'Minx' Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: "I Thought The Bed Was Gonna Fly"

Jul 07, 2023

It’s July, 1973, as Minx Season 2 Episode 3 (“I Thought The Bed Was Gonna Fly”) opens up. Six months have passed since the gang’s Deep Throat screening, since Constance and her bottomless bank account have swooped in to fund the new Bottom Dollar, whose portfolio now includes Doug’s new passion project, a science and space magazine called Beyond (which is edited by Carl Sagan!). All of this success has led to the company being featured in a profile (with photos shot by Annie Liebowitz!) for Rolling Stone. Last episode, I mentioned that the show’s near-constant name-dropping of 1970s celebrities was a little distracting, but the show is leaning hard into these celebrity subplots and I’m ready to embrace it.

But this is 1973. Even Though An American Family – the first ever “reality”show – premiered earlier that same year, people are not as immune to cameras and press as we are now. Joyce is struggling to be herself, to be candid, in front of the interviewers, so she finds herself agreeable to a fault, making concessions and deferring creative choices to Doug in an effort to not come off as a bossy bitch.

“What the hell was that?! We’ve got Rolling Stone posted up and all of a sudden you decide to respect me?” Doug asks. Joyce is paranoid though. The author of the article, Simon Michaels (Joshua Gomez), pens exposés that “topple despots.” Joyce doesn’t want him to bring her burgeoning empire down. But with Joyce playing nice in front of Rolling Stone, she has all kinds of pent-up anger at Doug who is making changes to things like the Minx centerfold calendar, which Joyce carefully curated to feature a mix of naked men and quotes that represented “a treasure trove of feminist witticism.” (“It pulled focus from the schlongs!” Doug defends.)

Joyce is not a believer in the “any press is good press” ideology, she she pushes back against the Rolling Stone team any chance she gets, even going so far as to hand Simon Michaels a list of pre-typed answers to the most common questions she gets asked. As a journalist herself, she’s jumping through every possible hoop to preserve her upstanding, empowered image. Constance is also trying to preserve an image, that of Minx itself. As she observes Richie’s latest photo shoot for the magazine, which features two naked cowboys strapped down to railroad ties, she tells Joyce that she’s concerned that a whisper campaign that their magazine if for gay men has sprung up. On a moral level, Constance doesn’t care, but on a business level, Connie is beholden to her sponsors. “We have advertisers that are paying specifically to reach women. Let’s not give ’em a reason to question that,” she tells Joyce.

Richie is having a hard time pulling himself together these days, too. With the success of Minx, he’s been propelled to stardom (“Life magazine called him America’s Picasso of the pecker,” Bambi tells Simon), and he’s been on a downward spiraling of partying and sex and all the other trappings. Bambi confronts him about this destructive new pattern, and he explains “When all the doors open up for you, it’s hard not to go through them!” “Been there,” Bambi commiserates. “When Elvis pulled me out of that audience in seventh grade, it was the start of a fun few years.But then I cleaned up my act, and look at him now,” she says. Oh, would that we could have a Minx prequel that’s just Bambi’s origin story! But Bambi needs Richie to take a step back from the fun and excitement and focus on what got him here: his talent. He’s having a moment, Bambi tells him, but if he continues on this partying path, he’ll lose it all.

Over in suburbia, whatever Shelly and Lenny seem to be doing great. Lenny is picking up the slack around the house, driving the kids around and finding ways to appreciate Shelly, but perhaps it’s all an act. Perhaps Lenny is compensating for something, because while making the bed, Shelly finds a woman’s earring buried in the shag rug. In fact, the two have packed up the kids to head to grandma’s and are hosting a dinner party, where Shelly confronts her friends, asking “Which of you had sex with my husband?”

As every woman in the room raises her hand, Shelly clarifies, “I mean last month.” See, Lenny’s not cheating, they’re swinging. This appears to be the key to their newfound happiness. Shelly, having adopted the persona of Miss Bella LaRouche, is also writing erotica based on her exploits. After their wild night of swinging concludes, she tells Lenny she’s considering going back to Minx. Lenny’s support this season knows no bounds. “It’s about time,” he tells her.

When Joyce finally agrees to talk to Simon, she honestly tells him that she’s worried about letting him control the narrative. He explains that without her input, he’s inclined to write about what he sees, which is a “woman gripping the wheel so tight her fingers are about to snap off.” Joyce suggests a headline: “Skittish control freak refuses to have fun?” Bambi’s role this episode is pep-talker, because she approaches Joyce after this interaction to tell her that she needs to be more open. “You’re like the frontwoman of a band, if bands had frontwomen,” Bambi says, and then she gives Joyce the opposite advice that she gave Richie: tone down the work persona and go out and live a little. She’s having a moment, Bambi tells her, but if she continues on this all-work-and-no-play path, she’ll lose it all.

So Joyce goes out (tailed by Simon) to a listening party for Linda Ronstadt (presumably Richie gave Joyce his invite so that he could enjoy a night in for once) where she schmoozes with a who’s who of Laurel Canyon types including Glenn Frey (who she thinks is Jackson Browne). Then, after a spoonful of coke, Joyce joins Linda onstage to play shakers on “When Will I Be Loved” when she makes goo-goo eyes with Linda’s guitarist, Graham. (I’m assuming that, despite the fact that Graham is not specifically identified, he’s supposed to be Graham Nash, from details that are made clearer in the next episode.)

Previously this season, Constance appeared to be a semi-silent investor, trusting that Doug and Joyce knew how to run Minx, but in this episode, she realizes that Tina is actually the one with all of the actual business acumen. After talking financials with Tina, Constance reminds Doug who’s in charge when she tells him that shes actually ceasing production on his space-themed magazine. Beyond is now behind them. While Carl Sagan (played dryly by Josh Fadem) was a true presence in the office, his services as editor emeritus of Doug’s passion project are no longer needed.

It’s nothing personal against Doug though: Constance thinks Doug has a brain for merchandising and marketing and that’s where he should focus his efforts, not on the official magazine of SkyLab.

Joyce’s night of fun ends when she shares a smoke with Simon who tells her, “You looked dangerously close to having a good time tonight.”

“I think that was the cocaine,” she replies, then apologizes for making his job harder. She explains that she’s gotten everything she ever wanted, and she’s worried about screwing it all up.

“Have you ever considered that maybe you’re exactly where you belong?” he asks. “It’s okay to like it.” It’s something Joyce never considered. Now that she’s met her goal, she’s never given herself permission to sit with her success… until now.

Bambi was the secret weapon for this episode, tying together Joyce and Richie’s storyline with her hilarious callbacks to the conversations she had with each of them, which also proved that we shouldn’t sleep on her. She’s a wise woman of many talents and many, many one liners. She also tells Doug she wants to be his assistant, to take over for Tina, but her past as a model looms over her. Here’s hoping she’s able to break out of the mold people have put her in so she can rise up.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.