Julia Season 2

This lady was deeply homophobic and the rewriting of history to make her some kind of lovable feminist bon vivant makes me sick.

R1 Her homophobia seems much more complicated than the simple tribalism it usually stems from today. And it is fascinating to see how it was tempered by admiration and appreciation of the gay people she actually knew and worked with.

The first episode was a bit "Previously on" but the best thing about it was, hands down, Bebe Neuwirth.

Judith Light is serving HAM! HAM! HAM!

And Russ the hot Don Draper wannabe was still hotly hot in this episode.

I really enjoyed the forst three episodes that dropped, interesting in ways I was not expecting.

Isabella Rossellini was unrecognizable for a moment and very good. Stockard Channing looks ghastly, like Madame in the old Waylon Flowers and Madame ventriloquist act. Danny Burstein looks bigger and taller than I was expecting, or maybe Bebe Neuwirth is just tiny.

I liked if for a while, then her voice became tiresome.

Too much Earl J. Waggedorn for me.

Stockard looks OK for 79. Her work settled a bit. Her little speech reminded me a bit of her monologue from Six Degrees. Well, when one has Stockard one gives her a monologue.

Sam was quite the dish. I didn't buy the Jacques Brel thing for a second, though.

I'm sick of almost everyone at WGBH. I want to see Julia and Avis.

R7, I agree about the tv station employees. They’re generally so pedestrian and uninteresting (although I admit that Rachel Bloom was a good addition).

Is Sarah…larger..this season?

R8 I like Fran whatshis face aka Russ but honestly I couldn't tell any of the others apart.

The writing on this season is DREADFUL.

Was it this bad last year & I just didn’t notice?

I like this season almost better because it covers less familiar territory.

Helen Gurly Brown shitting on the milquetoast, male supremacist host on air was funny.

Episode 3 was good, although it beggars belief that both Brel and Sartre would be crossing paths with these people.

I knew how Alice's story would end in this ep from the word go, though.

I thought Sartre didn't speak English. In e3 he's being a drip in English.

That Paul was such a homo.

Every time I see this thread title I think:

this show is boring as fuck

Fat and not shaped like Child at all.

I feel like the series just doesn't know what it wants to be or what it wants to say. It began so well its first season but I saw the seams showing before they were done. Episode 1 did not impress me. But I'll keep watching, of course. as I do love the cast.

Julia has been a background character in her own show this season. Judith and Avis are the most interesting things about the show right now

I, for one, am not very enthusiastic about the character of Judith and don't know why she's practically railroaded (is that the right phrase?) the series. Why should we care about her? But also, what are the JULIA writers even trying to say about the character? She seems to have "issues" but I don't why or what they ar

And Alice - instead of maturing with her new power at WGBH, she seems to have become a dithering idiot who can't deal with the station's programming and can't even tell if she's pregnant or not....or what to do about it. She's become spunkless.

Is Alice's boy friend the same fellow from last season? Either way, I hope he gets a shirtless scene soon to relieve the boredom.

Now that I know Julia Childs was a "rabidly" homophobic cunt - she's dead to me. Don't want to hear another thing about her.

I kind of liked the idea of that Stockard Channing character as a sort of Truth Teller confronting all of these strangers en masse and individually with her opinions about them. But her dialogue and delivery was clunky.

Why in the world would young Sam go after old Paul? Were there really no better options in Provence?

Was Sam in bed with a woman in that end montage?

It seems that Sam was a starfucker/gold digger (obviously) and he must have thought Paul had some kind of cred in the art world.

Beautiful man, though.

[quote] And Alice - instead of maturing with her new power at WGBH, she seems to have become a dithering idiot who can't deal with the station's programming and can't even tell if she's pregnant or not....or what to do about it. She's become spunkless.

That did seem out of character for her, but I also saw that as a remark on the times, that even a smart, educated woman might not know a lot about her own body and/or human sexuality, as per the moral code of the times.

I am so excited! I loved the first season and will definitely be my Thanksgiving watch tomorrow. Though, I feel Sarah Lancashire makes Julia more flowery and soft where she was a much harder, butchier woman in real life. I don’t think she leaned as heavily on Paul. And the HBO series is filled with make believe. The real Russ Morash, producer of “French Chef” put out this interview explaining the many fabrications the show made up:

Well, kind of a weird episode.

I thought being back in Boston might give the episode a little more momentum. But still, wtf is this about? All the "plot lines" just seem to meander around without much tension. Julia herself even seems unmoored and purposeless.

Poor Sarah Lancashire....please find yourself a better character back in the UK. The writing this season has left her rather uninteresting.

Interesting episode.

DHP in a dual role.....hmm.

