Awesome / Feud

Feud: Bette and Joan

Pilot

• Bob Aldrich, after an episode of him bumbling and being pushed around and going from studio to studio, makes a grand speech about why Jack Warner needs him to direct this movie. Telling him that his last pictures were flops and he is competing with television and that Whatever Happened To Baby Jane will guarantee success for the studios and himself.
• Bette Davis when she gets the idea for her makeup. She gets sparked just as soon as she hears that one of the blonde wigs was worn by Joan Crawford, takes that wig and starts doing her make up with such obvious glee, she starts looking uglier and uglier to the point where even BD is horrified. And then when she shows up on set....

  Hello. Daddy.

The Other Woman

• The way that Bette gets the "cookie playing the neighbor" fired. The act itself is not nice, but they do both have a point that Bob Aldridge is a lady killer who cheats on his wife all the time and having a young, pretty blonde in the mix could negatively affect the filming. Joan informs Bette that Bob refused to can the girl, so Bette then gets dressed and acts as if she will leave "sick" and he confronts her.
  Bette: I'm going home sick, Bob.
  Bob: You don't look sick.
  Bette: I am. I'm sick to my stomach because of you. I thought you wanted to work with me and Crawford because you respected us, because you wanted our opinions, but clearly you don't, and that just makes me want to vomit.
  Bob: What are you talking about?
  Bette: Joan wants that woman playing the neighbor girl gone and I have to agree. You're casting with the wrong head, Bob. She's not an actress. She's not going to elevate the material. I mean, look at her!
  Bob (angrily) Her audition was wonderful.
  Bette: I want her gone.
  Bob: I won't do it.
  Bette: Then I'm going home sick. (a staring contest ensues) I forgot my purse. (she flicks the ashes off her cig, walks back towards her dressing room)
  Bob: (throws down his clipboard) Goddammit! (cut to the blonde girl, tears on her face, walking off the set with her things packed as Joan and Bette watch triumphantly at a distance before going their separate ways)

Mommie Dearest

• Bette is the only person in the series to stand up to Hedda "Welcome to the house that fear built" Hopper when the woman threatens to write some libelous and malicious stuff about Bette and BD. Bette even calls Hopper out for talking shit about Joan Crawford.

More Or Less

• Mamacita consoling Pauline is nothing short of awesome. Pauline approached Joan hoping to have her star in a screenplay that she wrote, but Joan turns her down, citing that Pauline is an unknown person and it wouldn't do Joan any good to be in a production this late in her career for someone who has no credits as a director or as a writer. Mamacita then shows Pauline the census report for the United States, informing her that at that time—1963—there are one million more women than men in the country and that by the 1970s, the number will be even higher.
  Mamacita: Studios will be obligated to make movies by women, for women. It only makes economic sense. Keep your head up. Your day is coming.
  Pauline: (finally smiling) Mamacita, you're a real big picture thinker. *they enjoy their pie together*
• Joan firing her agents. She has a point—she (at least in the show, not in real life) was the one who found the book and sent it to Bob Aldridge and recruited Bette Davis for it, so it's absurd that she did all of that herself and yet her agents couldn't drum up any new roles the entire time she filmed Baby Jane.

And the Winner Is...

• It is wrong and a horrible thing to do, but it is a little awesome how Joan positioned herself to upstage Bette after being snubbed by the Academy. She regrets it immediately, but seeing her petty revenge executed is admittedly a little awesome.

Hagsploitation

• Robert Aldrich after being pushed around by Jack for five and a half episodes finally takes back control when he reveals he shopped Charlotte around to other studios and got a partnership and full autonomy for the project and informs Warner Baby Jane was his and that he had to convince Warner to work with the two. He then said he came to get his balls back, damn!

Abandoned

• Mamacita finally getting fed up with Joan's crap and leaving after Joan throws a vase at her.

You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends?