'The Forsytes' Recap: Episode 2

The Forsytes airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Following the success of her gown at her birthday ball, June wants to return to the seamstress Louisa for more clothes, but her mother Frances refuses. The other Forsyte women were also impressed by Louisa; Soames’ sister Winifred and mother Emily both commend Louisa’s work – and note both that Winifred’s husband Monty “ogled” the striking Louisa and that Jo seemed to have an intimate interaction with her. James files away this gossip. 

He’s trying to maneuver Soames into the head of the family firm, despite tradition stipulating that the company be passed down from eldest son to eldest son and would therefore end up under Jo. Following Jolyon’s announcement that he will step aside to allow Jo to take over sooner, James is now arguing that the decision should come before the board. 

Jo often clashes with other members of the firm due to his morality. For instance, James has advance notice of a new diamond mine in India and an opportunity to invest – but Jo brings up the working conditions of the workers and argues the investment is a risk.

Having seen Louisa again for the first time in ten years, Jo can’t stop thinking about her and the blissful time he spent with her in Venice. That period ended when he was summoned back to London by his family. Louisa told him they could never be together permanently, since she was just a lowly lady’s maid, but eventually promised to write to him in a year and see if he was still in love with her. She never did.

Jo visits Louisa at her shop at night. She briefly lets him in after trying to turn him away. When her assistant stirs upstairs, she sends him away and regretfully asks him to never come back. 

While Jo relives a first love, Soames is experiencing one. He is spending more and more time with Irene Heron, going for walks with her in the park and learning about her artistic inclinations. Like her late mother, she is a dancer. She’s looking for work as a typist to save money so that she can return to Paris and resume her training as a ballet dancer after her father died and her inheritance evaporated suddenly, thanks to a stock trade that Soames himself made. 

When Irene gets an audition in Paris, she sells jewelry to pay for the trip, as she tells Soames during a boat ride and elaborate picnic by the river. He is startled that she is leaving in a month, but tells her she should go; he could visit her. His family may disapprove, but they don’t have to know.

They don’t. They believe Soames will be engaged soon, but to Olivia Carteret, a daughter of another wealthy and prominent family, not to a young woman they’ve never heard of with little to her name. Emily arranges for Soames to sit with Olivia during an outing to the opera, while Frances tries to set June up with Olivia’s brother at the same performance. 

June is explicitly resistant. She literally runs into Philip Bosinney while trying to get a reprieve from her family and the Carterets and is immediately attracted to him. He hands her a pamphlet about Fabianism – socialism – and leaves her after a quick exchange.

Frances asks Jo to reassure June that they will make a good choice of husband for her. Jo and June are close; for comfort, June likes to hold the glass bird Jo received from Louisa in Venice, not that June knows its origins. 

The only person who knows about Jo’s relationship with Louisa is his friend Isaac Cole, a lawyer at the Forsyte firm with whom Jo has been friends since their school days at Oxford. When Jolyon begins to worry that the board might have concerns about Jo as a head of the firm, Isaac reassures Jolyon that Jo will be a great leader. 

Frances visits Louisa again, telling her that she knows Louisa was in a relationship with Jo – and that Louisa’s twin children, one of whom is named Jolyon, are Jo’s. She warns Louisa that Jo can never find out about his children, and Louisa agrees – she wouldn’t endanger her own reputation. If Jo tries to visit, Louisa will tell him to leave.

Frances then reveals everything to Jolyon. She doesn’t think anyone else knows, or that Louisa will reveal the truth. 

Unfortunately, Jo has once again gone to see Louisa, this time during business hours, and noticed her children’s resemblance to him. He quickly puts things together. When Louisa realized she was pregnant, she was going to find and tell Jo – but then she saw a newspaper story about his marriage to Frances. So she raised their children on her own, telling everyone that their father died before they were born. The children can never know the truth, she tells Jo, who wants to see them one time before leaving. He cries as he introduces himself to them, then leaves out the back door.

Arriving at the front to see Louisa about a dress is Winifred, dropped off by her father. James sees Jo in the street behind Louisa’s shop, then sees Louisa come outside to grab her two children from the front. Having heard from the gossip of the female members of his family that Frances has forbidden June from seeing Louisa again, James starts to put things together. 

Jo tells Frances that he has learned he has two children with Louisa – and she tells him that she already knows. She wants to forget his relationship with Louisa ever happened, but he says he can’t pretend his children don’t exist. She gets him to agree to wait to tell anyone or do anything until he is safely elevated to the leadership of the firm. The revelation could prove catastrophic.

Indeed, it already is. June has been listening and heard everything. She’s upset at Jo – now she and Frances will have to share him. She guesses that the glass bird came from Louisa and leaves it behind as she walks away from Jo.

She then goes to her grandmother, Anna, who asks her what’s wrong.

Soames is also upending his life. He buys Irene a fancy pair of ballet shoes and tells her that he had never felt love until he met her. She stammers in response. He offers to release her from an engagement if she finds that it restricts her too much. But if she agrees to his proposal, they can go to Paris together.