Over at Casa Moretti, Marco’s excited because Joe DiMaggio has enlisted with the Americans. This is a big deal because it means Italians are being allowed to fight, and that means Marco will be allowed to fight. If you’re like me, you might be wondering why Marco, a great character but still a secondary character, is going to be given one of the main storylines in this film. Fasten your seatbelts, folks, because the fun is just beginning! Also, let’s all take a moment to appreciate how completely fabulous Vera looks in this outfit.
Peep my cannoli collection, ma. Ladies love it.
In the name of Mario and Luigi, something unexpected happens and that unexpected thing is that Marco’s dad is all “Itsa me, Ima home!” out of the blue because they released him from internment camp. Vera gazes upon the happy reunited family and then straight up leaves the house. I assume we were meant to interpret this as “Vera sees them together and realizes they should be together so she’s gonna go join the fucking army without saying a word???” but I really thought that characters leaving the scene when struck by a new emotion was something left behind in the days of “Saved By The Bell” style sitcoms.
What a happy occasion for my fiance! Which is exactly why I will abandon them at this exact moment BYE
Everyone grab your tissues because Kate and Betty are finally reunited. It’s emotional even though I literally have no fucking idea what anything Kate said meant. Betty assumes Kate is still in love with Ivan and Kate has this knowing look and then says “It’s different now” but what the heck does that even mean? As a queerio who is super invested in this couple, obviously I would interpret that as “I’M FUCKING GAY IT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE I’M FUCKING GAY I AM FINALLY LEARNING TO OVERCOME THE INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA AND YEARS OF ABUSE AND SEXUAL REPRESSION BUT IT’S A SLOW PROCESS BUT OUR TIME APART MADE ME MISS YOU AND MADE ME REALIZE THAT I DO LOVE YOU ACTUALLY AND THAT MY SEXUALITY IS NOT AS I HAD ORIGINALLY THOUGHT IT’S DIFFERENT NOW HI” but then my interpretation is never backed up ever during the rest of the movie. Instead, Kate’s behavior gets even more cryptic, the writing of her character gets even more blah and shallow, and she’s used as a final scapegoat in a way that’s really gross and weird? I. DON’T. KNOW.
crying sobbing sighing hitting the mattress with my fists etc
Kate says she’s kept all of Betty’s things. Shut the front door with this cockadoody. Don’t make me feel things that are still raw, Bomb Girls, especially if you’re not gonna back it up later. As Betty’s looking through her old things, all of which Kate kept under her bed, Kate looks at Betty in the mirror, her face a mix of emotions I cannot define because I don’t know! For sure, I could interpret everything that’s happening through my giant rainbow-hued gay glasses, but I’m not getting cues anywhere else that my suspicions can be confirmed. I could write whole essays on the way these two are interacting and avoiding each other’s direct gaze and tiptoeing around certain conflicts but that’s not gonna save the farm, you know? I mean, this woman went to jail for this other woman. This other woman went through harrowing circumstances to reclaim herself and her ability to love. Can we learn at some point how either one of them feels about the other one? Aren’t we owed at least that?
Lorna confronts Gladys down in the locker room because she found out Gladys was never in the women’s corps. Gladys, unsure of how be good spy in this situation, jumps to the next worst lie she can think of, which is that she was pregnant and had a miscarriage?! Did no one drill her on all the possibilities for cover stories available to her? Obviously this is of extreme personal relevance to Lorna, who gets visibly upset and says if Gladys ever needs someone to talk to, she’s there. Gladys inner panic attack count: 6.
Betty shows up at the factory to lots of judgmental stares. Everyone knows she went to jail, and everyone knows she’s gay for ladies. Kate still walks by her side, perfect Disney Princess face shining in defiance.
Back off or we will scissor the heck all over you.
Was anyone else snorting out loud at Betty’s swagger down in the top secret shift? McCrae is back in business, motherfuckers.
SWAGGER DOWN PAT CALL MY SHIT PATRICIA
Marco’s arguing with his father over dinner about wanting to join up when he is interrupted by his girlfriend showing up in uniform. Retroactively I am bawling at this scene, but the first time I saw it I was filled with this strange sense of foreboding and dread. And yet look how cute Vera is in her uniform, y’all. This girl could make a paper bag look like it was made by Dior. Marco is obviously conflicted about this but will support Vera because he’s a really good guy.
