Flesh and Bone Episode 7: Full Dress

Trigger warning for everything because this show is all triggers tossed in the swirly machine at the carnival. 

Full Dress: When soldiers wear full combat gear, and the full dress rehearsal before a performance.

In the hospital, Mia is bandaged and sleeping. A nurse gives her what-for about not eating and hiding food in her covers to make it look like she ate and threatens her with a feeding tube, but Mia isn’t having it. Claire comes in- Monica told the rest of company that they could visit Mia (it’s been two weeks). Mia shows her back and Claire makes for the door, but Mia rolls over. Claire fills Mia in- they’re in tech rehearsals  now, and Romeo hasn’t been seen (he’s been heard). Mia starts to cry, and Claire’s, like look, just do what they say and you’ll be back. “I can’t.”

Claire’s brought a cookie (a big one), and eats Mia’s sad hospital breakfast, trading Mia bite for bite. Mia asks Claire why she’s doing this, and Claire doesn’t answer. As Claire is leaving, she runs into Mia’s mother, who can’t believe there’s no other visitors from ABC, and then she spills the beans – Mia’s been diagnosed with MS. Claire’s floored, and agrees to not tell anyone at ABC about it. Mia’s mom: “She could have years, right, before she’s crippled? What did I do? I never did nothing but love her!”

Blonde lady no one cares about is tasting (obscenely expensive) food for the gala and Monica tells her that the check to the booze supplier bounced. Are we shocked? We are not. Jessica (maiden name Wakefield, maybe? IDK) calls the bank, and in another ~shocking twist~ the check she got from her ex also bounced. She goes into the bathroom, wisely checks the stalls (I love it when people actually remember to do that), and calls her ex and leaves a very angry message. “I am done trying to convince Molly she has a decent father.” She then calls him back and leaves a tearful apologetic message. “I know you were going to fix it. You’re a…. good father.”

She then digs through the files to get Daphne’s father’s number, and finds out that he did NOT give any donation.

At the tech rehearsal, Trey is displeasing as the male lead in Rubies, and Paul brings Ross back in (who’s been waiting in the wings for this moment).

While Daphne takes a smoke break, Jessica tries to charm the name of the actual donor out of her, then basically says that if there isn’t another donation, the company will basically fall apart, and without the donor’s name, the IRS is gonna be pissed. “We’ve had anonymous donors in the past.” “Anonymous to the public, but not to us.” Daphne isn’t having it. Jessica tries to appeal to Daphne’s privileged background, but no. Daphne did leave the matchbook from Sergei’s club behind, so there will be a detective montage later on (spoilers).

Kiira dry swallows some pills, and wraps an ice pack around her foot. Paul bursts in to see her icing her foot, and he’s concerned that Rubies and Toni’s piece are too much stress for her foot. Claire might be able to take Kiira’s place in Toni’s piece and Kiira’s like no, the public pays to see me, and pain is a fact of life so fuck off Paul. “Our bodies betray us all eventually!” “MY BODY HAS BETRAYED NO ONE.” She swears at him in what I assume is Russian or Ukrainian. “You don’t want me to do it!” She then lays down a couple of hard truths- without her and her perfection, he was no one but a busboy with a bad back and a rich boyfriend. “You made this company, but I am the one who made you!” She throws her pointe shoes and a few other things at him and he flees.

Claire walks into the theater, when they are finishing up the tech run of Rubies (Ugh, Balanchine), and she gets yelled at for being late. She explains she was visiting Mia, and she thought since they were doing Rubies first…  Paul: There is no one that supersedes your commitment to me…I am everything to you, except your mother, because she will still love you if you fail. Claire: “I never knew my mother.” Paul does a fairly stereotypical “I made you” speech. “Do you know how fortunate you are?” “Do you?” Claire snaps, being the first non-prima person to talk back to him in years. “Because I’m pretty sure you need me.”

Paul hauls her off to one of those random rooms that all theaters have, and tells her that he made a call to the Pittsburgh Ballet to get their take on her mystery time away. He doesn’t come out and say it, but people do talk in small towns. He tells her that yes, he needs her, but she needs him, otherwise she ends up back in Pittsburgh. His physicality during this bit is AMAZING.

They being the tech run for Toni’s piece, which involves swaddling Claire in drapes attached to the flylines. The equipment breaks, and needs to be replaced. The stage master is wearing a utilikilt, and Paul snarks at him “Is that a KILT?” “Unbifurcated garments allow increased freedom and mobility.” They can order the new motor and it’ll be there the next day, then it needs to be inspected. Opening night is in two days. The dancers are given the rest of the day off.

Daphne tries to get Claire to go to Sergei’s, but Claire isn’t going back there, now that she knows what Sergei’s business with underage girls is. Daphne’s like what are you talking about, but I got it handled.

