S01.E05: Episode 5

[dargosmydaddy]

Quote

The truth of Daniel’s relationship with Chanchal comes to light. Castillion arrests John, leaving everyone wondering: who betrayed him and who can save him?

Daniel FINALLY figuring out Samuel is the rat while staring at the literal rat had me laughing out loud.

The timeline of this show drives me nuts... Chanchal only hooked up with Daniel in the previous episode, and I have a hard time believing more than two weeks have passed. Dr. Google tells me morning sickness doesn't typically start until six weeks of pregnancy, maybe four weeks at the earliest. If that much time passed in-show, they need to make it more apparent.

Similarly the amount of time since August's mother has died... that baby looks six months old, tops (which jives with the recent solid food eating ceremony). Even if his mom died when he was literally right out of the womb (which didn't seem to be the case), John has moved on to Miss Osborne in less than six months, and more likely it's closer to three or four months. Seriously? I mean, I get that you can't age-up the baby (and that baby August is adorable and they clearly want to keep using those babies), but either give us specific dates and let us handwave the fact that the baby is on the small side, or have John slow his roll a bit with Miss. O.

[Driad]

By British law, would it have been legal for John to marry his deceased wife's sister?  Likely the law in India was different, and maybe it would be OK as long as they stayed in India, but this was a big controversy in Britain for a while.

[TrininisaScorp]

I agree!  This timelines are SUPER confusing to me because the baby is so little. 

I love the teeny, tiny maharajah!  Baby August is soooo cute.  I like that the moment things got a bit hairy, Chandrika was like, "we out...kbye".  

I knew Chanchal would be pregnant.  **eye roll**  Daniel is not a bad dude, but he makes bad decisions and running out on Chanchal when she was clearly in distress (due in part to him!) was uncool.  I don't know if Chanchal at Badaal's mom's a solution either, but at least she seems a bit better.

So, the French dude is hooking up with the empress?!  Really?!  Ok, show.

I think it is the actress, but I really like Margaret (even if she is a Mary Sue).  John is ok, but honestly, his character is a very blank slate...I don't know if it is the writing or the actor just brooding. 

Samuel and Violet deserve each other.  I know, technically, Violet hasn't really done anything wrong, but she's irritating. 

Edited July 13, 2020 by TrininisaScorp

[magdalene]

John is the one who irritates me.  When the French General said to him something like "idiotic is not heroic".  I was going yes! Tell it like it is. John makes me roll my eyes at least once every episode. 

Daniel has flaws but I think he is smarter than his older brother in some ways and has more common sense. And quite frankly, given how many of the British soldiers behaved toward the not British women when they "dallied",  Daniel hasn't behaved like a cad.  He could have handled things better but he does care what happens to Chanchal.

When John at the end finally clued in that his bestie had betrayed him I rolled my eyes once again.

I don't buy the great love between John and Margaret. I find them insipid.

[buttersister]

That was a hot mess. Yes, the bros are still hot, but I like my guys cute and smart, John. And batting .500 is only great in baseball. That light bulb moment made John look so dense, not the reveal it was meant to be. But when you’ve shown the villain twirling his mustache to the audience for weeks, wth do you expect. And the lack of Beecham-Osborne chemistry isn’t helping.

Otoh, a series with Betrayer Friend and Wouldbe Wife sounds very watchable. Adopt that baby and get rolling!

Edited July 13, 2020 by buttersister

[Florinaldo]

During the little montage when John was going over past events pointing to Samuel's treachery you could picture the gears slowly turning in his mind, and hear them loudly creaking because they have not been used for so long. It made him look very slow-witted; especially at the point where he realises that his so-called friend was the only other person who knew how the precious cargo of the automaton was being escorted by Gopal, something that was staring him in the face from the start.

I am not familiar enough with the history of the Moghul Empire's last monarchs to know if the wife of the real-life blind Emperor was accused of infidelity at one point. They are making her look very treacherous, betraying her husband, John and eventually her son probably. I think the actor playing the French General is coming across as an animated cartoon villain.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Florinaldo

[Florinaldo]

Strange double post deleted.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Florinaldo

[gingerella]

Agree with everything said above. Glad Chandrika got out of dodge before she got killed, though she's probably the best actress of the lot so it's loss in the thespian department. John looked indeed dimwitted in the cell, and how is it that he wasn't eating anything but he looked as spry as the moment they tossed him in there?

