The New Look Season 1 Episode 5 Recap – Perhaps Some Seeds

The New Look enters uneven territory in Episode 5, which is the first installment mostly bereft of the tension and intrigue that has defined Season 1 thus far. With Coco Chanel having left Paris in Episode 4, she feels both literally and figuratively detached from the story’s core, and her personal woes — most of which are becoming self-inflicted at this point — are significantly less interesting than Christian Dior’s.

Even Christian, though, has slipped into a kind of stasis while waiting for what he believes is Catherine’s inevitable return, and the show joins him. The pacing suffers, then, but a couple of extremely powerful images and sequences, and a truly wonderful performance from Ben Mendelsohn, should be enough to keep viewers entertained — for now, anyway.

The New Look Season 1 Episode 5 Recap

The cold open of “Give Your Heart and Soul to Me” lays out Christian’s arc for this episode. Edith Piaf sings in honor of those who have been lost in the war, asking all those in the crowd who are mourning someone to stand. Christian refuses to, despite Jacques urging him to do so, since it would be admitting that Catherine is not coming home. Thanks to the vague prognostications of a clairvoyant and his grief, Christian has convinced himself that Catherine’s return is imminent and has put his life on hold to prepare for it.

Christian can’t move on

As mentioned, Christian is living his life on pause. Georges Vigouroux, another designer acquaintance, wants him to take his previous role at the head of Philippe et Gaston; Lucien, meanwhile, wants him to sign a contract that has been sitting on his desk for four and a half months. Christian is reluctant to do either since he believes that when Catherine returns he will need to tend to her, and can’t be busy with work.

Not that he’s especially busy with work in the meantime, or at least not with designing. Lucien is trying to replace Pierre Balmain, who has now set up his own couture house with a loan from his mother, and Christian is in charge of hiring his replacement. The episode’s only moment of levity comes in the interview of Pierre Cardin.

Of course, nobody believes Christian that Catherine is alive. One gets the sense that Christian doesn’t believe it himself, though he pretends to since it’s easier than challenging his spiritual beliefs and having to live with the grief. However, his hope is seemingly validated when he receives a call that Catherine has been found alive, wandering in Dresden after escaping from a death march, and will be returning home the next day — albeit on a journey that is proving fatal to many.

One of the strongest scenes of “Give Your Heart and Soul to Me”, and indeed the season overall, occurs at the station where Christian goes to pick Catherine up. Her name, like many others, is on the passenger manifest. Christian is among a throng of people clutching lilacs, eagerly trying to catch sight of their lost loved ones. When the doors to the platform open, the crowd enthusiastically belts out “La Marseillaise”, the French national anthem, until the first few survivors stagger in and they’re all stunned into silence by the horror they so obviously still carry with them.

Catherine isn’t among the passengers, or those who died in transit, lined up on the floor and covered loosely by sheets. Christian is bereft. He takes his frustrations out on Madame Delahaye, who remains adamant that Catherine will return. Christian, though, is unconvinced and decides to resume his life rather than spend the rest of it waiting for something that will never happen.

Coco experiences a run of bad luck

Meanwhile, Coco Chanel is staying at the Hotel Beau Rivage in Lausanne, Switzerland, with Andre and his daughter Gabrielle. Things are not going well, though. Andre has rapidly worsening tuberculosis, Coco’s finances are jammed up, and she quickly discovers that the Wertheimers are out for revenge.

Andre’s only hope for treatment is one Dr. Lehmann, whose experimental treatments have been having some success. But he’s Danish and won’t travel to Switzerland. The closest point between the two is Paris, where Coco can’t return, so she has to bid farewell to Andre and Gabrielle so he can receive treatment.

Before that, though, she tries to buy a palatial manor and fails because the French government won’t release her funds. Her lawyer can’t rustle up any hard cash either, so she’s forced to languish in the hotel pretending she’s still wealthy.

Things only get worse when she discovers that Chanel No. 5 is on sale across Switzerland. Her lawyer tells her that the Wertheimers have opened a factory in Hoboken to manufacture it and are out for revenge against all the Nazi collaborators who sold them out — including Coco. She buys — with money she still doesn’t have — all 60 bottles and plans to have them shipped to Henri in the south of France for testing.

However, the bottles never get there. Coco wants her put-upon driver Conrad — whom she hasn’t paid for months — to transport the bottles to a freight train, but she also wants him to race after Andre and Gabrielle when she discovers that the latter has accidentally left her favorite stuffed bear behind. Conrad conspires to steal the perfume. Coco is held at gunpoint during the heist and is forced to hitchhike back to the hotel.

How does The New Look Season 1 Episode 5 end?

“Give Your Heart and Soul to Me” ends with another fine scene in which Christian goes to meet Baussac, the “King of Cotton”, about the job Georges offered him earlier. But Christian has larger plans. In a wonderful monologue, he describes the feeling of hopelessness he and everyone else felt in the station watching the camp survivors stagger in; he wonders aloud how humanity might ever hope to move on from the war, from its horrors and the desperate lengths everyone was driven to by them. He believes through his work he can help to create a new world for people to live in. But he wants his own couture house to do it.

Having seemingly had his wish granted, he throws the pendant Madame Delahaye gave him into the river, ready to move on with his life. However, when he returns home, a frantic Jacques tells him that Catherine is there. The episode’s final image is of her splayed on a bed, ravaged by her time in Ravensbruck, but still, just, alive.

What did you think of The New Look Season 1 Episode 5? Let us know in the comments.