Feud: Bette and Joan Episode 7 Recap: Time Runs Out

In the penultimate episode of Feud: Bette and Joan, the women go head to head until the emotional warfare goes past the point of recovery. All the details of episode 7 are below!

We’ve somehow gotten the women back together for Bob’s next picture, and so we hit the episode 7 ground running. Joan is on set shooting and basically killing it. She’s totally prepared and doing really great. However, Bette keeps giving her notes and whispering criticisms to Bob in front of her. Joan takes notice, but doesn’t lose it quite yet. Later, Bette and the crew drink together and party all night, discussing the film. Joan is in her room with Mamacita, freaking out about Bob and Bette’s collusion. Mamacita tells her to have a nightcap and go to sleep, but Joan reminds her she’s not going to drink during this film. Over at Bette’s, Victor reminds her that this is Joan’s picture even though she’s playing the title character because villains always have better roles.

The next day, Joan shoots another scene and Bob gives some notes, which clearly came from Bette. Joan tells them she needs a minute to process those notes and goes back to her trailer, but then screams at Bob for approximately four minutes straight instead. Bob tells Joan that Bette had to be made associate producer or else she wouldn’t sign on, and Joan is pissed because she’s had to work harder as an actress her whole life and reaps no rewards. He asks her to let go of her anger for Bette. She responds that she’s mad at him, not Bette. She thought he’d been honoring her with top billing for this role but really, he’d been catering to Bette. Bob tells her the producer title is meaningless. Joan knows better. She tells him she can’t wait to watch him find out how “meaningless” Bette thinks it is.

Later, Bette is partying with the crew again and making jabs at Joan. Victor joins her while she talks and reminds her that Joan’s career had been expansive and included many important roles. Bette continues, joking mostly about her appearance. Victor ostensibly shuts her down by saying that Joan’s work meant a lot to him.

Bob and Bette continue drinking together in a presumably shared room, and Bette starts lamenting her journey in Hollywood. She tells him he has no idea how much harder it is for women, recounting her first audition with Jack Warner many years before. She tells him that after her audition, she hid to hear what he had to say, which turned out to be commentary on her sex appeal in crude terms. Yeesh. Bette reveals that, up until that point in her life at age 22, in fact, no one had. She also admits that Jack had said he’d wished she looked like Joan.

On set the next day, Bette and Joan have a scene together. It’s going fairly cordially, but Joan seems to be having trouble with the heat. Bette reminds her it’s a lot different than the soundstage, and tells her that she doesn’t need her on set to do off-screen lines for Bette’s part of the scene. She says that Joan should go lie down somewhere dark and air conditioned.

Joan heads back to her trailer and immediately pulls a not-so-secret flask from her purse. She chugs it and the next thing she knows, she’s waking up and it’s dark out. Mamacita calls a car for them. Back at the hotel rooms, Joan knocks on Bette’s door and accuses her of leaving her on set on purpose. She shouts at Bette about their alliance, saying she doesn’t think it was ever going to be honored on Bette’s end.

Bette claims she needs Joan for the picture and was just trying to help her make it brilliant. Joan reminds her who the superior actress is, and Bette reminds Joan that she’s got 11 Oscar noms. Joan says she doesn’t get acknowledged because she’s better, but because she’s clearly working so hard to try to be better. She thinks Bette’s performances aren’t worthy because you can see her acting too hard. Bette thinks Joan’s are ignored because she’s simply there to be looked at. Joan reminds Bette that the answer to feeling attractive isn’t to make herself more ugly.

Bette asks her what it was like to be the most beautiful girl in the world, and Joan tells her, “It was wonderful. The most joyous thing you could ever imagine, and it wasn’t enough.” Joan asks Bette what it was like to be the most talented girl in the world, and Bette says the same.

Later, Joan gets the call sheet for the next day’s scenes along with page revisions, which reveal a major cut to an important monologue for her character. She retaliates by suddenly needing to go to the hospital for no reason. Bob is told it’s “respiratory,” but Bette knows it’s just her way of holding back production. As Bette tells Bob that she used to pull the same tricks when she was at Warner, BD enters with her new beau, Jeremy. She asks Bette to sign some papers which would allow the two of them to be married. Bette refuses, as her daughter is only 16 and this guy is 29, or as Bette puts it, “middle-aged.” BD tells her that she’s forcing her into a life of sin if she won’t let them marry.

Bette yells at her to go read The Feminine Mystique.