Bebe owned tonight's episode. She did it all. Or as the kids would say: She ATE and LEFT NO CRUMBS!

R21, I think the idiom you are looking for is “hijacked.” But I like the character (and actress) so I don’t mind. And Bebe really was brilliant.

I’m hoping Paul’s homo dalliances come into play with the FBI guy.

I continue to be confused and disappointed with this series in its latest installment. So many story lines that seemed to come out of nowhere and go nowhere -

Paul's twin brother, wtf?

a LIFE Magazine writer who seemed to want to do a hatchet job on poor Julia (are the writers familiar with LIFE?

That LIFE would want to rearrange all the furniture in Julia's house for a photo spread

That women's issues show with the Black hostess, wtf?? And wouldn't they have previewed the pilot with some kind of an audience before axing it?

The uselessness of the Rachel Bloom character

Julia's dependence on Avis for a magazine interview (especially with Judith already there)

Enough with Judith already. Why must she be constantly hanging around?

And worst of all, Sarah Lancashire is really becoming tiresome because of the bad writing

[quote] this show is boring as fuck

It’s not supposed to be Mannix, Rose.

I've enjoyed S2 well enough but agree that Julia seems to be weirdly backburnered this year.

And having her away from the WGBH people for the first few episodes was just Soap Writing Mistake #1 - don't island your main character(s). One episode, sure. Three? Give me a break.

I thought this latest episode was bizarre. A twin brother? Why? The black female producer has been anachronistic from the start, but that chat show would NEVER have gotten that far in 1962 and certainly would not have had a moderator of color.

They seem at pains to show Julia as flawed and rather conservative, which is fine and perhaps true, but a sort of aimlessness seems to have set in with this series and I’m not sure why so many of the supporting cast have come to the fore this season. I’m just not that interested in most of them. And why should we care about the office politics at Knopf publishers in the early ‘60s? Oh, yeah, I know, sexism.

But enough already.

Bebe and DHP really made a meal of the last show, but again, why is Julia a supporting character in a show named after her?

Season 2 is trying too hard to be... woke? .... Julia was moderately homophobic until she saw what the AIDS crisis was doing to the population, then she changed her tune considerably. She was never a feminist. I liked Julia Child a lot for who she was, and this "reading between the lines" alternate history is as bad as Bridgerton being what it is complete with powered fountains early in the 19th century

When did Alice’s boobs explode? I don’t remember noticing them at all last season, but now they’re sailing into scenes at least a yard before her.

Somebody at HBO needs to pull the plug on this thing.

They probably will, R40. WBD/HBO is killing most of their shows.

That might have been the best ep of the season. It was funny and moved quickly. Lots of snappy dialogue.

"Tell my mother I'm dead."

I think it’s the best episode of the series so far, R42.

I almost fell asleep during this episode. Those tedious unfunny telethon scenes dragged.

I do love the hunky cameraman who was forced to man the phones, though.

Why do they keep dragging that book editor Judith back for every episode? It's not that the actress is bad, but the character just doesn't need to always be hanging around. Avis filled in just fine previously.

The beefy camerman was hot, indeed.

As is the actor who plays John Updike.

The camera man is a local Boston actor they found while filming there. Michael Malvestri, I think is his name,

Updike is Broadway actor Bryce Pinkham.

I need Michael inside me quite deeply.

And Bryce waiting to slide in after he's done.

I like it but agree it didn't really achieve a lot. I also think HBO will kill it and Gilded Age. Too expensive for the return.

But I wonder, who's producing what is or passes for the good drama any more? Because all the streamers seem to be rushing for the bottom.

I do wonder how much of the season of shows like Julia and The Gilded Age are written before a show is given the green light to production. Both of these series had so much potential but (for me) failed to deliver ultimately. They both seem like they're still being written as they're shooting as the arcs, such as they are, meander so badly.

It's comfort food TV, nothing more. And that's just fine with me.

THAT was another really good episode.

Finally, some shit with actual stakes happened.

I enjoy this show a lot but this does remind me of Downton Abbey frequently - where things noodle around aimlessly forever and then a bunch of shit happens at once.

Have we seen the last of Danny Burstein on this series?

Please don't saddle Bebe Newirth with any more Wtf? scenes with that awful actress playing the Harvard (Radcliffe?) co-ed.

Melanie Mayron is now totally unrecognizable. And, interestingly, it's not because of recent plastic surgery to look younger. She totally looks her age which I guess would be mid-70s.

But from old plastic surgery that just completely obliterated her original face. I had no idea who that was playing Robert Joy's wife until the credits rolled.

That was Robert Joy's wife? Who knew?