Kiira is with her dealer, begging for a cortisone shot, and he’s like, your stress fracture could shatter and you wouldn’t feel a thing. “There will be other ballets” but she’s like no, I don’t think there will be. She tries to offer him sex for drugs, and he doesn’t go for it. Eventually, he gives her the syringe and the cortisone, and marks the spot on her foot that it needs to go in. He’ll give her the gun, but she has to pull the trigger.

Jessica’s detective montage: she figures out that the money came from the owner of a strip club, and meets with Sergei. She asks for another contribution, but Sergei is a man of the world- he can tell as soon as she walked in the door that she swiped money and needs to put it back. He’ll give her the $35K for recognition (“I deserve honor as major donor”) and 11 seats to opening night, etc etc. She agrees because what other choice does she have?

Romeo sees Claire coming home and runs down to talk to her. She’s still incredibly angry that he ruined her favorite book, and he won’t let her get inside. “There’s a reckoning coming!” and she’ll be the one to fix everything. It’s all in the book he gave her. “You ruined my book!” He grabs her head “IT’S NOT YOUR BOOK” she runs inside and he staggers down the middle of the street yelling “blood is in the water! Behold the dragon!”

What is this, season 3 of Hannibal? Is Richard Armitage going to show up? (Actually…..)

Claire locks the windows and pulls the shades, and stares off into the distance as this trippy sequences of voice overs and Bryan out of focus on the couch ensues. She wants to be loved enough to be real.

Back at the theater, Paul is tapping his foot as the inspector inspects.  Miraculously, the inspector signs off on everything, and the tech rehearsal is back on. Kiira injects her foot, and prepares to do her variation on a numb foot (and mostly in costume, which is odd. Toni: “Interesting.”) It’s beautiful.  Paul: “Brava.” Kirra: “I don’t go on stage to disappoint.” Paul tells her that she wins- she will be on stage in Toni’s piece. Claire is called in to also do the same variation, and there’s a point of surreality, as Paul’s voice calls for again, and Claire finishes, and everyone cheers, but she’s having flashbacks to terrible things Paul has said, and things Toni has said and it’s too much and she runs off stage.

Kiira in her dressing room. She tosses all her makeup and her mirror into the trash, along with her pointe shoes. She leaves her dressing room and runs into Claire, and tells her “it’s all yours.” Claire goes into her own dressing room, and crawls under the makeup table and calls Bryan.

Bryan hits ignore, and she calls him back. Their father calls (“Hey Fucko!”) for help getting out of the bathtub, and Bryan isn’t doing it right and there’s lots of yelling and it’s awful. Bryan sits him on the toilet, and his father hits him. “Don’t you GRAB” and Bryan swallows and then his face goes absolutely still and you see him consider the idea of just killing the old man, and you know he can (Really it’s an amazing moment). The old man cowers in the corner, and Bryan decides not to, but it was on a razor edge for a minute.

Claire has been calling this whole time, and he finally answers. She’s crying and can’t even talk. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. You’re real, Claire.” He doesn’t know what else he can say, and she begs him to come to New York. “I need you to see.”

Kiira gets out of a car and stares at her house.

Claire left a message for Bryan. “That was a mistake, last time I was there.” Bryan can crash in Mia’s room, so “I just want to be clear.” Claire throws her books off her beds, and goes to the bathroom, picks up a pair of scissors, and cuts off her ponytail.  

Elyse:

Ah, the symbolic hair cutting. Nothing says, “I’m on the edge of an emotional breakdown” like a woman cutting her hair apparently.

I really liked the tech rehearsal bits, the anxiety of everything not being ready, the competition between Kiira and Claire. The bit where Kiira realizes she’s done is amazing.

I still don’t understand why Claire needs Bryan in order to be “real.” The premise of the show was her running away, I thought.

My big complaint is all the subplots that aren’t contributing. We don’t need Jessica and her money issues. We don’t need the Trey/ Ross drama. ALL WE NEED IS KIIRA BOSSING SHIT AROUND AND DANCING!

RHG:

It is true that young women do use drastic haircuts as a form of self-mutilation or self-declaration (not saying that all drastic haircuts are, but like when Britney Spears shaved her head? That’s a pretty good example), and I’m not surprised that Claire did. In the previous lies, we saw her flip the fuck out at a random guy who tugged her ponytail, and we saw Bryan wrap it around his hand when they were having sex, so there’s something there for her that was was trying to exorcise. It’s a moment I feel was earned, from a storyline we didn’t need.

So I’m conflicted.

What I am NOT conflicted about is this Jessica embezzles money and then gets into bed with the Russian Mob nonsense.  I am not conflicted about this at all. If we didn’t have that, then we could spend more time with Mia or Kiira or Ross or ACTUAL DANCING.

That said, I’m looking forward to see how we wrap up this nonsense. It could be great, but I’m not holding my breath.