User Reviews

This episode theme I felt it was "Every woman has a soul" and the secondary being "Industry is cruel".

It was beautiful to see Joan and Davis get along for once and they were such a powerhouse together,almost if not more successful than each other in their prime and they demanded respect and outwitted their director but Jack Warner wanted attention and baited that poor excuse of a director with no sense of morality to do his dirty work,make his stars hate each other.While this made their performances stellar it crippled their souls and their lives with a little help from Davis's Hedda Hopper,another strong woman in Hollywood who got strong by creating feuds,destroying lives and make innocent people despicable but at the same time being one of the best journalists of the time.

Lange's Joan Crawford suffers this episode the loss of her current partner,which she did threw out,out of necessity and convenience.She manipulated Bette to team up with her against the young actress and to make the director get rid of her.She lets herself be played by Robert Aldrich into the Feud game and the fact she did not even check if the gossip about her did indeed came from Davis made me sad,proving sometimes she is a superficial woman,who did not care who created rumors about her as long as they were and who would not let that person get away with it.Her talk with Hedda,at her house made this scorpion sensible and shown she has a soul and that she is vulnerable despite seeming to be made out of ice cold rock.She wanted to hide everything about her private life from the public and let out just the powerful star that she used to be.

Sarandon's Bette Davis is the more sensible character this episode,for sure.She feels she has no place in the world,she wants to settle the initial scandal by inviting her co-star to dinner,she wants to not fade forever and to not be turned into a walking joke,a thing expected of someone of her caliber.Her scene where she losses her daughter out of her own greed for attention and the fact she as Jones has been doing since the begging:chose the career over everything else,it was strong because every word that came out of her daughter's mouth was true,the moral of that scene being"Leave while you have your dignity intact and while you still can."Everything bad that happened to her recently culminates on a love night with her director.

Stanley Tucci's Jack Warner is the classic,American magnate.He does not care what it takes to bring attention to his business,because he will do it and gladly because his title and career will only benefit,because he is not the front runner of the scandal and has his loyal employees to spread the dirt around.

Alfred Molina's Robert Aldrich is the a ping pong ball,that is both a pawn and a greedy man,who wants to come back in vogue while keeping his stars happy.He betrayed his wife,his dignity is gone,his soul was sold to the Warner Brothers,he has nothing left but to follow this path he has taken and hope for the better.

The side characters:Olivia the Havilland and Joan Blondell give us an insight of what Hollywood used to do and still does to get scandals going and their pictures the attention they need.They seem to point out that when women are manipulated against going out for each other,no one interferes,especially other women who enjoy their conflict and hope this will bring themselves more attention while their colleagues rip each other to pieces.