Summer Camp
Episode 3 of Wecrashed starts in 2012 with WeWork on the up. There are staff meetings, drinks on entry and an entrepreneurial spirit right the way across the building. That’s the façade anyway. In reality, the whole thing feels icky and unprofessional, almost like a cult. All of this is channelled through Adam, who continues to serve as the ringleader in all this. Alongside working is a fair amount of drinking, dancing and partying. This whisks us along nicely to a summer camp set up by Adam himself, where the employees all show up at Lake Raquette in New York. Adam touches down by helicopter 3 hours late with Rebekah. Rebekah is also ignoring her father too, with the pair wrapped up in their own egotistical whirlwind. The thing is, those missed calls are important, and as Rebekah rings her dad back, her mood immediately changes to one of worry. It turns out her father has been accused of fraud. He claims that his accountant has messed up on his tax returns and he’s being charged for it. However, this isn’t his first rodeo as later flashbacks do show that he has a history of fraud. Put on the spot, Rebekah speaks to the crowd and tells them all she supports Adam as it’s “the woman’s role to help a man manifest his own destiny.” Oof. It’s a big PR nightmare and Vanessa, the head of Comms for WeWork, worries that this is an anti-feminist statement and could tarnish the company. Adam brushes it off though and urges Vanessa to deal with this herself. With stress piling up, Rebekah decides to leave in the middle of this party. Further flashbacks to her past interspersed through this episode show the relationship she has with her ex partner Aaron, who left her during her time of need. In the morning, Rebekah learns that she’s being boycotted by a lot of women, and it’s spreading online too. The various different men gather around and tell her she needs to be careful with her words going forward, especially as millennials are very touchy. Losing their biggest clientele would be incredibly damaging to their brand. So the only solution is for Rebekah to put out a statement, which she’s very reluctant to do. Unfortunately Rebekah’s speech doesn’t go to plan as she ends up accusing those very people offended by her words. The women bring up real problems festering in WeWork, including rampant drinking, poor wages (which are turned away by stock options instead) and no HR either. There’s even a “f*ck closet”! Eventually it ends with the staff rallying against Rebekah, who seems to be the only one suffering with the stress of it all. She’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and between the issues at WeWork and her father struggling with his fraud case, things don’t look good. Rebekah eventually decides to handle this herself and pick herself up out the mud. She’s still not happy with Vanessa, whom she completely ignores on the way back to Summer camp. Instead, she decides to take the microphone for herself in front of everyone and speak her piece. Rebekah gives a rousing speaking about creating a better word together, and while she doesn’t retract her earlier statement, she does embellish it. To that, she receives a rapturous applause from the crowd. Vanessa meanwhile, packs her things and leaves.
The Episode Review
Wecrashed returns for its third episode this week, exposing some of the horrific working conditions those at WeWork have had to deal with. Seeing Rebekah in the foreground of all this, taking the brunt of employee concerns, is certainly poetic given she’s a female too, and the whole thing sounds like a proper seedy, horrible place to work. Almost like the Ubisoft offices where sexual abuse runs rampant with their staff. Anyway, this chapter does well to turn the attention across to Rebekah rather than Adam and allow Anne Hathaway to take the spotlight instead. This works well to show what she’s dealing with, including her tumultuous family history and living in her cousin’s shadow. It would appear that WeWork is about to exposed for its corruption and we know that Adam gets kicked out in the end. For now though, Rebekah has managed to steer the ship in the right direction. But as we know, this is just a temporary measure.
