This episode opens with another distinguished store owner coming to dinner with Harry (Jeremy Piven) from across the pond; FW Woolworth (Michael Brandon) and he is to opening a new store in Brixton. Whist his wife, Jennie (Lisa Eichorn) and Rose (Frances O'Connor) share pleasantries, the men engage in some rivalry. With Woolowrth talking about how he intends to open a store for everyone, be thrifty, whereas Selfridge's is for the wealthy. Harry should stick to the duchesses. Harry doesn't believe that having a store like Woolworth on Oxford Street can be good for business. Rose sees that Jennie is suffering immensely and doesn't look well. Jennie remarks on how she preferred it when they were "coming up" in the world since they had each other and spent more time together. Something that must have rung true for Rose too.
Rose speaks with Lady Mae (Katherine Kelly) about Rosalie's (Poppy Lee Friar) coming out and Lady Mae suggests she move onto the next step of meeting eligible bachelors. She invites her to the next soiree and Harry accompanies her too. Where surprise, or not so surprisingly, Rose finds Rosalie talking with none other than Roddy Temple (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) alone. Well it's no secret he'd worm his way back in somehow and Rose doesn't like him being here. Let alone spending time with Rosalie.
So on Sunday Rosalie feigns illness to get out of going to church and when Rose returns home she finds Rosalie with Roddy and very cosy they looked too. He claims he was giving Rosalie a drawing lesson but Rose wants him out in no uncertain terms and wants him away from her daughter. Telling him Harry will be home soon and will have very different ideas about the impropriety in a drawing lesson. Yeah should have let Harry beat the crap (sorry) out of Roddy too!
Harry sets to work on the store, asking his staff what he can buy for a penny. Answer being hardly anything. Thus he comes up with the idea of a mid-season sale. Anything for a penny, or as cheap as chips, open to all and not just the rich. Taking on Woolworth's "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" ethos. Especially after Crab (Ron Cook) tells him Mrs Crab (Wendy Nottingham) will be frequenting Woolworth's for her cheap shopping.
Lady Mae gets Victor (Trystan Gravelle) to make ice cream for her guests and he's just realized, I so wanted to say, the penny's just dropped, ha; she won't be funding his restaurant anytime soon, if ever. She wants him to leave the back way so her guests don't see him. Also she thinks he's rushing things and she doesn't like to be rushed. Agnes (Aisling Loftus) gets closer to Henri (Gregory Fitoussi) and spends the night with him. He's more into refined things and the opera and she doesn't even know what that is. She likes the way he can tell a story and admits one day she'd like his job, but that's not why she likes him. Agnes takes him to Spitalfield's and he notices a display where everything is packed together. Giving him an idea for a store window display.
Agnes finds Victor waiting for her when she returns home and invites him for coffee. Him thinking he may still have a chance with her. He comments on her large bouquet of flowers, probably from Henri but she doesn't tell him that. He mentions not being able to get the investment since she made him roll over and beg like a dog but he didn't get a biscuit in the end. he mentions the 'she' word freely now whereas before it was a slip of the tongue and he didn't know the possible investor was a woman. At the Palm Court, Ellen Love (Zoe Tapper) wants her usual table as she brings Tony (Will Payne) in tow. But Victor tells her it's Harry's table, however she's insistent. Harry wants some menus revised so that the ordinary customer can eat there too and when Victor suggests the menu change he's cut off by Perez (Timothy Watson).
Harry has to endure Ellen and Tony who tells her she's starring in his new play, having to make smalltalk with them. He tells Perez to let him know when they're here next time since he doesn't want to bump into them. Grove (Tom Goodman-Hill) decides on the assistant for the Accessories department, he opts for Doris (Lauren Crace) which I said, but Miss Mardle (Amanda Abbington) makes him change that to Kitty (Amy Beth Hayes) as Miss Mardle knows her own mind and his, better than he does his own. This comes after their little 'altercation' when Grove needs more time to decide what he wants to do about their 'relationship.' He was with his wife for 12 years and doesn't know whether he loved her or not.
Grove gives Doris his wife's clothes for Miss Bunting (Pippa Haywood) and tells her Harry has refused a reference as he's not willing to do that for someone who steals. Victor comes up with an idea of selling ice cream and candies for a penny throughout the store during the sale, which Gordon (Adam Wilson) thinks is great and so does Harry. Kitty sells Mrs Crab a hat but we don't now who she is until Crab introduces her to Harry. She's done an awful lot of shopping and Crab will be amazed. That he will, especially at his bank balance, ha.
Rose returns home to find Roddy with the children again and when she tells him to leave he attempts to blackmail to make her come to his studio and then he won't have to come here. She hates how he's using Rosalie to get to her and calls him "insufferable." Well he is cos he can't take the hint that she doesn't want anything to do with him. As he leaves he bumps into Harry on the street but doesn't know who he is. Oh they should just set Harry onto him and be done with it. What makes him think Harry or Rose would deem him a suitable match for Rosalie, he's practically a penniless painter! And nothing more than a cad, besides he doesn't want Rosalie but Rose and what better way to get to the mother than through the daughter. Did he think he was fooling anyone by being so obvious.
Woolworth tells Harry he's done wonders with the sale, which is to last for another two weeks, but he's leaving cos Jennie isn't well and he should have seen the signs before. Family is everything at the end of the day. He'll be opening a store in Croydon. That may have opened Harry's eyes and made him rush home to the family, but don't think it will last that long. Was Miss Mardle really looking out for Doris when she wanted Kitty to have the job saying she won't be so easily taken in, like she was.
Lots of loosening of corsets and purse strings in this episode! Not to forget Crab getting excited at the prospect of an "automatic nutcracker."
Wonder how long Agnes will have her head up in the clouds as far as Henri is concerned, especially considering she was kind of a rebound for him from his other love. Also the way Agnes keeps calling him a "fairytale prince" living in a castle. A Chateau, he responds, but he says it wasn't such a good life. As for Lady Mae's dress didn't think she would wear that to her 'soiree' and Rose appeared as if she was about to fall out of hers any minute now!
Also wonder if Harry would stock My NCIS Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to NCIS the TV Show?? Anything for a quick buck you know, ha!! Seeing as he was "prepared to sell anything from an aeroplane to a cigar."
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