The Grace of motherhood (TUA)
I wanted to do a character deep dive of my new favourite robot Mother
Grace Hargreeves, i just love that a small character like this got so much detail and crafting put into them when it was not necessarily needed.
were to start, lets start with how she looks,
the style of her look and how the change in her wardrobe showed her development. I will be looking at this in the timeline of the show not necessarily ep by ep.
The style and what it says about her.
very 1950′s no surprise but lets look at it deeper, when grace is created (by Hargreeves) she is shown wearing (i can’t find a pic of it anywhere) in the opening of 1x09 ‘Changes’
in something not dissimilar to this
the look is a long skit (dark brown) and a shirt with long sleeves (white with dark striped) and hair up in a very tight bun, like so
now theses are NOT graces clothes this is the uniform that the other nanny’s where wearing as well. so this means grace did not chose to look like this, also in this scene we see her look over to Hargreeves and Pogo for approval she smile’s at a job well done and they nod to her. (i will come back to this)
so when Grace is first introduced (shows timeline not ep order)
she is Hargreeves perfect uniform robot nanny that dose what she’s told with a smile.
the next time we see her in ‘I heard a rumour ’ (again show’s timeline) she’s wearing this
this Scene is also when Vanya is getting Rumoured, so Grace gives Vanya her Favourite food (grilled cheese) and her “medicine”.
in this short moment and change of wardrobe we can concluded that
1- she now cares about what the kids want to a point , because there is no way Hargreeves told her to bring Vanya’s Favourite food, (even if he did tell her to bring food)
2- she was more control over her self with being able to pick her own clothes, they have colour (not a lot or bright but more than before) and her hair is a little lower but still heavy made up.
3- the kids (Vanya specially) trust her enough to take something from her and believe her without questions or a fight (Vanya takes her medicine quietly, because Vanya can still toss Grace out the room at this point)
so grace is gaining a little more self identity but still very much live under Hargreeves thumb, because she dose not question or bring up what she was told to do and is still doing what she dose for Hargreeves and what he wants (get rid of Vanya’s powers)
Now here’s where it gets interesting her next bunch of appearances go roughly in this order, (I am guessing the order but from what I’ve talked about the first two do seem to line up this way, but the last two are certain and canon)
This dress is a step away from what we’ve see up until this point, it’s still a darker colour (silver,even if glittery) like a metallic and the ribbons and other fetchers are very streamline, makes it look almost robotic (see what i did there) she is also wearing shorter selves and a wider skirt the look she favours
so this looks like her first step towards what she wants to look like, also note that
1-she also talking to Vanya directly this time, Hargreeves is not even in the room, so she doesn’t have to say anything to Vanya if she didn’t want to
2-Vanya went to Grace’s ‘room’ or area to show her the violin
3- Grace encourages her ‘that wonderful Vanya’ or something to that effect
4- and the line that kills me every time i hear it “i’m going to be extraordinary” is Vanya speaking to Grace
(BTW this is a part of a wonderful gif set by tuagifs link on gif)
Classic grace or most common outfit she has,
the look itself is light and colourful but still has black spots (apt metaphor if ever i’d seen one) now I’m sure this one comes second here because this is when grace starts to have more, awareness of Hargreeves BS towards the children and her feeling about it
1- “the kids wanted to say good night” she is now going out of her way to do what the kids want even if it means interrupting Hargreeves
2- she dose not know how to handle his response or lack there of,
3- leaves with the kids as apposed to staying with Hargreeves and she dose not turn back to him when she leaves
this is were the shift starts in Grace’s personality, she is no longer looking for Hargreeves approval and has shifted her focus to the kids
The day five goes missing, this how see looks when he runs out the door (damn,buffering much)
she say nothing in this scene, but if we are looking just at the outfit here, it’s the most bright and colourful in the show and she wears it later. so i will talk more about them, note that the hair is still in the middle length and made up to perfection and she is behind Hargreaves (a few feet at that).
