The Astronaut Wives Battle To Slow Down The Space Race

After last week's episode, no one thought this week's was going to be a fun hour of TV, and it's not. The Space Race has, to this point, mostly been Moon Balls and Life magazine covers; every crisis involving an actual space flight has been temporary and apparently done nothing to set back the project in any significant way. But the deaths of Gus, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee have made it impossible to ignore the fact that this is actually a dangerous undertaking with innumerable variables and unknowns; there are a bunch of other men lined up to test out these brand-new crafts, and while NASA is prepared to barrel ahead before anyone knows precisely what happened with the capsule these astronauts DIED IN, the surviving astronauts' wives aren't. I haven't read the book this show is based on, so I don't know how accurate this is, but I have to say I tend to believe the portrayal of the astronauts themselves adhering to their duties as a consequence of their military training as opposed to following through reasonable trains of thought as scientists, while their wives are more practical/frustrated by their apparent willingness to be killed because someone who outranks them has asked them to.

It's a heartbreaker of an episode, but all our titular wives distinguish themselves with their passion, thoughtfulness, and determination. Well, almost all. Fucking Louise.

1. Betty

   Seeing the chirpiest of the Wives handle bereavement is, of course, completely heartbreaking, particularly as one of the ways her grief manifests itself is with vivid fantasies of seeing Gus alive again, doing banal husbandly things -- making coffee, bowling.

   

   The suggestion from an anonymous whistleblower that the capsule was suspected to have been unsafe and that warnings were ignored galvanizes Betty to attend the Congressional hearings on the matter (and even stupid Dunk gets a nice moment for once: what seems like a PR concern about Betty being seen at the hearing when he can't control what she's going to do turns out to be care for her, to try to stop her from seeing the physical evidence of the charred capsule her husband died in). Betty's determination to give meaning to Gus's death by trying to safeguard the lives of the other astronauts in the missions yet to come gives the wives a cause they can all rally around. And if you didn't choke up when she gave Deke the pin Gus had intended to give him, see a doctor because your tear ducts might be broken. Her victory in getting the project slowed down so that it can be, I don't know, DONE PROPERLY is a victory for all the men, all their wives, and science, and the death of the Russian cosmonaut proves how right she is.

   

   ...And on a shallow note: that coat is perfection.

2. Marilyn

   As a new widow herself, Marilyn is best able to offer Betty advice about how to think about starting the next phase of her life; I love the elegance of her explanation for why taking a trip after her loss was helpful: "I just had to create one memory without Elliot, so I could start to imagine a life without him."

   

   And even though when she suggested that they take a trip together, Marilyn probably wasn't thinking they'd go to D.C. for the hearing, that she goes along with Betty is proof that she's a good friend. (And...um, good for more than just providing air conditioning her fellow Wives can mooch.)

3. Jo

   Jo continues moving up my charts by doing the one thing sure to make me like any of the wives: telling her husband some shit.

   

   With Wally next in line to go up, Jo has a lot of incentive to support Betty's campaign to delay the next phase of the moon shot, and if Wally doesn't get that, she'll have to yell at him until he does. And her resentful bowling attitude made me LOL. Nice job rehabilitating the prig of the first several episodes, show.

4. Rene

   Props to her for making a real career out of her writing. More props for having enough self-respect not to put up with any shit from Scott.

   

   And mega-props for having the sense to consider ending their separation when some lovely compliments for her work started coming out of that gorgeous face of his. Lady ain't blind!

5. Trudy

   She doesn't get a ton to do in this episode, but we do learn that she's working on starting up a charter business, which is (typically) pretty cool of her.

   

   I'm also into her new hair and if anyone can source it I will buy that top TODAY.

6. Marge

   She doesn't get much to do this week either, but I'll credit her for having probably sent Deke over to Betty's to go over her finances, which would have probably been a very practical, kind, unobtrusively loving way to help a widow in those days. (PSA: if you're the one who handles that in your household, do your survivors a favour and make sure your survivors have all your passwords.)

   

   Marge also gets credit for rocking this lip when she's out bowling. Never not on, this one.

7. Annie

   It's always hard to know how to rate Annie since, you know, she hardly ever talks.

   

   But I have to put her second-last because: a Paris guide book for Betty's trip with Marilyn is a very sweet and thoughtful gift, but a hardcover? No.

8. Louise

   Imagine being in Pat White's situation, having kind of a hard time with it, and having to hear about it from FUCKING LOUISE.

   

   I hesitate to isolate one single crappy thing about Louise as representing her whole crappy character in a nutshell, but this whole business with changing Judy's name comes close, because WHAT? Judy was old enough to be in school and she all of a sudden had a whole other identity to deal with just as she was getting used to the idea that her mom was dead? Great job, Louise. Still/always the worst.