*destiny’s child “soldier” plays in background*
Gladys is doing some after-school hobby spywork when she sees Jakob taking out one of the sonar thingies and fiddling around with it. Good spy! After this single observation alone, Gladys has come to the conclusion that Jakob is a bad guy and he cannot be trusted. He even was talking to the one girl who is actually German who was doing her job wrong! Gladys will immediately run to Bossman to report all of this without consulting Jakob first. Kind of like that time she falsely accused Marco on very little evidence, right?
SPY DO THING WITH OTHER THING MUST BE BAD SPY! THIS HOW BE GOOD SPY!
Sheila and Ned are preggers and married, which means they will have the most perfectly coiffed babies of all time. Super bummed we only got to see Ned for five seconds or the fact that they’re all shacked up in a traditional sense, because he and Sheila having a modern anti-marriage relationship was really kickass. Remember when Sheila didn’t give two fucks? That was awesome. Luckily Sheila is still super wanged that Lorna is trying to run her baby shower for her, because old people just don’t understand. Lorna feels bummed that her daughter won’t let her micromanage, and then she sees Bob being told by Ned that soon he won’t need any help anymore! Because he’s being healed of an injury that has affected his life negatively for a really long time! That’s a good thing, yo! But Lorna pulls a Vera and immediately leaves without warning. I’m just picturing Bob sitting on the curb outside the hospital waiting for Lorna to pick him up, checking his watch and playing with his blue Gameboy.
Why is there a green shift porn screening in this hospital wing?
Gladys is loading her little gun and preparing for spy things when Lorna shows up. Lorna’s feeling like she can’t help anyone, so she’s come to help the one person who might still need it. She’s brought some books about recovering from miscarriages and Gladys has yet another inner panic attack. Take a shot or two, kids!
Gladys tracks down secretly German girl Jane and makes her get in the car with her. SPIES! Then she turns Jane in and essentially ruins her life. SPIES!
DESTROY HER LIFE AND LIFE OF HER FAMILY YES HOW BE GOOD SPY VERY GOOD SPY
Vera shows up at the factory in uniform and everyone freaks out. I mean, Vera is the rock. Vera was the first time they realized how dangerous it was to work in this factory — it was her accident and her struggle that made everyone understand the significance of their jobs, even if they ostracized her at the same time. And it was Vera who rose through the ranks to go from the factory floor to the office, to show up snobs like Carol and stand on her own, to live her life the way she chose and be shameless and proud of that life. So yeah, Vera leaving this thing she’s worked so hard to own is pretty upsetting.
DO NOT LEAVE US QUEEN, DO NOT DEPRIVE US OF YOUR HOLY REGAL PRESENCE
THE QUEEN REQUESTS YOU DON’T RUMPLE OUR ESTEEMED UNIFORM WITH YOUR PEASANT HANDS
Ye Olde Shitty Dude who is always saying shitty things gives Betty and Kate a hard time, accusing them of being lesbians and also murderers. Technically, yes, but fuck you for making that sound like a bad thing, dude! Betty sheds her jacket and gets ready to pummel the shit out of this loser, but Kate tells her to stand down. And for those Disney Princess eyes, Betty’ll do anything. Betty’ll jump off a burning building into a piranha-infested lagoon just to see Kate doing cartwheels on a fuzzy VHS.
FUCK WITH ME YOU KNOW I GOT IT
In a rare delightful moment, we got a subversion of the traditional “waiting for your soldier” plot where Marco proposes to Vera, leaving for the war, and promises he’ll wait for her. I don’t even want to screencap this moment of Vera driving away because it makes me incredibly upset, but I’ll do it because breaking heart is what this show does.
NEAR FAR WHEREVER YOU ARE I BELIEVE THAT THE HEART DOES GO ON
Downstairs in top secret green shift sonar whatever blah basement place, Jakob tells Gladys she 100% bungled that last mission, that Jane is not the saboteur and tried to hang herself and Gladys is 100% wrong and should feel bad because this NO HOW BE GOOD SPY. Gladys inner panic attack, take a shot.