Grace doing her rounds, here is when she is fully there mother, putting out fires everywhere for her kids (literal in Klaus case). her clothes are more simple but not as conforming as they once were, so they are for mobility and movement and not a uniform (ironic since the kids are putting on there’s)
now she is with her kids 100% here and the scene ends with her being proud of Diego and Hargreeves walking in unapproving, we did not see the conversation that follows but we do see adult Diego’s reaction to it,
mournful maybe, but he did say she was treated worst then anyone, so this may have been an off screen example of that. who knows?
ok time skip to the present
I will skip the Luther surgery, for the sake of time, and lack of pic, but i will note that this is when grace official didn’t have any of her children with her anymore.
not much to say about this one, sorry.
but i will say that, when she is looking at the painting this dress is similar colour to the one in the painting, since Grace is projecting herself onto this painting in that ‘she’s lonely’ also now that Hargreeves is gone and he took her mind with him, she is at her darkest.
1-Hargreeves messed with her mind he didn’t just get Pogo to turn her on then off again
2-Hargreeves set her up to take the blame for his death, thus being the murder mystery to get them all working together Pogo was talking about.
3- that was when Hargreeves saw Grace as reaching her usefulness, the kids where grown, he was going to kill himself and Pogo never needed her. so the only thing left for her was to reunite the kids to save the world, by making her his murderer
We go back to classic look Grace until after her death
after she’s is back, in 1x06 ‘the day that wasn’t’
she is moving around and back in classic Grace clothes but this time she has her hair down and she is moving freely, Diego talks to her about what she remembers and Pogo appears out of a bookcase to instruct her not to say anything, now what dose Grace do she takes Diego out of the grounds to tell Diego the truth,
true independence her first real act of which we saw anyway. Hargreeves is dead and Mama’s going to do what ever the fuck she want’s
now this didn’t happen in the main plot line but this independence remained not in obvious way but still there.
this is show though her hair being down and her clothes being lighter and her make up being lighter neural colouring as well
1- same outfit, years apart
2- what she doing is the same serving food who she is with is different
3- why she’s there is different to she is doing what Hargreeves told her to do vs getting Diego food because she wants to cheer him up
4- she is close to Diego puts her hand on his shoulder vs being a few steps away from Hargreeves
this right here in two frames you can see a whole characters transformation form one mans automaton to a loving mother,done without even a complete change of wardrobe
and that’s one aspect of Grace
2-she took care of all there injuries(so she was most likely the one who wired Klaus mouth shut)
3- did not even try to stop Diego from turning her off in fact she was encouraging him with is specking, mush mind or not that was her priority
4- put smiley faces on her food, Hargreeves would not have told her to do this
Now this all leads me to my final point about Grace and honestly what i find the most interesting about her. Her whole housewife identity, more specificity when it comes to motherhood. what do i mean,
we have all hear this narrative before of a women trapped in a marriage with a man she doesn’t love, stuck in a house to do nothing but cook, clean and care for the kids.
this story is one that has been explored in shows like Mad Men (i have not seen a lot of mad men just a disclaimer)
these character’s usually look at how the superficial can shape and destroy a life. and how in order to find anything real you have to broaden your horizon’s by going out into the world and opening your mind and therefor being more than a mother and a housewife, and you’ll be free of your superficial life. (and yes i know it dose not go this way for Betty but this was the overall idea of the arc)
this is a strong narrative don’t get me wrong and it should be shown
but what i find interesting but Grace is that, yes she is basically trapped in just about every single way but her freedom dose not come from the outside world rather it comes form her.
that’s where her freedom comes form.
every step she makes towards person-hood is form her decision to be a mother. she care’s for these children because that’s what she was made to do and she owns that, to the point that as i have already said she turns against her creators wishes in ‘the day that wasn’t’.
she gets her strength for being a mother it’s her identity and she love’s it because she is no longer a thing, a robot or vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet
but when her kid’s are gone she dose get lonely she said so herself in so many words (about painting)
but she’s there for them and they love her and that’s the one thing that Hargreeves never expected, when he set up his little plan to get them back together and take Grace down as his murderer. he never thought for a moment that the Kid’s would try and protect Grace (see my post about Diego’s Day) and that lead to his plan failing (also he’s an ass-hole)
so by embracing motherhood Grace able to turn her prison into her freedom and her programming into her life and she did it all without taking a step outside.
so when Grace answer Diego’s question of why she did what she did all theses years with
“because being your mother is the greatest gift of my life”
she meant it, boy oh boy did she mean it