'Lipstick Jungle': Joe owns Victory's heart

Lipstick Jungle finally put Victory and Joe fans out of their misery tonight (after teasing us all episode with the possibility of a breakup) with a sweet declaration of love and an engagement to boot. But wait...did they really? Call me a stickler for detail, but Joe never actually say yes.

Let's begin with the aforementioned couple, shall we? Victory is consumed with planning the perfect proposal for Joe, and she's going all out in the process. Proposal via Jumbotron? As cheesy as it is, her assistant has checked into it. Finally, Wendy convinces Victory to "keep it simple" and Victory stumbles on the best plan: to play to her strengths and use a needle and thread to do the talking, in the form of stitching the question into a custom-made suit for him. Unfortunately for her, Joe (and his assistant Ellen) are being quite cagey with her lately about both his whereabouts and the reason for his extremely busy schedule. She finally gets his attention for one minute and gets him to agree to see her for one hour on Friday night, their one year anniversary. Of course, because Joe is a self-centered jerk sometimes he doesn't show up and doesn't even give her the courtesy of a call. With the help of Ellen, she tracks him down at the beach (possibly Coney Island, but don't quote me on that as I'm not up on my New York geography) and he admits to her that he knew all along it was their anniversary and he stood her up because he is in trouble. Financial trouble, and pretty serious trouble at that, stating that he doesn't know how to be with her because he doesn't even know who he is without money. Victory assures him that she knows exactly who he is, he is the "man she wants to marry" and he "owns her heart." Forgive me, but all I could think of when she said that was that if Joe owns her heart, someday she is definitely going to be the owner of a lonely heart. I suppose that's much better than the owner of a broken heart, at least. (Groan, bad 80's song reference, I know. I can't help how my mind works, and if I have to go through the horror of thinking it you certainly get to share in my misery. You're welcome!) She gives him the suit and pops the question, and after hesitating a bit Joe sweeps Victory up in his arms and kisses her (all set to a very nice cover of "Make You Feel My Love"). Call me crazy, but...he didn't actually say the word yes, right? It's supposed to be romantic, and it is, but all I kept thinking in my head was "Say yes, already!" Am I the only one?

Meanwhile, Nico continued her journey to future motherhood by having her eggs harvested for freezing. When the doctor inquires about sperm donors for fertilization before freezing (because fertilized embryos have a higher success rate than unfertilized eggs), Nico says she's going to take her chances on finding the right partner someday and just freeze the eggs. It's lucky for her that despite her recent breakup with the dreamy Kirby, there's an almost equally dreamy (and much more station-appropriate) man waiting in the wings, Griffin. After working together, and somewhat against each other, to hire a new cutthroat blogger for Bonfire, their simmering romantic tension finally comes to a bit of a slow boil when Griffin lays one on her in the company elevator. Despite my earlier concerns, Griffin is growing on me and seems like a worthy romantic foil for Kirby. Later, he admits that his elevator wooing wasn't exactly work-appropriate and asks her out on a proper dinner date. Of course, things get even stickier for Nico when she runs into Kirby at Victory's store and tells him he should take the tickets for their Aspen Christmas holiday and give hers "to a friend." He immediately responds by calling her "friend" and asking her to go with him, to which we do not see her response. Will Griffin be Nico's future baby daddy? Or will Kirby? And will the show stick around long enough for us to find out?

Finally, we have Wendy and Shane and the ongoing saga of the Natasha Bedingfield tour. Things have gotten so tense between them that Wendy insists they go to marriage counseling, where the only thing that gets revealed is the obvious resentment Shane feels for not getting to fulfill his career dreams when Wendy has gotten to do so for herself in the past. For her part, Wendy is mostly only thinking of herself in the situation because she will miss him and wants him to be around. She finally suggests the entire family going on tour with him but Shane is completely resistant to the idea. I can see that. Who wants to go on their first rock tour ever with their family in tow? At one of their numerous daily gatherings, Victory and Nico finally speak up and tell Wendy what she has been blind to all along, that all Shane wants is a chance to be completely immersed in his career like she has been able to be her entire life. Perhaps if Shane had been a little more communicative about this aspect of his feelings and she a little more receptive to hearing about his feelings in the first place, their marriage wouldn't have gotten so out of sorts these past few episodes. Hearing this from her best friends wakes Wendy up and makes her tell Shane to go on the tour and do what he needs to do. He is immediately grateful, sweet, and back to the old Shane we all knew before Natasha Bedingfield ever came into their lives. I wasn't on board with this storyline in the first place but like how it evolved, and how realistically it portrayed a marriage going through one of its inevitable rough spots. Now how long until Wendy calls Shane and hears something in the background that makes her jealous? I've got one episode in my office pool.

Next week is the season (and possibly series?) finale. Make sure to tune in, and I'll see you then!

E-mail

• Digg
• Facebook
• Fark
• Yahoo Buzz
• Stumbleupon