The challenge

Synopsis

Soames reads the news: it's war in the Transvaal.	Uncle Nicholas has been visiting the increasingly feeble James. He claims, as usual, to feel poorly. Never been sick a day in his life, Soames muses.	Soames has 30 or 40 years in front of him, and he's not going to waste them. In short: Soames is having a midlife crisis.	Cousin Val and Cousin Jolly aren't getting along very well.
Divorcing Dartie: progress. Winifred meets her barrister. Soames gives instructions.	Soames puts it to the touch and visits Irene again.	Won't you let bygones be bygones?	No.
As before, Soames seems to feel that displaying his passion to Irene will move her. That trick never works.	Irene writes to Jolyon of the unwelcome visit. The British post delivers it the same evening, of course. The wrong Jolyon reads it first.	Val is liked much better by his other cousin, Holly.	Soames ricochets from one woman to the next: he visits Annette immediately after being rejected by Irene.
His money is attractive to Annette's mother, but Annette herself flirts at a distance. The interaction is ended when some young admirer of Annette's appears to take her away.	Jolly continues to dislike Val.	June demands that her father purchase a small gallery, "just off Cork Street", so she might make the names of various lame-duck artists.	Irene and June are reconciled.
The very next morning, sSoames hires a private detective to watch Irene to gather the evidence he feels must exist.	James's other child is also moving forward on divorce: restitution of conjugal rights proceedings move along.	Soames gives the news to James of the good results at court.	Irene has gone to Paris. Paris?
Yes, Paris, where Jolyon visits and is clearly falling in love.	Jolly has discovered that his sister rides with Val and demands that she end it.	Irene describes her sex life with Soames and Jolyon his with Frances.	The third generation unites: Jolyon's feud with James comes to this.

Novels

This episode covers most of part 2 of In chancery:

1: The third generation
2: Soames puts it to the touch
3: Visit to Irene
4: Where Forsytes fear to tread
5: Jolly sits in judgment
6: Jolyon in two minds
7: Darties versus Dartie
8: The challenge

Commentary

The television screenplay picks up its pace with this episode and begins to run through the novels faster than it has. It has been quite leisurely until now. These scripts gloss over details that the earlier ones would have elaborated on. This episode resorts to Soames speaking to himself in a mirror. (Using words Galsworthy put into his head, of course, but still. This is telling, not showing.) We also see Soames appearing to ask Irene to come back to him with very little setup or introduction. We have only his reluctant exit from her drawing room, gazing back at her, to establish his reawakened desire for her. The adaptation does nothing to explain why Soames might continue to pursue Annette, and does not investigate his feelings.

Yes, that's Michael York.

The actor playing Val Dartie is perhaps the worst actor in the series, a true stand-out in a production marked by excellent acting.