Betty’s gone to see Kate sing. Of course she has. Of course Betty is invested in Kate’s success, just like she was in the first season. Of course Kate wants Betty to be there, just like the old days, just like when she sang that first song and pointed at Betty when she’d wished on the moon. When Bossman asks Kate to dinner, Betty asks Kate why she’d want to be there with her when she can be with that dude. And Kate says very clearly that she’s chosen to stay there with Betty.
Betty tells Kate about the house she’s trying to get, even though the bank won’t give her a loan. Kate keeps suggesting that Betty just come live in the lesbian commune with everyone else, but Betty says she needs this house. I read this as Betty needed something she can cling to as an attainable goal after everything that’s happened, and Betty knowing she can’t return to the boardinghouse because it represents a life she can’t have again. At the same time, I have no idea how to read Kate’s reaction to Betty’s commitment to her plans, or her insistence that Betty can just come back to the boardinghouse. Does this version of Kate want things to go back to the way they were? Is that why she keeps pushing the boardinghouse thing? Is she afraid of losing Betty again? What is going on in that beautiful Disney Princess head of hers?
Pages: 1 2 3See entire article on one page
Thank you. Not saying much here because I don’t want spoilers to show up in the “recent comments” on the homepage – just – yes – I cosign all of this.
at this point bc the recap is up, autostraddle is no longer a spoiler-free zone. so you’re 120% allowed to put all your feels out there even if they’ve got some plotpoints in ’em.
I agree, this was a disappointing end to a fantastic show. The characters didn’t make sense, there was way too much How Be Good Spy and romance with Random New Guy at the expense of all the other characters’ storylines, and it was way too trigger happy.
I started the film being so happy to see everyone again, but at the end my only coherent thought was VERAAAAAAA NO WHYYYYY *sob*
I’m convinced Joss Whedon somehow got his hands on this.
If it were Joss, Kate would have died.
I felt Vera’s death was more in-line with Wash’s death from Firefly. I wasn’t going strictly with the “kill half the queer ship” approach.
Fair point.
VERA!!! *sobs*
EXACTLY. That is exactly how I’ve been explaining it to people.
Of course, it also could have been Suzanne Collins who snuck in to kill everybody who makes you feel hope for humanity just to make a point about how terrible war is and to cause emotional trauma for the main characters.
Yep. Thank you for articulating everything that was completely, bafflingly WRONG with this ending.
Once again, fanfic gotta fix errythang.
Bless you.
This ~movie, along with “Skins: Fire” will now go into the “pretend it never happened, you never saw it” pile.
Ha! I live in a world where half of the second season never happened; there were plenty of shitty things going on already. So that´s okay with me, I can pretend that Vera never joined the favorite character = dead character club and Betty is not forever caught up in a pulp-ish situation of lesbian misery.
Kate, I feel you. I have been mad about Vera’s death all damn day.
Wow, what bullshit.
Your final paragraphs were awesome, though, way to drop the mic
Can I point out how even at Vera’s *sob* memorial *sob* – Betty and Kate were separated by the holy Gladys……..
And also how blindingly predictable the plot lines were – after the first 10mins or so I could feel the impending doom of Vera as well as the ‘Gladys/new guy’ situation. From then on it was just a steady stream of nope nope NOPE
Yes (blindingly predictable lets never have Gladys single, EVER plot line).
The only good thing I can see is that they killed off Bad Accent McHelo rather quickly.
also ivan’s new way-too-unlikeable wife (sry i dont remember her name) as the saboteur?? i didn’t suspect her purely because it would have been TOO obvious.
and maybe i missed the development of this plot line, but i also didn’t expect gladys and the new guy at ALL so when they kissed it was just one more fucking ridiculous random thing that they threw into the movie.
bomb girls deserved SO much better than that.
Dude, seriously. Betty and Kate not even standing next to each other at the memorial was like… the BIGGEST fuck off of the whole thing for me.
