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'Mrs America' Episode 4 Review: Betty Friedman finds an unusual ally after Phyllis Schlafly publicly ruins her

'Betty' portrays the complex relationship between not just Friedan and Gloria Steinem, but also highlights Tracey Ulman's nuanced breakdown of the frenzied writer

Spoilers for 'Mrs America' Episode 4 'Betty'

Eponymously titled after the legendary Betty Friedan, the fourth episode of FX's 'Mrs America' chronicles a dramatized desperation of the feminist writer's attempts to get heard within the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) community as her achievements get overshadowed by Gloria Steinem's popularity. What starts as a witchhunt aimed at the ERA's opposition, Phyllis Schlafly and her possible ties with the Ku Klux Klan soon turns into her breaking pacts within her own liberal community and getting explicit on talks shows in a manner the 70s wasn't ready for women to be.

Documenting her strive towards more damage than control, Episode 4 'Betty' sees the complex relationship between not just Friedan and Steinem, but also highlights Tracey Ulman's nuanced breakdown of the frenzied writer, who just wishes she was more acknowledged by a movement she sparked than them just calling her over when they need her help.

When we meet these pillars of feminism in the latest episode, they are celebrating 30 out of the 38 states having ratified the ERA. Abortion is inching closer to the brink of being legal and while some women clamor outside the ERA headquarters begging Friedan for an autograph, the majority scream and gush at Steinem's poster just behind Friedan, highlighting the clash at the very core. Perhaps it is the fictionalization of events, but Steinem, of course, is more calm and collected. The way she has always been right from the moment we met her in Episode 2, where a reporter hit her with Friedan's comments on Steinem's brand of face-value activism.

Rose Byrne brings to display her avatar Helen from the touted romcom of SNL alums, 'Bridemaids', while Ulman's Friedan is an increasingly neurotic resemblance of Kristen Wiig's character, Annie. Much like the tiff between Helen and Annie over who's a better bridesmaid and friend for Lillian, Friedan and Steinem's fight for who's a better spokeswoman for the ERA is often amusing. While Steinem is compassionate about her employees at Ms Magazine being targeted by tokenism while being equally blind towards her own, Friedan is fierce in her agenda: Bring Schlafly down.

Both pillars of the movement, even though never seeing eye to eye, rival only in their significance among the masses. And as the episode inches forward with Friedan getting more and more brazen with her statements against the STOP ERA activists, Steinem has to bear the brunt of her comrade's outrage in the form of lewd, false advertisements about her brand all over newspapers.

On one hand, we have Dahvi Waller's exceptional script, which when mingled with Ulman's fiery, impassioned portrayal of Friedan, even though pushing Cate Blanchet's Schlafly to practically douse them with gasoline, is also the only match for the STOP ERA. Radical or not, this episode discusses whether maintaining one's calm and poise is really the right way to go about their personal rights getting hindered. Blanchet is menacing as Schlafly in ways more than one, completely taking her public debate with Friedan by storm, right from her opening argument. Her purpose is to rile Friedan to the point of a manic breakdown in public as she targets her beliefs in homosexuality and touts the lack of male-consent in legalized abortion. This is where Friedan highlights the hypocrisy in Schlafly's activism right at its core. Schlafly propagates women should stay at home but flies around the country to achieve her purpose. 

On the other hand, there is no defeating the maliciousness intent of Schalfly calling out Friedan as the unhappiest woman she has ever met, something that Blanchett does with composure and sheer brilliance. Unfortunately, when Friedan loses her cool and proclaims "You are a witch, God, I'd like to burn you at the stake," while Ulman soars in her portrayal of every ounce of burning ache that Friedan's personal life targeted could have felt, her character's stand on the movement dims.

Only to be lit up later by Steinem calling her up and admitting her 'late arrival' to the movement was purely because of Friedan's book that lit the spark. It's a coming of circle moments for a greying, aging fire that has been seasoned and marinated by sexism and misogyny of every imaginable kind. Yet, sometimes what works the best is a fresher take, a newer outlook towards a concept, probably what makes the Steinem-Friedan bond a formidable force to watch out for. 

'Mrs America' drops new episodes weekly every Wednesday only on Hulu.