This show works so hard to get feminist, anti-racist points but fails, at least for me, because I'm so distracted by the historical inaccuracies. The White House show took place in 1968, not 1963, when there was no antiwar movement to speak of. Julia, quite the celeb by then, attended the state dinner in question. There's no evidence that Chef Haller was rude to her and they seem to get on well on camera. How nice for his adult children to see him slandered as a snob. Two minor inconsistencies: The head of protocol was a man. Blanche Knopf was dead by the time the show came out.

Chef Zephyr Wright was the Johnson family chef and her story is a lovely one. Apparently, she educated Lyndon Johnson on the need for a civil rights law by recounting the indignities she faced traveling cross-country from the Johnson Ranch in Texas to their DC home. Unfortunately, having her interact with a fictitious character dilutes her impact. Kennedy's French chef quit on Johnson because he refused to use frozen food as the Johnsons requested in an attempt to economize. Wright, a self-trained cook, held down the fort until Haller was hired although she did not do any state dinners.

I was convinced that the bowling night would end up with the two husbands in bed with each other. Anybody else?

'

OMG I had no idea THAT was Melanie Mayron

So, is it true that Julia did a TV show with the White House chef but then wasn't invited into the dinner that occurred after the TV shoot? If so, was this well-known at the time?

I thought I read that she was invited but can't find the cite. It's a non-issue. It was a huge achievement to win the White House's cooperation during the upheaval of the Vietnam War and the 1968 presidential campaign to open its doors to the press. That was the point--documenting the process of what goes into a state dinner, not being an honored guest. She was there to do a job.

The show bends over backward to depict Julia as slighted, God knows why.

What the hell was that bowling scene about and why were the boys' balls so small?

And are we supposed to think that Paulsky actually had homosexual dalliances during WWII or was that just a false accusation to fire him from the diplomatic corps?

Also, if you want to do a show about Alfred and Blanche Knopf (who I'm sure were a fascinating couple), do a show about them and stop injecting little cliched bits about them into Julia's story. For me they've never really been established as 3 dimensional characters. This episode was the first time I felt anything for Blanche but I might have felt so much more if the character had been more fully rounded from the start. She's a chain smoker - we get it - she's angry!

Candlepin bowling was a thing in Boston. I am amazed at what details the show considers important and the big lapses it ignores.

FWIW I believe this season takes place in 1964, not 1963.

I hear they're working on a spin-off for next season - Those Krazy Knopfs

R60 I think so, this would clearly be post-JFK.

It kept driving me crazy who was playing the wife. It finally hit me that OMG that’s Melanie Mayron!

I’d read a little about Zephyr Wright. It was nice to see them portray her in such a great light.

Oh and Hannah Einbinder! That was fun.

[quote]Oh and Hannah Einbinder! That was fun.

Thank you! She was so familiar to me but I couldn't place her.

Melanie Mayron has also directed episodes she's appeared in. Right now she's doing an off (off off?) Broadway play with DL fave Marilu Henner.

OMFG I did NOT know that was Hannah Einbinder. She really modulated her voice. Or didn't give it the vocal fry she does on Hacks.

Season's already over as of Thursday. Bummer.

They did a good job casting Zephyr. The actress playing her looks like the original.

[quote]Now that I know Julia Childs was a "rabidly" homophobic cunt - she's dead to me. Don't want to hear another thing about her.

Not even the fact that her name was CHILD and not Childs?

R24 probably also watches Sally Fields.

That was a good episode too....maybe the perfect one to end the series with.......and the final line was hilarious.

If they don't return for season 3 then they left everyone in a good place. I loved the scene in the diner with Bebe and the college student. Hilarious.

Like watching "The Crown," I learned a little history from factchecking each episode.

r73 Make sure to watch "Archie" and do the same thing.

Archie left out his gay relationship with Orry Kelly and their operation of a speakeasy. The problem with Archie is that Jason Isaacs is charisma-free while Cary Grant could light up a room..

Haven't factchecked Maestro but I may have PTSD. from it. Read my partner the DL review, "worse than Tar", and that says it all.

r75, please go into Maestro with an open mind. I found it to be very fresh and innovative filmmaking, not schmaltzy like the trailer led me to believe, and I'm not even a Bradley Cooper fan.

While I enjoyed “Julia” episode by episode this season, I was thoroughly perplexed by it. Where is the focus and what is the point?

The real Child single-handedly helped to make Americans more sophisticated about food, about the pleasures and enjoyment of preparing food well and feeding one’s family and friends. She told viewers to insist that their supermarkets stock a variety of fresh vegetables and herbs, things that were not commonly available then. She promoted a French (really a European) idea of enjoying communal meals, the beginning of the “slow food” movement. And she raised the level of sophistication about food. Because the U.S. in the early ‘60s was all about TV dinners, canned and frozen vegetables, etc.