Bob visits Joan in the hospital where she is blasting “You Don’t Own Me” because Ryan Murphy doesn’t know how far is too far. He tells her that they can only hold production for so long before the studio shuts it down. They need to resume filming the next day. Joan offers her suggestions for the script, including that her character now enters to a lavish ball thrown in her honor. Bob reminds her that there’s no money for that. Also, it doesn’t make any sense. He tells her to give her contract a close read instead of focusing on the script, and storms out, telling her, “Tomorrow, 7AM.”

On set the next day, Joan arrives being pushed in a wheelchair and everyone claps upon her entrance. Bette knows it’s bull, but she gives her a single rose anyway as a gesture in front of the whole crew, telling Joan that she’s removed the thorns. As Joan shoots her first scene back, Bette asks Bob to cut in the middle, saying it’s too long. Joan reminds her she has another page of dialog. Since Bette continues to protest, Joan suddenly is ill again and begins to faint, twice. She is wheeled off set and Bette shames Bob for letting her get away with it. He reminds her that being a producer doesn’t mean being right, it means getting results. It doesn’t consist, however, of driving talent off the lot.

Later, Bette storms into her house while BD and Jeremy watch a movie. She says that they can get married, “but I’m in charge of everything.” I would like to end every sentence that way from now on.

Joan goes to a meeting with the studio and its lawyers to discuss her illness. As they talk about the picture, Bette marches in to remind them all that her illness is mental, and she’s just on strike until Bob accepts her changes to the script. Joan reminds her that her producer title is just for show. Bette says that how it was, but not anymore. Back to business, Bob’s assistant, Pauline, tells the room that Bob is ready to start looking for an actress to replace Joan. Naturally, Joan doesn’t seem to think that’s a good idea.

The studio’s lawyers then offer her a deal. If she’s willing to submit to a medical exam from their doctors, they’ll believe her. If it turns out there’s nothing wrong, or if she doesn’t agree, they’ll sue her for all money lost while waiting on her recovery. Joan agrees to the exam.

Bette begins planning BD’s wedding. It’s immediately a huge production, with everyone listening to Bette’s every instruction. BD seems uninterested, so Bette talks to her about how she should have fun on her wedding day and make it as joyous as possible, because the marriage that follows is a long, hard slog. She tells BD that her first wedding will be the one she remembers most. Then, BD lashes out, furious that her mother isn’t taking her partnership seriously. She reveals that as soon as Bette signed the papers, she and Jeremy married at city hall the weekend before.

The studio’s doctor examines Joan. Though she tries to seduce him into being on her side, he tells Pauline that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with her. Pauline begs Joan, as a fan, not to do this to herself. But Joan refuses to admit that she’s doing anything at all.

Back in the doc filming, Joan Blondell says she doesn’t blame Joan Crawford for doing what she did. She likens her refusal to be complicit in being ignored to being a regular at a restaurant for 20 years and then suddenly being refused service. In the present day, Joan is served paperwork from the studio stating that she’s in breach of her contract.

On TV, we see that Joan’s hospital stay has become huge news. She wears couture hospital gowns and diamonds in bed. Meanwhile, she’s also still holding the studio hostage while they pay everyone’s salaries even though no one is working. Joan reveals to her man-pal George that she’s willing to lose her own money on this picture. Why? She knows Bob and Bette will also suffer for it. She tells George that the picture will be shut down within a week.

Bob and Bette are scrambling to find another actress to take over for Joan, as Bette won’t settle for just anybody. She has Bob call Olivia de Havilland, who turns down the role almost immediately, because she finds this type of film humiliating. In the doc, she then says that since Bob made his way all the way to her home abroad to pitch the film to her, she had to hear him out.

Cut to Joan in her hospital room. She and Mamacita hear the news of Olivia’s new role on the radio. Joan loses it, screaming and throwing things around the room. That includes hurling a vase into a window next to Mamacita. Mamacita packs her things and goes, reminding Joan she’d said she’d go if she threw anything at her again. Joan begs her not to go now, especially after what they’ve done to her. Mamacita tells her she’s done this to herself.

On the set, Bette and Olivia are having a gay old time reuniting. The doc producer asks Olivia if she feels at all guilty for ending Joan’s career. Olivia tells him that time did that, as it does to everyone. We see Joan in her hospital bed, tented in an insane plastic air ventilation system while Bob, Bette, and Olivia cheese it up on set while the press take photos of them enjoying their new sponsor: Coca-Cola.

We have one week left of our complicated, glamorous, broken, brilliant ladies. And though it will hurt to bear this ending, there is nothing Ryan Murphy loves more than an elaborate social metaphor. We can be sure this finale will be just as delicious and fulfilling as the rest of the season.

Next: The Peculiar Feminism of Feud

Tune in next Sunday, April 23 at 10/9c to FX for the Feud finale. Follow Culturess all week long for the final days of lady-coverage!