings along her assistant KIRBY ATWOOD, the same stud Nico cheated on her husband with in the pilot episode.

Nico and Kirby pretend not to know each other. But, the meeting is torture for them both, especially when Patty keeps talking about her many sexy ideas for Prince William’s potential cover shoot. Later that same day, Patty prepares some layout boards for Nico.

Although Nico doesn’t want to admit it, she’s lusting after Kirby. So, she heads over to Patty’s office herself to pick up the boards instead of sending a messenger. Of course, Kirby’s at the office alone when she arrives, and one thing leads to another and you know the rest because you, smart TV viewer, like me saw it coming ten miles away. The fruit and chocolate falling off the table are particularly corny touches, but that’s what goes for hot and steamy on free TV I guess…

It’s a good thing Nico enjoyed her afternoon so much because things get rather grim back at work that evening after her boss HECTOR calls her into his office. The legal department has qualms about Patty’s revised layout boards, which they believe are too provocative.

Nico thinks the sexier concepts are just the approach needed, but Hector clarifies that provocative to the royals means shoes without socks. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t understand that the new direction is too much and objectionable. We know the reason is because she’s in heat over Kirby, though — the spontaneous sex with a buff guy who looks twenty years younger is interfering with her brain waves.

Nico meets with the royals’ representative and pushes her idea anyway. When Hector confronts her later about the situation, he’s visibly displeased, despite the fact that the royals decided to go with her approach. The boss reminds Nico that, yes, he hired her because she’s gutsy. At the same time, he adds, she’s part of a team with a leader (meaning him), and it wouldn’t take much for her halo to turn into a noose. That’s so true — more noose, less caboose, please; the latter only works on premium cable and in feature flicks.

MY TAKE: Although I would still never watch this series if I didn’t have to, I enjoyed the second episode much more than the first. I also continue to believe that Lipstick is more engaging than ABC’s Cashmere Mafia.

If I weren’t so certain the NBC show won’t last past the current run, I’d suggest that the showrunners make recurring guest star Lorraine Bracco (Janice Lasher) a series regular. She’s a native New Yorker in real life, and you can just smell that toughness and attitude coming through the TV screen.

Another actress who has the same kiss-my-ass allure is fellow New Yorker Debi Mazar. Now if somebody had thought to cast her, Bracco, and a brash talent like Vivica Fox in the lead roles, I’d be all kinds of into the series. As it stands now, the show is just too bland and predictable to be worth the time or effort it takes to watch it — I couldn’t care less about any of the present leading ladies.