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Things have been going almost too well for the Bottom Dollar gang this season on Minx, and episode 6 is where the tides start to turn and relationships start to evolve.
Joyce has fully embraced her status as a culturally influential woman of the moment, and she’s donated money to her alma mater, Vassar, to support their fellowship for Women and Print, and they’ll be holding a reception in her honor. This doesn’t feel like an entirely selfless act though, because Joyce is clearly smug about the entire thing. So smug and self-centered that her travel companion, her sister Shelly, keeps trying to have a genuine conversation with Joyce – about her life with Lenny, her life as Bella LaRouche, literally anything personal to her – and Joyce keeps cutting her off and making it all about herself. The only thing outside of herself that Joyce is excited about is her old English professor, Professor Maram, whom she plans to see this weekend and ask to write the prologue to her book.
Back in California, Doug has decided that it’s time to propose to Tina, partly because she’s the first person he wants “to tell his news to,” and partly because he can sense that he’s going to be the international head of Minx and, with a possible relocation to Europe on the horizon, he wants to make things official so he and Tina can take their partnership abroad. Doug, who stashed an engagement ring in the wall of his old office, blasts through it with a hammer and tells Joyce his plan to propose right before he and Tina attend Tina’s mother’s retirement party. Even Joyce, who finds marriage to be a “patriarchal prison akin to indentured servitude” thinks Doug’s plan is romantic.
Things go awry when Tina tells Doug he doesn’t need to go to her mom’s party, and it would really be for the best if he stays away because, honestly, Tina’s family hates him. “We have had a lot of zags, but this is different, this is our zig,” he tells her and then tells Tina to call her mom and let the family know Doug Renetti will be there.
This season, Bambi has consistently been left behind by her Minx family, in that everyone else seems to be on an upward career trajectory and she’s still trying to figure out where her trajectory begins. This week, she attempts to reconnect with Richie by drugging his bellini and tripping balls on MDMA with him. When Richie gets upset that she drugged him, she explains, “The work will figure itself out. Drugs are great for inspiration!”
“I know!” he tells her. “That’s why I’m already on them. I took two purple Nerpals the second I got off the freeway.”
“Give me two of those so we’re on the same ride,” Bambi tells him, and from there, they have the best day ever in the Minx office.
After Joyce gives her speech at Vassar, she finally finds her beloved Professor Maram (“Call me Doreen now!”) but you know what happens when you (re)meet your heroes: the real Doreen turns out to be something of a let down to Joyce because Doreen barely remembers teaching her. Worse still, Doreen finds Shelly far more interesting than Joyce. (Shelly and Joyce’s mother hasn’t been mentioned all that much, but it’s here we learn that Shelly dropped out of college to essentially be Joyce’s mother figure after their actual mom abandoned them. Shelly putting her college dreams aside was something Joyce never even realized. Turns out, Joyce has been up her own butt since she was 8!)
Joyce finds Doreen’s interest in Shelly irritating and walks off in a huff when Doreen repeats the same advice about writing to Shelly that she once gave to Joyce, about falling in love with your own unique voice. Joyce and Shelly both realize this advice is being repeated and it sits uncomfortably with each of them, Joyce because it makes her realize she’s not as favored as she thought she was, and Shelly because she knows how hurt that makes Joyce feel (but also, it’s feeling great to finally have someone pay attention to her!).
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At Tina’s mother’s retirement party, Doug spends the entire time trying to get in the good graces of everyone there. He still plans to propose, but it’s so hard when the only people in the family who will give you the time of day sit at the kids’ table. When Doug finally talks to Tina’s brother Marvin, he learns that the family resents Doug for luring Tina away to her hotshot job at Minx; she was the next in line to run the family stationary store, and with her working elsewhere, the job falls to Marvin. Only Doug has unwittingly helped Marvin realize that he too has dreams, so at the party, he announces his plan to become a long-haul trucker and credits Doug during his toast. This creates chaos, with Tina left to try and smooth things over with her mother, who belittles Tina for giving up the family legacy to be a secretary for a “twice-divorced, philandering, white pornographer.”
Then Tina drops the news to her mother – and Doug – that she’s the new international head of Minx, running 8 new titles across 4 continents. This is the job Doug had been counting on, but while he and Joyce were in Vegas, it turns out this is what Connie wanted to talk to Tina about. This is Doug’s sad realization that he’s not the first person Tina wants to tell her news to. He and Tina both quietly realize their relationship means different things to them, so he opts not to propose to her that night. He keeps the ring in his coat pocket, which is exactly where Tina finds it the next day but doesn’t let Doug know she saw it.
Though Tina and Doug’s relationship has just become more complicated than ever, that’s nothing compared to the blowout between Shelly and Joyce when Joyce stumbles into her hotel room to find Shelly and Doreen having sex. Lennon Parham’s performance as Shelly this whole episode is perfection, but the last ten minutes of the episode, starting with the moment Joyce sees her sister with her legs in the air as Doreen works her up and down allows us to watch Shelly finally come into who she really is and always has been, but she has never been allowed to be: a lesbian, sure, but also an assertive, strong woman who is no longer her sister’s support system or caregiver.
Joyce has completely missed this change in Shelly. “What were you doing in there?” she asks. “What about Lenny?”
Shelly replies, “Lenny and I have a sophisticated relationship.”
“Holy shit, you’re Bella LaRouche,” Joyce realizes.
First of all, sophisticated! Yes, Bella, you tell that square sis of yours how you swing! When Joyce accuses Shelly of twisting the trip – the trip that’s supposed to be a celebration of Joyce! – into her own sexual walkabout, Shelly lashes out, accusing Joyce of hogging all the oxygen in the room. “Jesus, Joyce, this isn’t about you for once!… For Christ’s sake, you didn’t even remember I went to college!” Shelly cries. She gave Joyce all the support she ever needed, and now, she declares, it’s her turn to focus on herself. Shelly gives Joyce a tongue lashing about how selfish she is and excuses herself, saying, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been promised the full Vassar experience and I don’t want to keep her waiting!”
The next morning, as Joyce offers an apology scone to Shelly, she says, “I will be the first to admit we both said things we didn’t mean,” and Shelly boldly tells her sister, “I meant every word.” She tells Joyce she plans to extend her Vassar stay, which shocks Joyce. Ophelia Lovibond’s ability to express surprise, disappointment, confusion, and all the other emotions in one look is impressive. She can’t bring herself to smile about Shelly’s situation, it’s something she needs to sit with, but she’s also not allowing herself to show any disappointment about it either for Shelly’s sake. Joyce is a woman whose whole job is to support women, but it’s the first time she’s ever considered her sister one of those women.
On her flight home – alone – Joyce has a bathroom quickie with her seatmate. While she’s all about embracing casual sex, it turns out he has seen her sexy Rolling Stone cover, the headline of which reads “Joyce Prigger Takes Charge of the Sexual Revolution.” She is stunned that he knows who she is and even more stunned when he asks her for her autograph. It was her interaction with her interviewer at Rolling Stone that made her realize “it’s okay to like it,” “it” being all of this, the power, the fame, the recognition, but now that Joyce has embraced “it,” she’s realizing maybe “it” is not who she is after all.
