Yesterday I talked about the confrontation between Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Morris near the midpoint of episode 102. The tussle between them is very much at the heart of the episode. Can Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Fane manage to thwart Mrs. Russell's attempts to raise her standing?
And at the end of the episode we get a delightful example of how to pay something off. The episode keeps mentioning the location of an upcoming fund raising bazaar hosted by Mrs. Morris and Fane. It was to be at one location; they got shut out and went somewhere else. The Russells offer their ballroom if things fall through. When they do fall through, the women still don't use the Russells, opting instead for something far less interesting.
The Russells show up at the new location, and Mr. Russell, who has kept out of these battles, confronts the women on what they've done and then completely decimates their event in a matter of moments.
What makes this sequence and sequences like it so satisfying? I think there are a couple things.
1) The sequence never telegraphs where it's going: We begin with Mrs. Russell in bed reading about the change in venue. She throws her breakfast tray to the floor. But we get no sign of what more might be on the offing, or even that she and Mr. Russell will go. We don't even see Mr. Russell himself until they all show up at the event, at which point after confronting Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Fane on their nastiness, he offers to buy out a whole shop. Which is not at all the kind of revenge one might expect. What does it even mean? How is it revenge?
We don't learn that until after his back and forth with the seller ends and he hands over the money. It's not just that he's buying out the store, and on this very tight timeline of an hour, and at a price that will make her sales a great success--another move that seems to go against the whole revenge motif--but that he insists she close her shop immediately.
We might think we understand at this point or pretty soon thereafter. But then no, it's not just that the bazaar sells out. It's that all the important fancy people leave, including Mrs. Astor herself. That's the ultimate punishment that can be served.
And even then there's still another beat that comes out of nowhere, and it's the most important of all. While the Russells ride home, Mr. Russell feeling very satisfied, we cut away to a character we have never seen on her own, the great Mrs. Astor. And we learn in her conversation with her daughter that the Russells have made an impression.
So having seemed to lose any chance of furthering themselves in the moment, with first the ballroom dismissed and then their take down of the bazaar, in fact their stunt worked. Progress has been made.
2) The sequence wrings out every moment of fun it can: There's a version of the bazaar scene where Mr. Russell buys out the first stall, begins the same conversation with the second seller and then we just watch Fane and Morris get more and more angry as he walks around the room before finally it's over.
Instead, we watch him do the whole offer and conditions again; then we cut to the women and others' reactions--but with Russell continuing to move through and talk to sellers; and then we get what is maybe my favorite beat of the whole sequence--Marion delighting in the whole thing with the Russells' son Larry and Mr. Russell himself. "I feel I should say 5 [hundred] and we could transform the whole endeavor," she says to Russell as she takes his hundred.
Only then does he return to the women to rub their noses in it by congratulating them.
Fellowes' instinct to really take his time with this scene is not just him giving us a good time. It's necessary. Having spent the whole episode building this conflict between Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Morris, and presenting Mrs. Morris as mean-spirited, the comeuppance has to be significant for us to feel satisfied. There's a sort of weighted scales in storytelling: throughout the episode you're mostly putting weight on one side, against the protagonist generally. And then in the payoff you have to do something that provides even more weight to the other side. That often equates to more time spent watching it play out.
3) It offers a wider view or insight: I said that Marion's beat was my favorite. In part that's because having someone within the story share our delight makes it all that much more satisfying. They express what we're feeling, and it feels like we're in on a secret together.
But Fellowes also gives Marion a take on Mr. Russell. When Larry offers to help her pack her stall up, she says this: "Oh no, I'm enjoying myself. It's not every day you see Sherman march into the ocean."
Describing Mr. Russell in this way is delightful. But more than that it's a little gift Fellowes is giving us. Here's a way of thinking about Russell that fits not just this circumstance but the show. For me, the best shows usually offer little insights like this along the way, moments that a character comments on another or on themselves in a way that is revelatory and fresh. And a payoff is a great moment to do that because it's so earned. Mr. Russell has made a big choice; and that choice by its nature invites a reaction, a hot take or moment of insight. Had he not done what he did in the scene Marion's insight would be no less true, given how he behaves in general. But it would feel inauthentic and contrived. Exposition, rather than response.
4) It moves the story along: The sequence at the end with Mrs. Astor is actually essential. From a story standpoint, it's not enough for the Russells to "beat" Mrs. Morris. Their success has to mean something. It has to move their arc to its next step.
The physical idea of an "arc" is instructive here: Every episode of a season, you are adding bricks to a bridge between where the season began and where it's meant to end. That's not to say the characters themselves must experience progress every episode. Hardly; what kind of story would that be? No, it's the story that must progress. Every episode needs to somehow start in a new place from the one before, or else it's repetitive and boring.
Even a time loop show like RUSSIAN DOLL, where the lead frequently finds herself back where she started, has progress in that what she's learned, what her plan is and what she's doing keeps changing.
Without the Astor beat, 102 ends in a fun way, but the story hasn't moved forward. Mrs. Russell is in the same place as before, just with a grin on her face.
