Imperfect Women Recap ‘Nancy’: Fly

Imperfect Women Recap Episode 4

It was on the very first scene, the very first Nancy voiceover, that I immediately thought, the writing felt different. It was noticeably stronger than the first three episodes. At times, the words carried with them a dash of lyricism that had not previously been present in the show. The shift to tragic poetry made sense as we have now moved away from Eleanor’s internal world to Nancy’s, with her artistic sensibilities, her desire to create beauty, her passion for ballet, her traumatic past that even with her husband’s money, she could not quite escape.

Eleanor had spoken of Nancy’s rough background before she met Robert, and at her annual New Year party, past, present, and fears collided. 

Robert, according to Nancy, loved her ‘so extravagantly’ in the early days of their romance. For her part, she made every effort to be the perfect Mrs. Hennessey, starting with the party that would become her signature event. On what would turn out to be Nancy’s final New Year party, however, things had changed.

Robert uncharacteristically made a snide remark at the party expense. He was drinking heavily even before lunch. He told Nancy he and his sister Kit would talk business before the party, even though, as Nancy pointed out, it was New Year’s day. Nancy outright asked Robert if they were having financial issues, and though Robert denied it, something was clearly wrong. Even her father and sister in law remarked, in their own snide ways, about the spending for the party. Nancy tried to get information from Harlan, the Hennessey family wealth manager, but all he told her was to talk to her husband. In her desperation to find out what her husband was hiding, she opened Robert’s email, and found one about separation of assets in the event of divorce proceedings.

It was a decades-long issue of not quite belonging in this rarefied world that was completely alien to her origins. As a teenager, you cannot really fully comprehend how young you are. As a former teenager, watching Nancy in the car with her stepfather Scott (played by Wilson Bethel, whom I recently watched kill someone with a lobster as Bullseye in Daredevil: Born Again) was deeply disturbing. Scott paid for her ballet classes and even a new pair of pointe shoes. Scott also abused her.

At some point, her mother must have found out, because her mother angrily drove whilst drunk, with Nancy beside her, hitting her, telling her she was no victim, until the car horrifically crashed. These were the literal scars that Nancy carried into adulthood.

It was this violent, heartbreaking past that Nancy had tried to shield from her daughter, so that Cora grew up without truly knowing her. Nancy’s stress – with the party, with her husband, her husband’s family, this beautifully perfect facade of a life  that she has built, the feeling of being a visitor in her own home, the thought that all this could end – culminated in a confrontation with her daughter as Cora was leaving the house to go to a party with her friends. Robert gave Cora permission to skip Nancy’s party to be with her friends without checking with Nancy. Nancy asked Cora to at least show up and do a quick lap at the party before leaving, which Cora did. Cora thought things were good since she did what her mother asked, and she innocently showed off her outfit to go to a ‘white trash’ themed party. 

Nancy was aghast. ‘Cosplaying poverty with your rich friends is not fun. It’s disgusting.’ I get where Nancy was coming from, but there was no way Cora would have understood her sensitivity since Cora did not know about her past. Cora snapped back that Nancy spending tens of thousands of dollars on brunch to post on Instagram and make her friends jealous was disgusting too. That pushed Nancy over the edge, and in front of her guests, she slapped Cora. 

‘I forgot where I was’, Nancy gasped at Mary and Eleanor, after they followed her as she alternately walked and ran outside, on the beautifully manicured sidewalk of her neighbourhood. She looked terrified at the thought that she was turning into her abusive mother. Her friends did their best to comfort her, and she regained enough strength to return to the house and try to speak to her daughter.

She found Robert comforting and talking to Cora in her room. Nancy tried to speak to her, but Robert herded her out into the hall. Cora needed time to process something that she would remember for the rest of her life. Based on the little that Nancy overheard, it looked like Robert was trying to explain a little of Nancy’s history to Cora. It did not look like Robert was being unkind, but with Nancy already feeling the gnawing gap between herself and her husband’s family, this distance from her daughter, not even allowed to comfort her or to properly apologise, must have broken her heart.

She ended up sitting alone in the garden, as the caterers tidied up, and it was there that the show dropped the answer to one of its mysteries – who is David?

Let’s back up a bit. There was a flirty bartender named David who was definitely not the man Nancy would eventually have an affair with. There was also Phil Delavigne of the LA Metropolitan Ballet, who had such a poor memory when it came to names that he still called Nancy, who was one of his company’s biggest donors, Louise. When Nancy found out from Mary that the university cut her husband Howard’s hours again – and after Mary refused Nancy’s offer of financial assistance in a way that made me think Nancy had helped out in the past – Nancy introduced Howard to Phil. Secretly, Nancy offered to up her and Robert’s donation to help pay for Howard’s salary. Phil did offer him the job, but had him confused with the bartender, David. Later, after Howard came to thank Nancy for the job, they jokingly called each other Louise and David.

Rating: A-

Strays

🏠Given Eleanor’s feelings for Robert and Nancy probably being aware of it, it was notable that Mary knew of Robert and Nancy’s pre-party sex tradition, and Eleanor did not, at least, not until this party.

🏠Phil was working on a production of Ariadne. Robert had said he discovered the affair on the opening night of this ballet.

Episode Title: Nancy

Episode Writer: Haily Hall

Episode Director: Lesli Linka Glatter

Original Release Date: April 1, 2026

Home