BOMB GIRLS: “Misfires” (Debut Season, Second Episode)

The second episode of Bomb Girls entitled “Misfires” aired on Reelz Channel this past Tuesday and centered on what happens when a badly made bomb has devastating effects on all the employees at Victory Munitions.

As a refresher, Bomb Girls is set around a group of women who work at a Toronto bomb-making factory during the early years of World War II, showing not only the plight of women during that time period but also issues of race, nationalism and class.

Marco (Antonio Cupo) and a couple of the other men at the factory are out in a nearby field doing tests on some of the recently-built bombs through a standard test when tragedy strikes. A badly made bomb goes off injuring all of the men except for Marco, who was just slightly out of close range.

Given the time frame for this show and the over-riding opinion of the male population in relation to the women workers at the factory, they were blamed for the faulty bomb. In order to find out who the “culprit” was behind the bad bomb, all of the women had to be retested; and whoever scored the lowest on the test was not only going to be fired but used as the scapegoat with the government.

Despite her best efforts, which are seen more as a joke to the men at the plant than anything else, Lorna (Meg Tilly) tries to stand up for her girls; especially recently widowed Edith (Lisa Norton) who turns out to be the low scorer in the assembly test. This poor woman already has a lot on her plate – she is the sole breadwinner for her family not to mention the fact her husband was just killed in the war (and her children don’t know that truth) – she is used as the fall guy for the bad bomb and no one seems to care except the women at the plant.

In an effort to help Edith where she can, Lorna tries to prove that it was actually one of the men at the plant – who is known for being a bit of a drunkard – who was behind the bad bomb. Ironically, the one person on Lorna’s side is Marco – the very man she does not trust – but Lorna goes to Marco anyway, asking for his help. He does offer to go to the head honcho at the plant –Harold Akins (Richard Fitzpatrick) about the real culprit and kisses Lorna at the dance hall, completely throwing her off balance.

The main “B” story in this episode is Gladys (Jodi Balfour) trying to show that she is more than just a rich girl by attempting to install a suggestion box at the factory, allowing the employees to voice their ideas for ways to improve the conditions at the plant. At first, she is met with resistance by all of the girls on the line; but after the men use the suggestion box to belittle them, tough girl Betty (Ali Liebert), steps in to push the women to make their voices heard. Lorna then gets on board, taking the suggestions to Harold, but – of course – he blows her and the suggestion box off as nothing more than a joke.

Meanwhile, due to the enforced re-testing of all the women at the plant, Kate (Charlotte Hegele) – who really isn’t Kate (that’s the fake name she is using to hide out from her religious-crazy father) – is in deep trouble because she doesn’t have her security papers that are a necessity for her to work at the factory. Betty steps in to help by telling Kate that she “knows a guy who can help her”. That guy is the 1940’s version of a pornographer, taking pictures of women in risqué-for-the-time lingerie and/or bathing suits in exchange for forging the documentation. Kate gets her security papers, which saves her from losing her job, but now those pictures are out there and could cause problems for her down the line.

Also, Lorna is trying to help Edith keep the truth from her children about their father’s death, by forging a hand-written letter from their dad to them. She isn’t having any success getting the handwriting to match so her husband Bob (Peter Outerbridge) steps in to help. Whether Edith’s idea to keep her children in the dark about the truth of their father’s demise is a good idea or not or an idea that Lorna even condones, Lorna is doing her best to be a good friend and boss to Edith.

The next new episode of the debut season of Bomb Girls will air on Tuesday, September 25 at 10 PM.