BOMB GIRLS Recap: “How You Trust” (Debut Season, Episode 3)

At the mid-way point of the debut season of Bomb Girls, as currently being aired on Reelz Channel, this week’s new episode entitled “How You Trust” covered – what else? – trust issues between the women on the assembly line at Victory Munitions as well as closer to home with the relationship between rich girl Gladys (Jodi Balfour) and her fiancé James (Sebastian Pigott).

But first, as the ladies arrived for a new day of work, Kate (Charlotte Hegele) was reminded by Lorna (Meg Tilly) that all jewelry needed to be safely stowed away before going down to the assembly line just before the military showed up for a surprise inspection.

While Harold Akins (Richard Fitzpatrick) deals with the Colonel who is at the factory to oversee the inspection, Lorna and the women on the assembly line are seemingly on the battlefront, fighting to keep their jobs. At the end of the inspection, though, Gladys is convinced that one of the inspectors pilfered an expensive bottle of perfume – a gift from her fiancé – from her locker. Since there is no proof as to who the culprit is, however, Lorna tells all the women they will each be docked pay for the lost bottle. This revelation, of course, puts Gladys right back on the front lines with the women, making her a target once again.

In the meantime, Lorna places an Italian newspaper for which Marco (Antonio Cupo) had been reading prior to the start of the work day into his locker, hoping it would get him pulled out of the company. That wish becomes fact when he is hauled away by the military and presumed to be placed in an internment camp. When Harold instructs Lorna to take Marco’s last paycheck to his mother (since he was the only breadwinner in the home), Lorna finds out that he was released with no penalties – except losing his job. Marco kept that truth from his mother so as not to upset their family, who are already dealing with the fact that his father is in an internment camp, and when Lorna tries to deliver the paycheck she finds Marco at home and then is rather strong-armed – by Marco’s mother – into staying for dinner.

NOTE: It is interesting to note that during the early days of World War II pasta; namely spaghetti, which was the food on tab at Marco’s home, was an unknown delicacy that was completely foreign to North American residents.

Meanwhile, things between Gladys and the women on the assembly line haven’t improved because now a pricey scarf was taken from her locker; but this time Gladys set a trap. She spilled dye inside her purse and the culprit ended up with purple stains on her hands. That culprit is Hazel (Brittany Allen), who – as it turns out – is or was having some kind of affair with Gladys’s fiancé James as learned by Gladys, Kate and Betty (Ali Liebert) during a secret mission to prove that Hazel is, indeed, the culprit.

This new fact has a profound effect on Gladys – who confronts Hazel at the factory the next day and eventually gets her stolen property back from said trollop – but her relationship with James will never be the same.

In the main B-story of the episode, Kate is relegated to working on her own in the storage room by a suspicious Lorna who finds the earlier mentioned necklace hanging on one of the coat hooks in the women’s locker room during the factory inspection. When asked by Lorna how Kate had a necklace engraved to Marion (her real name), Kate tells Lorna she found it in a nearby alley – an obvious lie that got her sent to the storage room. In order to while away the boredom of the storage room, Kate sings a song from her church-going days and is surprisingly joined by a melodic deep voice; but the mystery man doesn’t come forward. Kate asks around the factory, tracking down the man who claims to be the storage room singer; only he turns out to be a lecher who just wants to have his way with Kate. His attempt at conquest over Kate is interrupted when Leon Buck (Jim Codrington) (one of the few blacks who work at the factory) knocks the man out and reveals himself as the real storage room singer.

In the end, Gladys seeks comfort with Kate and Betty (over the revealed truth of James’ presumed infidelity with Hazel), listening to the vocal stylings of Billie Holliday (as recommended by Leon to Kate) and Lorna and Marco share yet another kiss as he walked her home after their impromptu dinner together.

The next new episode of the debut season of Bomb Girls will air on Tuesday, October 2 at 10 PM on Reelz Channel.

NOTE: There are only three more episodes to go for this season.