Feud: Bette and Joan Season 1 Episode 2 Recap: the Other Woman

Feud continued to amaze us this week with the second episode of the season entitled “The Other Woman” and showing us the behind the scenes influences.

When it comes to FX’s new show Feud, all of us are hooked. Mainly because we all love old Hollywood and Joan Crawford and Bette Davis a bit too much. But this is just another example of what Ryan Murphy is doing right! And we’ve got our thoughts on the second episode.

Age

“It’s for my grandmother, she’s loved you since she was a kid.” A huge theme on this show is age. Mainly because Bette and Joan were obsessed with it. The only reason What Ever Happened to Baby Jane went into production was because the two of them were terrified of their own age and didn’t think people would take them seriously.

So when this episode opened with Bette and Joan getting the young girl playing the neighbor fired, it wasn’t that surprising. Mainly because they saw her as a threat because of Bob and his taste for young blondes.

The Origins of the Feud

For many, we just knew that these two women hated each other but never really why. But the show does a great job of explaining how far back this fight between Bette and Joan went. Because it wasn’t just on the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, it went back throughout most of their careers.

And that’s because Bette seemed to always be jealous of what Joan had, especially since Warner Brothers hated her by the end and gave all the good roles to Joan while they were still under contract.

Set Rumors

With What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, their hatred for one another came more for outstanding circumstances than one another. Bob was meddling in their relationship and spreading rumors to keep the movie abuzz.

It worked but at the cost of whatever sense of ‘friendship’ these two women had beforehand. They were never really friends but they could at least function with one another. By the end of the movie, we all know that wasn’t the case and that’s definitely because of the director.

Bob

And speaking of, Bob Aldrich seemed to be a pretty terrible man. We see that in this episode when he played both women like a fiddle to do his bidding. He cheated on his wife repeatedly (with both Joan and Bette) and pretended like he wanted these two to have an amazing film but he really was in it for himself.

And some of the things he says about women are so terrible and while they are clearing a reflection of the time, it still isn’t great to hear. And the episode leaves us with Bob sleeping with Bette and then coming home to his wife for ten minutes. Really it makes us all not love Robert Aldrich.

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