The Astronaut Wives Club Starts Admitting New Members And Fighting Good Fights

After last week's husband-heavy installment, I was happy that the latest episode starts on the wives and stays on them, taking us through a seminar on the next mission, followed by a tea reception with sotto voce gossip about the Gemini wives, followed by legit support for some of the specific challenges the newer wives are facing. Seeing these women help each other through experiences no one else outside their club can possibly understand is exactly what I was hoping for when I started watching this show -- that and the outfits, of course -- so I was relieved to see the focus back where it should be!

Then a bunch of husbands died. Great.

It's a grim episode -- particularly for those of us who know nothing about the real history of this period -- but probably the best one yet. And since Rene and Annie have pretty much resigned their club membership, our rankings this week include a couple of Gemini wives who stepped into leading roles...unfortunately for one of them.

1. Betty

   Auuuuuuugh, BETTY. She spends most of this episode being a superstar. When talk of the Whites' visit to Paris segues to the Grissoms' stripped-down honeymoon, she tells Gus she wouldn't trade what they had, and means it.

   

   But that doesn't stop Gus booking them an anniversary trip to Paris anyway, as he should, because she's adorable and she deserves it. Before she's even had a chance to get excited about that, though, NASA's insensitive delivery of bad news to one of the other astronaut wives galvanizes Betty to try to organize the other wives to approach the agency about treating them as something more than fashion show models and Life puff piece subjects, and she doesn't even curse them out when that bunch of wimps fails to understand that their husbands won't suffer reprisal (in the form of lost slots on future missions) if they all align behind the same list of demands, though she could and maybe should. READ YOUR LABOUR HISTORY, DUMMIES. BREAD AND ROSES, HELLO? They finally do understand and back her up, which probably helps her react with calm equanimity when Gus has to tell her their Paris trip is off. He later brings her a peace offering of french fries, and as they relax in the back yard watching their sons throw a football, she tells Gus, "This is all I ever wanted."

   

   So, naturally, this is the last moment we see them share before Gus gets killed in a pre-launch Apollo 1 test. The NASA representative who delivers the terrible news makes it to her house quickly thanks to the procedures she and the other wives have demanded, but this is probably not the time to point out her impact to her.

   

   I'm just glad Firebrand Betty got her victory before NASA ruined her life, basically. Fuck off, space.

2. Marge

   Marge's evolution into Boss Bitch of the astronaut wives is my favourite thing.

   

   When she hears about their struggles of the Gemini wives -- one's pregnant and trying to hide it in order not to put extra stress on her husband, as directed by stupid Dunk; one has a son with both Downs Syndrome AND CANCER -- Marge activates the astronaut wives phone tree and gets the ladies in question over for coffee and commiseration. Given how much NASA is apparently trying to make the wives into dinner-making RealDolls, Marge's behind-the-scenes machinations in turning the wives into a real support network is all the more important.

3. Trudy

   Trudy is never going to drop below the midpoint in these rankings as long as she can still pilot charter flights whenever she goddamn feels like it, frankly. And her print game is still tight.

   

   And while she does briefly enter a fugue state this week where she momentarily takes seriously Gordo's demand that she check with him before she flies her fellow wives places they need to go, she shakes it off pretty quickly and actually entrusts him with housekeeping and parenting responsibilities in her absence, something I don't think we've seen any of the other wives do yet. Most importantly, when Harriet Eisele -- mother of the disabled, dying son -- expresses the wish that NASA didn't keep her husband Donn away from home so much, and Alan tells Louise that excuse happens to be bullshit -- Trudy gets to join Louise in tracking Donn down in Cocoa Beach, discover that he's shacked up with some floozy, hear his lame excuse that he's staying away from home because he can't handle watching his son's suffering...

   

   ...and OPEN THE LIBRARY: "You know what, you're right. You should stay here with Susie. You wouldn't be any help....He goes home, Harriet will just have to take care of him too." In other words: eat a dick, you worthless coward.

4. Jo

   I gave Jo a lot of guff early in the season, but she's come a long way: she absolutely backs up Betty in her crusade to get NASA to treat the wives better -- something she would have never done in her earlier, The Navy Wife-quoting incarnation.

   

   And when Wally calls her to tell her that Gus has been in an accident, she rushes to her friend's side to say all the right things -- including not giving her too much false hope about a situation that is obviously...not great.

5. Marilyn See

   The death of her husband and another astronaut in what sounds like a freak accident is the horrible event that moves Betty to push for a more humane notification procedure, instead of what Dunk does, which is call a couple of random wives and send them over with crappy excuses so that they can run interference in case any reporters show up before NASA's representative can get there. Things only get worse from there, as NASA's security protocols prevent Marilyn from getting access to her husband's office on the base unless she's...escorted by her husband. I mean, Jesus. Anyway, she has Betty and her grossed-out fellow wives to thank for the moment she finally gets among his old things.

   

   (Nora Zehetner is especially beautiful playing grief.)

6. Marilyn Lovell

   This is our first introduction to the wife of Jim Lovell -- and god bless Matty Ferraro for attempting to play a character made famous by Tom Hanks; few would! -- and it's not great. First, she's secretly pregnant and hasn't told her husband because he's supposed to be on a mission when she's due and she's imbibed all NASA's stupid warnings about not stressing out the astronauts, like, this is information her spouse kind of needs? Then, she's among the first to speak up against Betty's organizing plan, even as she sits directly beside Marilyn See, the woman whose horrendous treatment Marilyn Lovell was actually party to, having been one of the wives Dunk sent over to distract her. She finally catches her snap when she's with Marilyn See when they both get denied a drive-on to the base, so, better late than never, but still shitty.

   Also, this wig.

   

   Here's a shocker, though: the real Marilyn Lovell's hair? Was worse. Really way worse.

7. Louise

   Lets Alan get away with not telling her anything about his mysterious appointments as though he'd earned any kind of trust from her at all. (It's nothing to do with his health; he just bought a bank. Okay.) When her daughters comment that Alan gets grouchy whenever there's space coverage on TV -- which I have to think is often -- she chides them: "No complaints about your father. He may not always been in a good mood, but he's here." Okay, Alan's a better husband than Donn Eisele, but is not having a second family all it takes for Alan to get Louise to defend him? From what we saw of his whoring days, it's probably more like he doesn't have a second family that she knows of.

   

   Louise Shepard: Forever a drip. Also, enough with the breathy voice. Talk like a grownup.