But what Julia Child was not was a progressive culture warrior. She was in fact a natural conservative who perhaps loosened up and became more tolerant over time. And why have all the supporting cast become so important to the series? I’m not passionately interested in the politics at Knopf and find the general Sisterhood-Is-Powerful vibe to be completely anachronistic, along with the black feminist female producer at WGBH.

They should have set the series in the ‘70s or ‘80s if they wanted to show a rapidly changing culture. The U.S. was just not there yet in 1964. And this show acting like it was just bugs me.

R77 It didn't have a clear narrative arc this season, to be sure.

It seemed to be "here's the quirky people we hang out with" and not so much about Julia herself.

Agree with you both, r77 and r78. This series began last year with so much potential (and fun) and devolved quickly in the first season to an odd aimlessness. It always feels ti me like it was being written weekly and shot without any clear point or focus.

I still loved it - a pleasant hour spent with interesting adults without abuse, antiheroes or nihilism.

But yes, it devolved a bit this year especially.

I'm so with you, R80. After the pandemic, I wrongly predicted a fierce desire for happier, affirming, optimistic entertainment. Instead we got more vampires. I was wrong. But I love cocooning with this show. It's just a break from it all.

I actually think it makes sense that post-pandemic entertainment is heavy on monsters, zombies and apocalyptic stories. It one way a culture works out the trauma,

Why the fuck did there need to be a scene with Judith and Madhur Jaffrey? The way Judith ate that Indian food was really annoying,

And as awful an nachronism that Alice was I did adore Adrane Lennox as her mom and the guy playing Isaac was adorable.

I want Isaac in me quite deeply.

R83. Not half as annoying as the way Judith Light ate up the scenery.

Isaac is played by Tosin Morohunfola. Check out his Insta - lots of hunky shirtless photos!

HIs beard is very sexy but I wonder if he wouldn't photograph better without it on TV as he has such beautiful dark skin? I found it a little hard to see his facial expressions. And I question a beard like that on a Black lawyer (any lawyer) in 1964.

That silly Commie hunt plot line went nowhere.

I find it odd that Julia was homophobic considering the number of homos she had on her Baking With Julia series.

Oh, and that one episode with the couple, where the husband is clearly transitioning, is rather disturbing to me.

[quote] Oh, and that one episode with the couple, where the husband is clearly transitioning, is rather disturbing to me.

???

I think Julia and Paul had a weird sort of homophobia that was expected in their day - they liked individual people who were gay but at that time ,most people didn't really grasp it as an identity.

To her credit, when her awareness was raised she changed her attitude. If I can give Tammy Faye Bakker the grace to change I'm sure able to do it for JC.

r89, IIRC it was a bread episode with Jeffery Alford. It replays on Pluto TV with regularity.

If he isn't transitioning...

Well, apparently Katharine Hepburn was homophobic in spite of being one and working and partying with many of them. It was a different time.

Tosin Morohunfola is FINE. Damn.

Oh FUCK yeah.

I may have to borrow from a certain DL troll but if any one deserves the "king" monitor this dude does!

[quote]R82 it makes sense that post-pandemic entertainment is heavy on monsters, zombies and apocalyptic stories. It one way a culture works out the trauma,

But those subjects were already abundant before the pandemic.

I hate this, but after reading Our Flag Means Death was cancelled it doesn't come as a surprise.

R96. Sad but not shocking. That last episode of season 2 felt like a series finale so they must have suspected something. I loved this show and the cast.

Bummer!

Fuck. I felt like Sarah Lancashire was really becoming comfortable in the role in Season 2.

I liked the show much more than most people here seemed to, so I'm disappointed to hear it's not returning. The inaccuracies and anachronisms bothered me at first, but once I realized they were using the bare bones of Julia's story to tell their own I could enjoy it for what it was. I'll definitely re-watch the series in the future.

I'm saddened but not surprised it was canceled. It was such a sweet show (it's rare to show a series about two married in late middle age who are in love with each other), but it must have cost a fortune to make with all the period clothing and sets. It offered really good work for Lancashire, Hyde-Pierce, Neuwirth, and Rossellini (who was very charming as the explosively ambivalent friend and collaborator).

I am sure we will see much more of Brittany Bradford, who was so appealing as Alice Naman.

[quote]I hate this, but after reading Our Flag Means Death was cancelled it doesn't come as a surprise.

