Is Bottom Dollar no more?
Seemingly out of the blue, Doug stumbled upon some incriminating evidence hastily thrown away in his office on Minx Season 2 Episode 7 that sent him into a spiral.
Could the company he built from the ground up really be gone just like that?
Since Constance bought Bottom Dollar, she’s flexed her influence and capital in various ways. From shutting down Doug’s space magazine to spearheading the campaign to find the Minx International publishers, there’s been no hiding that Bottom Dollar was Constance’s to run.
Sure, she deflected responsibilities at times when it was convenient to, but for the most part, she hasn’t been shy about making decisions for both the company and Minx, in particular.
She tapped Tina to head up the International venture without talking to Joyce, and she threw Tina and Joyce into the woods under the guise of using their help to find their new publishers across the pond, but it seemed pretty clear she wasn’t wholly interested in what Joyce thought about the candidates.
Joyce created Minx because she wanted it to stand for something, and she wanted it to stand out. And Minx has done that, amassing a success that Joyce could have never imagined.
But as the season has drawn on, we’ve seen these moments where it’s evident that Constance’s motivations don’t align with those of others, from her nixing the boathouse spread and even in her willingness to sully relationships with advertisers.
Constance was a retired woman when Doug came along, offering her the chance to invest in a winner, and now that she’s seen what Minx can do, it appears she’s looking for something even bigger.
Like Minx is Joyce’s baby, Bottom Dollar is Doug’s, and he had every right to be sad and frustrated that she was dissolving the very business he created without even a conversation.
Now, he doesn’t know her plans moving forward because she could very well want to bring them all into her new venture. But that’s not very realistic, is it?
If everything was on the up and up, she wouldn’t have done everything behind their backs. She has a plan, and it’s not hard to work out her leaving certain people or everyone behind if they won’t work toward her goals.
Out of everyone, Doug should be the most concerned, and that’s why he ran up to the woods to tell Tina and Joyce and start coming up with a plan. But he was met with a lot of indifference from the two women he’d come to count on the most.
While I’m proud of Tina for doing what’s best for her, I can’t say I’ve loved how they’ve handled the Doug and Tina relationship during Minx Season 2. Not only was it an afterthought most of the time, but even in their most challenging moments, they aren’t getting any time to really talk about their issues.
Doug is self-absorbed and needs to be hit over the head with things before they sink in (and even sometimes they don’t). And Tina explains where she’s coming from, but not really.
She’s felt stifled over the past few years. Perhaps some of her family’s grumbling creeping into her psyche, or maybe they were there all along. But she didn’t feel like Doug’s partner, no matter how much Dough insisted she was.
It’s nice that Doug saw it that way, but did he treat it that way?
Maybe in his own way, he did, but not enough for Tina to believe in it. And here they were in this situation where it was Tina who was getting an opportunity independent of Doug, and she was forging a path for herself and her career, the perfect opportunity for Doug to show that he could be happy for Tina outside of himself.
And he failed spectacularly.
While I do think a lot of his anger, if you want to call it that, was wrapped up in it being another thing that Tina didn’t tell him straightaway, it also felt like once he saw what Constance was doing, he was even more devastated to see Tina still want to work with and for someone who shattered something so important to him.
Because it always does come back to Doug in the end.
It’s unclear whether Doug and Tina are broken up right now, but how do they stay together after this?
They’re not on the same page, and while I do believe wholeheartedly that they love one another, love isn’t always enough to get past certain issues.
And Doug won’t go down without a fight. Even with Tina and Joyce opposing him, he’ll either find a way to fight back against Constance (the least likely choice) or find a way to impress upon Constance, so she’ll bring him into her new company.
Isn’t it interesting to look back and remember that the whole reason Constance even became a part of anything involving Bottom Dollar and Minx was that she requested Richie’s services for her boudoir shoot during Minx Season 2 Episode 1?
And poor Richie has struggled to find himself within the company ever since.
The centerfold killing his mother and thus needing to be replaced at the last minute felt much more reminiscent of the plotlines of Minx Season 1 than this one, but it was a golden opportunity to bring back Richie’s bathhouse shoot.
Constance, and subsequently Joyce, had nixed the idea because it appealed to the wrong demographic in their opinion. And it was so unfair, and I hated that moment for Richie, who had this wonderfully beautiful idea.
Bringing it back here, to then have Richie try to shoot it in a certain way but then be questioned about that tactic was such an interesting way to continue to showcase Richie’s evolution this season as he works through discovering where and how he fits into this Bottom Dollar.
I loved that he kicked all the Minx people out, and he just focused on what he does best: telling a story through his photographs. Damn the consequences, honestly, because he was creating something beautiful.
Turning the camera around on the raids was another poignant, albeit sad moment. We know how paramount pictures of injustice can be, and Richie’s pictures can tell that story.
Surely, Constance and Joyce will have a problem with Richie’s shoot, as it’s not as if anything has changed since they initially turned it down. They’re fine to have gay readers spend money on their magazine and help to create it, but apparently, making art about them is too much.
I desperately need Joyce to remember what Minx was about before it became all about expansion and money.
Elsewhere, we got the long-awaited conversation between Shelly and Bambi, allowing both ladies to express their true feelings about each other and themselves.
They’re both over being people they aren’t and being pigeon-holed into the boxes people have put them in. It’s exhausting to feel you must be the version of yourself you think others want and need you to be.
Hopefully, Bambi continues to push back against those who aren’t willing to see past who they think Bambi is. She’s intelligent, driven, and has a lot to offer; if people can’t see that, they don’t deserve to know Bambi.
For Shelly, she uses her Bella column to admit that she’s a lesbian.
Sharing the article with Lenny first was such a lovely moment because even if she and Lenny are no longer meant to be, they have a family together and a lot of respect for each other.
Shelly has spent so much of her life doing for others, and through her relationship with Bambi and her column, she’s realized some truths about herself. And she can start living her life in a way that is authentic to her, with the people who love her, like Lenny, still by her side.
Everything Else You Need To Know
- Constance was an absolute menace, making Tina and Joyce hike through the woods, and all the women forage for their lunch. She does things for her own entertainment, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
- Doug is the most dramatic person on the planet, and I hope he never changes.
There is only one episode left this season, folks! And what a season it’s been.
Drop into the comments with all your thoughts about this installment and what you hope to see in the finale!
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
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