in the spirit of my nostalgia, i thought i'd get english major all over THE HOUSE OF ELIOTT...
as i said yesterday, the opener is on the two eliott sisters, post fight with father, who essentially walks out of the dining room, has a heart attack and dies.....a good lesson for all you self-serving, tightwad jerks out there....the spoils really DO go to the victor.

(a little aside here; the actress who played beatrice, stella gonet, plays the mother in nicholas nickleby, based on the dicken's novel. it's an incredibly sad and funny story of vindication which features that cute, cute jamie bell!)
when it comes time to lawyer-down with the estate, despite the surroundings of monied accomplishment, all that's really left are the house with its contents, and a nice, big stack-o-bills....and by bills i mean debt, not moola. cousin arthur, executor of father's estate, is beyond condescending to the sisters in relating this revelation, in particular to beatrice, of whom i believe he's secretly intimidated.

the revelation, as it were, is two-part. 1) father did not deem beatrice, aged 28, who had essentially been a governess to evangaline, competent enough to serve as her guardian. father made arthur evie's guardian, and 2) the bit about there being no money. now, in the modern age, this wouldn't be such a big deal; you'd just go and get a job....however, in the modern age, a certain level of education is mandated by law, which was only getting started at the beginning of the century. {for perspective; in 1920 usa, women had only legally been able to vote for 7 years} father had declined to give his daughters any formal education, instead using teenage beatrice as a combination housekeeper/governess for the young evie, which obviously left both in a vunerable and dependent position. add to that a social climate where women were essentailly to be seen and not heard, with a small pool of jobs considered appropriate for young ladies of certain breeding, and you can see the truly horrid position the eliott sisters were in. arthur, of course, thinks that father has done no wrong, although we are suspicious that he's running his own agenda with the goal of having evie for himself.....after alternating questions and demands for information about father, arther tells bea,
"Supposition gets you nowhere. It's foolish to think of it."...just so you have some kind of context for arthur's attitude.
bea and evie have a number of insults added to their injury...

in the midst of cleaning up many of father's things. they uncover a suitcase full of expensive and elegant clothing which they'd never seen before.....it becomes apparent that, although father never spent much money on his daughters, he had surely spent it on himself. this attempt at subjugation, like so many the eliott sisters are exposed to, ultimately leads to their victory. i don't think i'm laying out a spoiler here by intimating that their need for sewing as young girls becomes a saving grace, since the show is called HOUSE OF ELIOTT....i suppose "house" is meant as a pun of sorts; both as the family name, and as a center of fashion..... i digress....making lemonade with their lemons, the sisters set about reclaiming the clothes for their own. these creations being the first to garner covetous attention.
in addition to many other restrictions, the sisters had never been encouraged to have friends, so of course the next thing that happens is evie makes a friend of

PENELOPE MADOX. (i don't really have to get into that whole thing about the a's and the d's, do i?)
a reformer-type of the time, she and evie hit it off from the moment go. most likely this is due to the fact that evie has helped home the sick woman that penelope was about to visit. this is evie's first view of the working class life. she figuratively has her mind-blown when told that the family has no coal with which to heat up any water. when you think about it, living at that time, when electricity was still fairly "new", and bacteria very active, if you could't light your stove, you had no heat, no hot food, no hot water, no means of killing said germs, which meant a lot of exposure for children.....prolly one of the reasons so many children died at that time....
the upside of all this; penelope's brother jack needs to hire a receptionist at his photography studio

through some quippy conversation the job eventually goes to bea. despite her initial dislike for jack, despite his calling her "nanny", bea kicks major ass at the job, and a true friendship evolves between the two.
i want to mention that there's some background stuff going on with the maid, molly.

although i feel inclined to mention it, this would be a huge tangeant unto itself, so i'll save it for some other time....especially since molly's not a main character. just remember there's a pot simmering on the rear left burner, k?
the arrival of a seemingly innocuous mystery letter is really another insult in disguise.

i suppose it's a plot-driving technique, but for reasons unfathomable to me, evie decides to track down the ----- of said letter without telling bea. this is one of the few scenario's so far that just doesn't wash with me. i think the sisters are too close to leave some huge white elephant in the room that no one's talking about....
what IS being talked about is the outrage of arthur's finding evie wearing pants! IN HER OWN HOUSE!!!!

