The Forsytes Recap: Dance, My Puppets

The Forsytes
Episode 3
Season 1 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating ★★★★★
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When I told my dad I was recapping this show, he clarified if it was based on The Forsyte Saga that he read in high school, then said, “I found it depressing, and I’m hard to depress.” A true statement! And yet here I am, determinedly ignoring my father’s words and ploughing forth with the set notion that everything is going to work out for this crazy cast of characters.

Every week, I expect this show to suddenly betray me and make me sad, and yet my wife continues to hear me from another room going “Hahahahaha YEEEES!” as someone makes another ominous pronouncement in a gazebo. I find it hard to stop comparing Forsytes to The Gilded Age, but this is what I’ve been wanting from the latter in terms of character, melodrama, and the aforementioned gazebo doom. Do you know how many stuffy drawing rooms we’ve had to sit in on The Gilded Age? How is The Forsytes technically so much worse and yet experientially so much better? (It’s because it gives you enough space to care about the characters, and also, everyone isn’t speaking like they all had one group session with their high school drama teacher on elocution.)

Speaking of characters I don’t care about, though, let’s look at Louisa and Jolyon. Jol is the Stefan Salvatore of The Forsytes, which means he will always try to do the right thing while looking slightly pained. This is fun for no one. Louisa has to pause and gather herself anytime anyone remotely related to the Forsytes comes into her shop, but Louisa! You set up a dress shop for well-off clientele in the same city as the Forsytes. Did you truly think none of them would come by? Was it not possible to set up a dress shop in any other English city or suburb? I want whatever Frances wants, but also, maybe it would be best for her if Jol and Louisa just went back to Venice with the kids, and everyone else could return to running the business and crushing the dreams of the poor.

As I guessed from James’s smirk last week, he knows about Jol’s children and is going to use that knowledge as a reason to oust him from the company. Soames is not invested in this storyline, as he is in love with a woman who is both a porcelain doll and a pre-Raphaelite. Irene is filmed so beautifully on this show that I don’t know how you can avoid falling in love with her. And Soames’s face every time he sees her. Don’t become evil again, Soames! You’re doing so well!

Bill from True Blood and Frances continue to manage Jol’s professional life for him. They’re aware of James’s plan and want to buy off Louisa. Jol continues to be sure that’s unnecessary (checks out), but he wants to discharge his financial obligation to her. Louisa is resistant to this, insisting that she raised her disparate twins on her own and she doesn’t need help from him. That may be true, Louisa, but you were literally just telling your children you wished you could take them to the seaside for their health. Also, he’s a wealthy guy who got you pregnant, so yes, he owes you and your children money. You did not have them by immaculate conception; you were just the only one to experience the wear and tear on your body while also trying to earn a living.

Before we move off Jol, though, we have to touch on June. Do the books make their relationship less confusing? You’re too old to be acting like this, June. I get that she loves her stepdad, but plunging into despair because she saw him happy around his ten-year-old children? And then she decides to attend a socialist meeting and hang out with a scruffy young architect who lives in an honest-to-God garret? Maybe banging this scruffy man will get it out of her system. The garret probably seems romantic until it’s fifteen degrees outside. Let’s see where June is come winter. Also, shout-out to the Fabian lecturer Ellen Parker Barrington, seemingly inspired by Sarah Parker Remond. She did more good in the world than any of the people on this show.

Meanwhile, Soames formally proposes to Irene, who is speechless. He tells her she is all nature, and to him, that is perfection. Soames asks if he may have the honor of introducing her to his family. Damnit, Soames, why do I love you so much when I know it’s going to backfire? This is Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park all over again. Also, it feels banana crackers that they are engaged, and Irene hasn’t met his family, and they all think she’s Miss Carteret. This is not setting her up for success, Soames.

