But the writers’ choice to instead depict more nebulous forms of gendered undermining is a smart, if occasionally cringe-inducing, narrative choice. In its third season, as in its solid first and stellar second installments, The Bold Type addresses the issues facing young women not by dramatizing conflict beyond reasonable bounds, but by following its leads with a refreshing attention to the social forces that affect each part of their lives.

As with any Hollywood workplace rendering, though, the show has some moments of dubious authenticity. As a writer—which is to say, a particularly invested party—it’s been consistently hard for me to not at least giggle at the show’s depictions of editorial processes. (And sure, I was tickled by the quick shot of a profile of “Patrick Duchand, Digital Wunderkind” on a mock-up of The Atlantic.) On The Bold Type, every story is supposedly urgent, but no one ever seems to be in a rush to write; social media is allegedly important, but the team director doesn’t appear to know how to schedule tweets. The series tackles the interior lives of its leads with impressive realism, but stretches the truth most obviously when it comes to its depictions of their jobs as purveyors of fact. (I will admit, though, that perhaps a small portion of my incredulity might stem from jealousy—what I wouldn’t give for Jane’s writing schedule, which appears to be “whenever inspiration strikes.”)



It’s a television show, of course, so these are forgivable lapses—the Freeform program’s most natural predecessor, Sex and the City, was hardly known for its journalistic rigor. And The Bold Type more than makes up for these retouches with its clear investment in the characters who lead Scarlet. Though Patrick’s addition to the show’s glossy ecosystem sets the new season up for its biggest shifts, he’s not the only queer male character who gets substantial screen time: Sutton grows closer to her boss, Oliver (Stephen Conrad Moore), after noticing a lapse in his attention at the office and inadvertently learning some backstory about his life. It’s a welcome fleshing out of Oliver’s character; though clearly talented and exacting in his management of Sutton, he’d previously been one of the less realized figures.

The main women’s relationships all progress, too, with Kat’s being perhaps the most instructive for young women navigating love and loss alongside the pressures of hyper-connectivity. Jane’s onetime fling, the writer Ryan, appears at length, too (the friends all call him “Pinstripe,” after the Scarlet-affiliated publication where he worked when he met Jane). In one charmingly risqué scene, Sutton accidentally sees him leaving Jane’s room naked post-coitus. The friends then proceed to joke, with no shortage of admiring laughter, about “Pinstripe’s peen-stripe,” a Carrie Bradshaw–ian line so corny, it’s endearing. Thankfully, The Bold Type, with its earnest story lines and thoughtful touches, remains a delight to watch.

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