Twitter

Where to Stream:

Poldark

Last night’s episode of Poldark made me wonder if the show has lost some of its original escapist thrill. Season One felt like a dizzy blur of tricorn hats and shirtless scything, but now we’re at a point where the grim reality of petty human nature seems to have overtaken all reason.
Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) and George Warleggan (Jack Farthing) have always indulged in their truly shallow feud, to the detriment of the people in their orbit, but now it’s killing people in the dozens. You can tell that George delights in the murder and extradition of the lower class residents of Cornwall precisely because Ross is so set on doing right by them. So it is that when Ross, Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson), Caroline (Gabriella Wilde), and the gang successfully hoodwink George and the wealthy men of the town into subsidizing a welfare program, George responds by closing Wheal Leisure and ensuring the catastrophic decline of the entire region.
Demelza is aghast that George would do such a thing – take such a bold business action — just to piss off Ross. That’s because Demelza isn’t familiar with 2017 politics. Yes, I went there. But I couldn’t watch that scene and not think about how many politicians pass laws just to spite the other side, the people’s best interests be damned. Cornwall, like so many of our modern communities, is run by a bunch of babies. I feel very much like Pug.

And this episode of Poldark really was all about babies! Demelza feels her contractions in the garden and decides to deliver the baby all on her own so she can surprise Ross?? Honestly, I’m not sure if it was Tomlinson’s thick accent, but I did not get the logic behind not sending for the doctor at all. (Of course, this episode was full of artful tricks designed to slash the cast budget, so the idea might have come from BBC’s accounting offices.) But Demelza surprises Ross with a healthy baby girl she has named…Clowance.

Say it out loud. Let the vowels resound through your nasal passages. Clow-ance. Now imagine someone like me, born and raised in the shadow of Philadelphia, saying it with a distinct “hoagie mouth.” Pardon my Revolutionary French, but I think it’s an ugly ass name. And after the totally normal, while still very nice-sounding, Julia and Jeremy, Clowance makes no sense. But Clowance is happy and healthy and Ross and Demelza’s little family seems happier than it’s been in many a blood moon.

Meanwhile at Warleggan House — where there is literally a sign saying “Warleggan House” — baby Valentine is crying out for any affection. Any at all. His parents actually wonder aloud, “Why is he so fretful?” “Oh, it’s because neither of us love him,” is not something either of them has thought to utter aloud. Elizabeth (Heida Reed) is too happy nursing her tinctures to even think to hold her baby. PICK UP YOUR BABY! (I just spent the weekend binge-watching Mindhunter and Elizabeth is setting up Valentine for some serial killer-like issues.)

George and Elizabeth’s marriage has reached a strange point where they enjoy being awful together. For instance, when George realizes that Geoffrey Charles has been visiting Ross, he tells Elizabeth and she blames Morwenna (Ellise Chappell). What the two decide to do? Oh, well, they do a completely normal thing and hatch a plan to marry Morwenna off to the absolutely awful Mr. Whitworth. This is a guy who shows up to the Warleggan Christmas party a week after his wife has died because life goes on and he wants to show off his dazzling new waistcoat. He is so gross that even George declares at one point: “The man is a reptile and a prig!” But, still, he wants to pay this cretin thousands of pounds to marry nice Morwenna.
Morwenna has just the right reaction to all of this.

Of course, Morwenna has options in her life and those options are Drake Carne (Harry Richardson). Undeterred by fate or fortune, Drake continues to woo Morwenna. He visits Trenwith with toads for GC and Aunt Agatha and primroses for Morwenna. There’s much sighing and blushing and Drake almost steals a kiss.

In the midst of all this, Christmas is on its way and Clowance is due to be baptized. Although Aunt Agatha’s invite literally gets lost in the mail — well, crumbled by George’s manservant — GC decides to take matters into his own hands and crashes the christening. Now, something happens there that kind of irks me. Namely, Demelza pulls Morwenna aside and tries to tell her to stop with the goo-goo eyes at her brother. Demelza argues something about class and knowing people’s places, and yadda yadda yadda, Demelza is full of BULLSHIT. I don’t know what’s happened since last week, but it’s as though she’s forgotten who she is. Demelza, you are the street rat who charmed her way into a maid’s position and then bedded and wedded the handsome master to become a respected leader of the county. Why shouldn’t Morwenna make out in the chapel with your hot brother?

Ross’s decision to invite Aunt Agatha (and later visit her to see her state for himself) is also met by Demelza’s own hypocrisy. She gleefully told her brothers to cross Trenwith land to try to bargain with Elizabeth even though she knew it would go against Ross and George’s arrangement last week, but thinks this week that Ross should leave his elderly aunt to…well…a comical pile of blankets.

Aunt Agatha assures Ross that she likes it at Trenwith because that’s where she can torture George. She also gives Ross her every assurance that she would have loved to have been there for the baptism of the latest Poldark scion: “Do you think I would miss a chance to drink port and eat heavy cake?” So, Aunt Agatha is doing fine, but not well.
You know who’s not doing well? Dwight (Luke Norris). Despite what an offscreen Unwin is telling Caroline, Dwight is not being treated well in prison. His Obi-Wan Kenobi depression beard has been matched by the haunted eyes of a man who has seen way too much death for one lifetime. And indeed, he has in just this episode. Dwight seems to be in a The Good Place torture loop where he saves men only to watch them executed. If he does make it back to Cornwall, I’m not sure Caroline will know what to make of him.
Still, Poldark can’t help but to give us a does of escapism. No matter how many petty squabbles, peasant deaths, or French prisons Poldark shoves on us, this show believes in some kind of fairy tale love. Does it think this kind of pure romance can last? Well, the last three seasons (and Elizabeth’s comments to Morwenna about matrimony) say no. But then, this dreamy seaside kiss says yes.

Anything else? Uh, Ross is going to hire the unemployed miners at his own expense. Sam (Tom York) took his shirt off this week, but he seemed angry about it, so I shan’t GIF it. Oh, and Geoffrey Charles is not impressed by cinnamon. Interesting character choice.