What exactly has one to do with the other? Our Flag had a natural conclusion and even its showrunners said it's pretty much done, so Max ended it per their wishes. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

Perhaps a few of us can make our way up to Boston to console the local actor who plays Benny the cameraman.

Wasn't Julia Childs a super nasty homophobic fat cunt?

Why is she being lauded on DL?

Anyway - it's cancelled.

I started season 2 last night and, honestly, had trouble getting through the first episode. I found the first season quite charming. Not a major dramatic achievement, of course, but a well acted and directed hour of comfort food TV -- sometimes amusing, sometimes surprisingly touching. But, I don't know, the first episode of season 2 was such a dud... they're trying to force dramatic conflict into a story that may not have any. Does it get better?

Season 2 sucked. The show should have been renamed "Julia and Her Boring Friends, But Mostly Her Boring Friends"

Yeah, they definitely made a mistake with starting Season 2 so slowly and waiting until episodes 2/3 to get everyone back at WGBH.

I'll still pinch my nipples and think of Benny.

I'll miss Sarah Lancashire and David Hyde and look forward to seeing them in better productions,

When Bebe Newirth danced around a kitchen in a men's shirt, the show had jumped the shark. But I watched it until the bitter end.

I loved this show, loved the sort of ragtag group of characters.

But I think this show made the same fatal mistake that another show I loved, "Home Fires," did. When it got a Season 2, it sort of slowed down story and/or took a long time to ramp up in that second season, because the narrative focused on character or subtle touches instead of plot.

With both shows, the beginning of the second season went off on a tangent and by the time things ramped up toward the end a lot of interest had been squandered.

I'm all for characterization and subtle touches but it does need to be balanced with plot/moving action forward. Having Julia in France for a few episodes really muted that, sadly, in this season.

[quote]I liked the show much more than most people here seemed to

I enjoyed it too but honestly... did Julia Child live such an exciting/interesting life to warrant a series? Season 1 should have been the one and done.

The second season felt like it was being written as they shot it. Like they didn't have a master plan from the beginning.

I really didn't get what they were trying to do with Bebe's character, giving her a fun love interest and then snatching it away in such a sour mode. She deserved better from the writers. And I don't know why they thought that Julia's book agent was an essential character who needed so much screen time. Also, I'm just tired of David Hyde Pierce and his schtick. I know everyone loves him onstage and off, but he's very one note to me. The Isabella R. character's thorny relationship with Julia had potential but I just didn't think the writing was deep enough to get it anywhere, like they were afraid to really explore the emotions.

And as much as I have loved Sarah Lancashire on so many shows, by S2, she'd become kind of a shrill caricature. She also deserved better treatment.

I don't get the love for Judith Light. She may be a lovely person and a champion of gay causes but I think she's a bad actress. Of course she's got two Tony's so what the fuck do I know.

Totally agree about Judith Light, r113. She's so hammy and obvious. There's no subtlety or reality there. She seemed to get like that with Transparent and never looked back. As I remember, she was fine on soaps and on her series with Tony Danza.

[quote]Totally agree about Judith Light

What's up with her and her husband? Are they both gay, but... Inquiring minds want to know!

I have a lot of respect for her. I respect any actor that has remained in the industry for so long and has been working consistently.

R115. Ok, rumor back in the day was Judith and the late (and gorgeous) Anita Morris were lovers. Remember, Anita was married to Grover Dale so.............who knows. Judith's husband also pings off the charts.

Thanks, R116. They have (in my small mind) an unusual marriage but apparently it works for them and so... GOOD for them!

Oh! I have to add that what I do enjoy about series such as this one, "The Gilded Age" et alia is that at many times I'm struck by the history and of many of the people involved. I sit with my laptop and google the people and/or events involved and I learn about them. I was unfamiliar with Blanche Knopf (and Judith Jones too) and I enjoyed learning more about them.

I think Blanche Alfred Knopf are fascinating characters but JULIA didn't have the time to really delve into their relationship and importance in 20th century culture so I think one episode early on about Blanche would have been sufficient instead of the melodramatic dribs and drabs we'd get every other episode.

The inevitable: a petition has started.....

It felt like they never had enough for more than one season then thought, heck, we can develop stories for all the supporting characters!

But I mean, do we care about Russia project? The unrealistic career adventures of a black woman producer in the 60s? The editor, Judith? Bebe playing someone named Avis but always being just Bebe?

We still enjoyed it for Sarah. But there was lots of filler.

Can't get wrapped up in the travails of characters who never existed when I'm watching something based on a real character.

Her twat was real for sure

Vagina dentata!

I love the show but it's done and no petition will bring it back. Plus we'll always have Meryl's cuddly Julia to treasure.

Fuck Meryl!

R126 - the ex Mr Streep