'The Forsytes' Recap: Episode 4

The Forsytes airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
Keep up with your favorite dramas and mysteries by signing up for our newsletter, Dramalogue. 

Facing the disapproval of his wife Frances and erstwhile lover Louisa, Jo has backed away from trying to be involved in the lives of the twin children he just learned he has. He has provided an allowance for them once they come of age, but that is all. He has cut ties with Louisa.

His father Jolyon decides it is time to pass on the chairmanship of the family firm. Jolyon wants to be able to mentor Jo while he’s still around, and install him while his cousin and rival Soames is away in Paris, distracted by his honeymoon. But Jolyon’s brother James is still trying to prevent Jo’s ascendance, sweeping in when Jo tries to warn a client against investing in a mine in India because of the working conditions. James argues to the board that Jo doesn’t have what it takes. When profits from the mine begin to pour in, James flaunts them before Jo.

In his anger over the whole thing and his attempt to commit himself fully to the company and his family, Jo takes down all the paintings he made while in Venice a decade ago with Louisa.

Soames and Irene are in bliss on their honeymoon in Paris. After a couple weeks of silence, Soames has written to his father saying that he will stay in France permanently and set up a branch of the company there so that Irene can dance in the ballet in Paris. He didn’t go to college or on a grand tour of Europe because his father thought they were nothing on starting to work for the firm early. He’s enjoying breaking away from devotion to his family and work.

But cracks are already starting to show. Soames is lightly upset when Irene goes to watch the sunrise on her own; he wants to do everything together. And he’s out of place when he meets her friends from the ballet at a neighborhood bar; they want to drink absinthe, he’d rather have champagne. 

James is predictably infuriated by Soames’ letter. He informs the board, using it as just another reason that Jo must be replaced as chairman: Soames is clearly doing this because he doesn’t want to work under Jo. James’ useless son-in-law Monty sees an opportunity to become the favored heir in Soames’ absence.

James fires off a telegram to Soames insisting that he will drag him home himself if Soames doesn’t come of his own volition – even while lamenting to his wife Emily that he sees the whole purpose of his life as preparing Soames to take over the company and worries that he has failed. Soames crumples the telegram upon receipt.

The family had hoped Soames might marry one of the aristocratic Carterets, but they have another chance at nobility in the form of June. Frances is throwing her at Horatio Carteret, and is pleased when June seems delighted after an evening spent with him.

But June is happy because she has spent the day with the radical architect Philip Bosinney, sharing a love of Keats. When she receives an invitation to the Carteret family seat, however, she realizes that her biddability is about to lead to a proposal from Horatio. Once again, the Forsytes all anticipate an engagement to a Carteret.

But June goes to Bosinney and tells him she would rather marry him. He objects that they wouldn’t have money to live on and that she would be disowned; she convinces him to get engaged on behalf of true love nevertheless. 

She absentmindedly reveals this at dinner with her family, to the shock of all – except Ann, who once again has proven a better reader of people than anyone else. She’s even somewhat amused by the whole thing. Jo tells June he should meet Bosinney.

Bosinney assumes Jo will reject him, but his aggrieved defiance is continually deflated by Jo. Bosinney tells him that he has never met anyone like June, but also admits that he can’t support her yet. Jo consents to an engagement but says the couple cannot get married until Bosinney has completed his first commission as an architect.

Explaining his reasoning later to a shocked Frances, he says that it could take years for Bosinney to get a commission, given his stubbornness. By then, the romance will either have fallen apart or proved its truth and longevity. June is overjoyed. 

James notes the lack of engagement announcement and small party, happy that his son is not the only one to choose a less-than-advantageous spouse. At the engagement party, Ann suggests to Jolyon that June is interested in Bosinney because he is forbidden, as a radical, nameless, struggling architect. She compares the situation to her own sons fighting over a woman just so that the other couldn’t have her.

Jolyon then goes to James and reminisces about that woman, Alexandra. The brothers were friends until their father pitted them against each other. They both wonder what happened to Alexandra, even as James insists everything worked out for the best. 

Things are already starting to sour for Soames. When Irene excitedly takes him to see the ballet she wants to join, he is appalled by the costumes and partnering, imagining other men’s hands and eyes on her. He tells her that his father is upset by his decision to open an office in Paris, and that he owes it to James to explain in person. He and Irene must return to London. She is disappointed but understands.

Ellen Parker Barrington, whom June saw speak at the meeting of Fabians where she first spent significant time with Bosinney, is urging Louisa to revisit where things went south for her. Parker Barrington supported Louisa after she became pregnant with Jo’s children, finding her lodgings, a midwife, and work as a dressmaker. Now she asks Louisa to tell her story before the society women for whom she makes dresses, to convince them to have more sympathy for the “fallen” women they support in charity. Despite the risk to her reputation, Louisa agrees – and is well-received. But, as she begins to explain that she is not widowed and her children were born out of wedlock, she notices that Frances is at the gathering. She lies and says that their father is dead. 

Frances quickly leaves, and so does Louisa after receiving a letter that her ailing children, sick with scarlet fever, are worsening. Later, while walking with Frances and Isaac Cole’s wife Alicia, Parker Barrington brings up Louisa and her sick children. Frances quickly excuses herself.

But Alicia informs Isaac, who tells Jo. He rushes to see his children, entering Louisa’s shop to find her crying. The fever has passed. She faces him, seeming to want to go to him, but he leaves before she can. He returns to his house and doesn’t get back into bed with Frances.