"Trousers today, Lord knows WHAT tomorrow!" - aunt lydia (again, providing some context for the conventional attitude the house of eliott is up against)
as in many dickens novels (and i don't know why i keep fixating on dickens when there's so many similarities between this and sense and sensibility), there's always a bit of good fortune that slips in the side door, even if only momentarily. everyone needs a little air to live... for the sisters this meant their first real party, escorted by jack and his pal piggy ("because of my neat feet").

some folks out there might recognize piggy from various appearances as hildebrande "tuppy" glossip in jeeves and wooster (hey! there's that fry-N-laurie thing!) now, what would fun truly be if there weren't a disapproving arthur in the picture? why not nearly so much fun!!!! not to mention that seizing the day to show off some of their own creations afforded the house of eliott the opportunity to take a couple of dress-making commissions from some of the other guests. try as he might, arthur simply cannot get any backing for his indignance at finding bea and evie enjoying themselves, as almost equals to himself. although the ball seems to be rolling for the sisters, there are a couple of roadblock-type challenges that have been set up, if not sighted.... womanizer that he is, jack can't help but kiss evie, who eventually walks in on jack and daphne haycock back at the studio...can we say awkward?!?!

this is daphne haycock, again for context....there are many things i could talk about, since daphne is a flapper....many social ramifications to that....my grandmother ran off to atlantic city to do the flapper thing when she was around 16.... daphne's behavior is so outrageous and irratic, she must surely have some kind of amphetamines going on.....for the record; my grandmother never took amphetamines.

the next challenge is a pill many might find to big to swallow...turns out that father was leading a double life. the woman above was his....well, i suppose mistress, but more like wife without the marriage. in conversations between both evie and bea, mrs. pearch, as she calls herself, was the one on whom father had spent most of his money. she and "the boy". the son they had together went to all the finest schools, had all the best opportunities, while the sisters were left cocooned in their own ignorance. the affair apparently started while the mother was still alive. the mother died during evie's childbirth, despite the doctor's warning that she should NOT try to have more children. the implication being the wife knew about father's affair, and was perhaps trying to have a son to win him back. mrs. pearce makes it well known that she might not have put herself forward while father was alive, but she certainly did expect her fair share of the estate, if not for herself, than for their half-brother. as of now, mrs. pearce knows nothing of affairs of the estate....which has to be sold.
while waiting for the house to be sold, there are a couple of asides. at penelope's urging, the sisters break even further in constraint by making the move into the main parlour to work on dress commissions they've received. at this point they've taken on tilly, daughter of the sick woman whom instigated the friendship between penelope and evie (who, by the way, continue to talk politics, and social reform during their many hang-out sessions).

another aside is that piggy

seems to be hot for bea.....i'm not sure how long this is to last, which is why i didn't think of peregrin garstone as a "main character" (even less so, now that i've peeped the imdb).....
in the interim, both sisters wind up getting a job with madame partini

evie's doing menial jobs in the workshop, and bea, with jack's employer approval, eventually takes over the books. the house is finally sold, but aunt lydia and arthur conspire to conceal 400 of the 500 pounds left after debt, in case the sisters might become a bit too independant for their own good. heaven forbid they should suceed!!! what kind of reflection would that be on the family of eliott!!!
with their dress-maker assistant-type positions, and their 100 pounds (i have absolutely NO idea what the american money equivalent of this would be, nor the equivalent of today's money), the sisters get themselves an apartment

and run, run, fast as they can from the sold family home.

bea and evie have tilly cut their hair in the time honored tradition of many beginnings of new adventures....

i admit, this makes me want to get my hair professionally cut. sage did a wonderful job when she cut my ponytail off for locks-o-love, but it's grown out a bit now, and gotten kinda unweildly....i digress...

as the sisters work on with madame partini, they start to experience conflict. m.partini is all over evie from some slipshod work,

and refuses bea's request for raises in wage for she and evie, despite their good work, clients they've "landed", and money they've saved....
tilly, a working class girl who's unhindered by some of the class crap that bea and evie are stuck with, encourages them to hold their ground.

they have several commissions, with the potential for more, and are confident that bea will get another job (i'm super suspicious that jack will take her back as his receptionist, especially now that they live right upstairs....oh? did i mention their apartment is right upstairs from jack's photography studio? cuz it is...). things will ALL WORK OUT, which means, of course

bea and evie's half-brother sebastian shows up at their apartment.....
this is the end of the first three episodes....i will NOT be doing this kind of an entry again. three episodes at once is too much for my wee brain. i got all caught up in the storyline, leaving the nuances that get all my synapses firing to the minor sidelines, if mentioned at all... all the good stuff like the conditioned social subjigation of women, varying social roles for social classes (which is important in the interactions between molly, tilly, and the sisters), resource inequity, interpersonal relationships, the ability to make one's weakness a strength, the vindication of those whom have experienced injustice, amazing design, allowing the creative process to evolve...ALL THE GOOD STUFF!!! at this point i can't really feel my fingers anymore (my computer desk/chair sitch is beyond ergonomically incorrect), and i don't even know if i'd make much sense of what i have to say about those themes anyway. in fact, i think the time has come to go take that nap before i take the dogs to the dog park....when i get the next dvd, i'll take this in parts, and hit everything...surely...