In A Perfect-Wife Contest, No One Wins

In the second episode of The Astronaut Wives Club, shit's starting to get tense at NASA as the guys start to get an education in the politics of who gets to go where and when. But things are no less fraught at home: Betty dropped an egg right on the floor! IN FRONT OF A REPORTER!!!

We still barely know the women married to the men of the Mercury 7 project, but that shouldn't stop us from ordering them from first to worst. It didn't, we have, and here's the list.

1. Trudy

   Trudy stopped really being Gordon's wife a while back, but since it's 1961 and she didn't want him to get boxed out of the space program for being scandalously divorced, she came back to help him keep up appearances. Apparently she forgot to tell her face.

   

   Get it together, Trudy, that shift-and-matching-jacket combo alone should have cheered you up! BUT SERIOUSLY, Trudy tops this list for demonstrating that she has professional ambitions for herself that Gordon's success could help her achieve: to wit, she's a pilot, and she'd like to be an astronaut herself someday. When Gordon acts like this is a completely crazy idea -- and totally disregards the time-honoured tradition of TAKING TURNS -- she essentially tells him to fuck off and ditches him on their flying date. Kick rocks, Gordon. Your girl's got dreams AND perfect bone structure!

2. Marge

   Did someone say "scandalously divorced"? While the wives continue crafting the official narrative of the Mercury 7 with Max, a gossip rag has uncovered the secret tale of Marge's failed pre-Deke marriage and the time she spent living alone in Japan, during which time she claims she was working as a secretary even though she knows it sounds more like she was a prostitute and I assumed that's what she'd been doing based on her pile of kimonos in the pilot. On Jo's advice, she goes to Dunk with the news that she's being blackmailed by a shady PI; he takes care of it, and everything's great!

   

   Except, maybe it wasn't enough for Dunk to have threatened to pull the PI's license, because Deke was supposed to have been the next one to go into space, and now he's not, and we close the episode on Marge clearly assuming NASA's holding her interesting single life against Deke. I guess it's not that cool that Marge doesn't think their marriage is strong enough for Deke to know about stuff she did before he knew her, but since she can't wander over to Masters Of Sex and throw Deke over for someone more open-minded, I guess I'll just trust that Marge knows enough to know if Deke is worth her keeping shamefully quiet about her personal history.

3. Betty

   Betty seems cute, and like she and Gus have a pretty functional relationship; she's chipper and bubbly, he's nice to the son of a housekeeper at his motel and the KID IS NOT EVEN WHITE, YOU GUYS. In 1961, that makes Gus about one notch lower on the sensitivity scale than a Freedom Rider. But literally her entire storyline in this episode is about her worrying that she's not being a good enough wife -- both to Gus, who by the way ALMOST DIES, and within the context of the other wives and the example Louise set by being married to the first guy to go into space. I know it's 1961, but as a motivation, this is kind of boring.

   

   That said, the girl can wear a shirtdress.

4. Annie

   Apparently the only thing more shameful in the early '60s than being divorced was having a speech challenge, if Annie's storyline this week is anything to go by.

   

   But as embarrassed as Annie is by her stutter, she has self-confidence enough not to let herself be cowed and admit the Vice-President when John's mission gets scrubbed. Does she call her husband first to get his permission? Sure, and on paper, that's not great. But I'll let it slide because it's less about appearances and more about her not wanting to fuck with his job. Speaking of John: Sam Reid, consider this my formal apology for not including you among the good-looking astronauts in my post last week.

   

   Clearly, you are not hurting my eyes.

5. Rene

   The Club's resident rule-breaker is at it again!

   

   Chinese chicken salad with CASHEWS?! NOW I'VE SEEN EVERYTHING.

6. Jo

   How much of a non-entity is Jo?

   

   Such a non-entity she's not even on the IMDb cast list for the episode. Literally the only thing we know about Jo is that she considers The Navy Wife her Bible. Let's hope a future episode reveals that she and Wally are super-into BDSM or something because right now she is totally The Pierce of this show.

7. Louise

   If you like a tight-assed sourpuss, you'll love Louise!

   

   Poor Dominique McElligott might be the coolest woman alive but you'd never know it from what they've given her to do as Louise: swallow her pride when she finds out for sure her husband's cheating on her; hiding her anxiety about whether he's going to die on his test flight for the good of the nation; almost certainly grinding her molars to nubs in her sleep. I don't know where her bickery relationship with Max is going, but I can guess: it's edging toward some kind of flirtation and giving her doubts as to whether she's entitled to bone him since John screwed around on her, but then she'll just tamp down (or, as Max might put it, repress) her attraction out of her overriding sense of duty, and yearn for him until she dies. Louise? Your clench-jawed stoicism is really, really boring. Please take some of your pin money and buy one of these. I bet they're a lot cheaper in your time. And you need it.