Not to mention they pretty much spoiled a lot of new guy’s twists on facebook by posting an interview with his actor about how Jakob’s Jewish/holocaust background meant a lot to him. So it was blatant that he wasn’t the mole and also he happened to be a Pretty Cool Guy. With the personality of a slab of wood, yet still highly preferable to Helo Jolly Good Day Old Chap the Spy Guy.
I agree with everything you said….I’m still so sad about Vera’s death. She is perfect and flawless and in my mind immortal. It’s incredibly unfair that nothing was resolved with Betty and Kate, they didn’t even get to KISS but Gladys and Generic New Guy totally made out. Thank you Kate for helping me process my feelings…
That ridiculous spy storyline ruined season two, and is what caused ratings to drop and the show to be cancelled. If the movie is any indication of what season three would have been like, it’s just as well that it never happened. I watched the movie, twice and then I went back and watched all six episodes of the first season, in one sitting. The difference in the two was amazing. Somewhere along the way, the producers and writers forgot that this was a story about the lives of women working in a munitions factory, and decided to change it into some silly spy/espionage thriller. I really hate to see the show end, but it really looks that all things considered, it’s for the best. Love you Betty, See ya in the reruns. :)
Somewhere in the Atlantic, Vera Burr clings to a piece of driftwood. She washes up on an uncharted island where she learns to survive off the land and becomes hardened to the rigors of an austere lifestyle where everything and everyone is trying to eat her. Five years later she returns and dons the mantle of a masked vigilante to drive crime out of Toronto with her trusty bow and arrow and her I Do What I Want lifestyle.
AND NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.
Vera Burr for mayor! The show owes us that, and Toronto needs her.
And if AnnaY is right, it could happen.
Drats! Queer-baited again. 21st century entertainment, why do you mock me so?
I mentioned elsewhere how I was just as excited for how be good spy recap as I was for the movie, but halfway through the movie I became vastly more excited for the recap.
You hit every nail on the head here and put all my frustrations to words too. I was disgusted by Gladys’ miscarriage lie, by the uncomfortable spy thing at the boarding house, where new Betty who is quick to anger didn’t just wreck spy bossman entirely, and all of the scenes that just didn’t make sense.
I also saw most of the plot events/twists coming from so far away that they were probably having tea and crumpets with Winston Churchill. My ladyfriend and I spent most of those moments saying no, this is Bomb Girls, they’d never make it that obvious.
But they did.
I want someone to count all of the lies told overall, and times someone said sorry in the first twelve minutes.
And someone on tumblr told me Leon was in the background of the Jewel Box scene with Kate singing but I don’t have enough moonshine to bother watching it again.
I can’t even come up with a good place Reggie could be, other than maybe having higher standards than these plotlines.
Yes, Leon was on the piano, but that’s the only glimpse we got of him.
” …the ambiguous emotions of an abuse survivor who is desperate for normalcy.” That insight stopped me in my tracks, even as I was laughing and nodding at the rest of the recap. Just wanted to remark on it and say thanks for the writing and sharing; I look forward to all Kate’s articles.
All hail lesbian Jesus!
In honour of Kate’s amazing recaps, in memory of all your amazing images, I have made one of my own which I think surmises how I feel about this film.
It’s been a wild ride Kate — sad to see these recaps go… hopefully there’ll be a new series in the future you can recap!
Just watched the movie and I’m super angry and bummed out.
I’ll just go put on that show where queer characters and fans were treated with respect and allowed to be complete beings.
Oh wait, there isn’t a show like that! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
It’s time for my morning beer.
This. I cannot even say how much this and how exhausted it makes me feel.
I teared up/cried during the film, when Vera died and at the end. They shouldn’t of made the movie so much about Gladys and there definitely wasn’t enough Betty. I’m glad we all finally got to see the movie though, even if it could of been loads better.
When Betty told Kate that she could live with her “until you meet the man of your dreams,” I totally thought Kate was going to say, “I’ve already met her,” and they’d kiss, and the movie would end with the two of them walking to their house together like in the newsreel from Season 1. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED. THAT IS CANON. THE END.
The Bomb Girls movie was just added to Netflix in the US. I’m currently watching it, and I’m feeling all the disappointment.