But I’m okay with it because this all happens at the races! I love a change of scenery on these shows. Soames’s brother-in-law, Monty, has a horse in the race named Lady Peaches. Come race day, everyone is losing their shit about Lady Peaches! Go Lady Peaches! But then, disaster! Lady Peaches is overtaken! We get a slow-motion “Noooooooooooo!” from Monty. This is more dramatic than anything that’s ever happened on The Gilded Age. After the race, Monty is furious about his dumb loser horse. He pulls Harriet through a doorway, and when she trips, he says, “They need to fix that.” My petty words cannot properly capture how funny this is. Is Monty the real dark horse? Have we all been sleeping on him being the best character? Time will tell, but he currently occupies the number two place in my heart. The slow-motion “no” really bumped him up. He’s so stupid, and confidently stupid fictional men are a favorite of mine.

After the race, Soames brings Irene in to meet everyone. They’re all bewildered. James is befuddled. When Bill from True Blood (look, his real name is Jolyon Forsyte Sr., and that’s confusing and I’m not calling him that) asks Irene who her people are, and she tells the family, “No one of consequence,” James looks like a pegasus just flew past and shat on his shoe. This first meeting is mercifully brief, and Soames tells Irene they’ll be getting married in two weeks. He is the raging torrent that is sweeping her, the little mouse, down its path as she tentatively tries to grab hold of some passing twigs. But what a handsome torrent.

At the Soames Home, James grinds out, “Your mother is seriously displeased.” Soames’s mother looks around like “hmm?” Soames is unapologetic, and his mother is, in fact, happy for him. James is furious, as this is their chance at the chairmanship. He is still moving forward with the plan, though. He schemes with the rest of his family while his wife, Emily, pets her tiny dog. Soames’s sister Winifred proposes that the delightfully useless Monty be elected to the board, so James has another vote to oust Jolyon. 

Monty’s nomination easily goes through, and he immediately claps for those who voted for him and ineffectually threatens those who did not. He’s so dumb. I love him so much. James moves to expel Jolyon from the company due to his debauchery of a serving maid. It seems all but inevitable, but then Grandmama Ann shows up! Twist! We are even treated to a “This is most irregular.” They don’t admit ladies to the inner sanctum, a man says. Ann tells him that the inner sanctum only exists because she paid for it. Take that, old man! Ann glowers at everyone and makes it clear that there is no shortage of scandal in their family if they’re looking to bring up more. We leave the meeting on a cliffhanger because Irene has to meet Ann and then get married. 

Ann knew that Soames wasn’t going to marry Miss Carteret, apparently. When Irene asks her about Soames, Ann shares that he has never loved before, and the fact that he does so now is significant. Ann asks if Irene is in love. She replies that she believes she feels a prelude to something deeper. Ann hopes she finds it. They’re really laying down some foreshadowing, and I love it. More portentous pronouncements! More! 

Okay. The wedding. Soames looks so happy. I’m so mad that I love his handsome square face so much, but I do. For a moment, it seems like Irene will runaway-bride it, but then she appears and everything is beautiful, and then later those two kids bang amid a bunch of candles. 

As for Jolyon and the board, Frances tells him that the vote went in his favor. “How?” Jolyon asks, and Frances doesn’t answer. Wait, yeah, how? And why doesn’t he follow up? The odds were very obviously stacked against him. Why aren’t you pursuing this line of inquiry, Jol? It’s this kind of passivity that makes you the Stefan. Instead, he tells Frances that his commitment to her and June is absolute. No, go back to the board vote! What happened! 

We later find that Frances heard Jol’s statement as “I will never again contact Louisa or our children, and that entire chapter of my life is behind me.” Jol clarifies that that is not, in fact, what he said, and that he was in love with Louisa back in the day. Frances looks stunned once more (Frances, why do you like him?) and tells Jol the most soap opera line of the episode: “Then let us be clear: that love, as you call it, has no place in this house. So kill it once and for all, or face the consequences.” YEEEESSSS. What does that mean?? This is what I’m saying; this show keeps you guessing because everyone is constantly having Big Feelings, but also they love money, and that is a batshit combination. What a great program.