And the scene with Daniel impersonating French soldiers and talking to him, and the real French soldiers come right up behind him and he's talking to the prisoner in English, HELLO CONTINUITY, ANYONE HOME?!? And then he turns to leave and says something in French to the other two nitwits. I mean, come ON...

Bitty Betty and her Mr. Evil are perfect for one another. I hope she goes down with that ship. Margaret continues to be a clueless martyr, what did she expect when she went to see the general, who himself is indeed like a bad cartoon character. Mrs. Patmore continues to disappoint, and I can only stomach the staff and Daniel at this point. Thankfully the sets and costumes are there to distract.

And not for nothing, but I asked my mother if she's watching this and she LOVES it, I mean LOVES IT. She thinks the story is exotic and fascinating, and this from a woman who's pretty well traveled most of her life, so apparently not everyone sees the horrible writing and lame story lines that we do!

[buttersister]

Talked to a good friend today who was watching up until last night--he and his wife couldn't take it anymore and switched to an old episode of Inspector Morse on Brit Box. Same comments about BH, pretty, but pretty lame.

[magdalene]

I think Badaal is very likable and attractive.  Really, he, Daniel, Chanchal and baby Augustus are the ones I care about on this show.

[Shanna Marie]

I found myself thinking last night that this series might have been more interesting centered on Daniel because he has more of a growth arc. John is so perfect (well, aside from being kind of an idiot, but the show doesn't seem to acknowledge that) that he's not very interesting and has no real character arc. But a story about the screw-up wastrel of a younger brother who suddenly has to step up and get his act together when his seemingly perfect older brother gets in serious trouble and he now has to deal with all the stuff his brother was up to plus take care of everything else he has going on could have been interesting. He has to look after his opium addict mother who's not adapting well at all to India and is a risk for doing something stupid that could ruin everything, protect an infant maharaja who's being targeted by assassins, foil the plot against his brother, expose the schemer who betrayed his brother, maybe rescue his brother, and meanwhile there's his pregnant Indian girlfriend and he's AWOL from the East India Company. Now we've got a show. Unfortunately, this angle didn't kick in until the next to last episode, and I doubt they're going to focus much on Daniel's character growth as he deals with all this. But if they'd started with this, if, say, John got imprisoned at the end of episode one or two instead of them spending the first few episodes draaaaggggging out the revelations about who the baby really is, then they might have had a more interesting series.

[magdalene]

1 hour ago, Shanna Marie said:

I found myself thinking last night that this series might have been more interesting centered on Daniel because he has more of a growth arc. John is so perfect (well, aside from being kind of an idiot, but the show doesn't seem to acknowledge that) that he's not very interesting and has no real character arc. But a story about the screw-up wastrel of a younger brother who suddenly has to step up and get his act together when his seemingly perfect older brother gets in serious trouble and he now has to deal with all the stuff his brother was up to plus take care of everything else he has going on could have been interesting. He has to look after his opium addict mother who's not adapting well at all to India and is a risk for doing something stupid that could ruin everything, protect an infant maharaja who's being targeted by assassins, foil the plot against his brother, expose the schemer who betrayed his brother, maybe rescue his brother, and meanwhile there's his pregnant Indian girlfriend and he's AWOL from the East India Company. Now we've got a show. Unfortunately, this angle didn't kick in until the next to last episode, and I doubt they're going to focus much on Daniel's character growth as he deals with all this. But if they'd started with this, if, say, John got imprisoned at the end of episode one or two instead of them spending the first few episodes draaaaggggging out the revelations about who the baby really is, then they might have had a more interesting series.

How I wish you would have been a writer on this show...

[Driad]

12 minutes ago, magdalene said:

How I wish you would have been a writer on this show...

How I wish *somebody* would have been a writer on this show...

[seacliffsal]

I find it hard to believe that after securing access to all of these locales, creating amazing costumes and sets, that they forgot to invest in the script (or, at least a script that was interesting)...

[magdalene]

How old is the baby supposed to be? He doesn't look older than a year at most.  Sure a very fast mourning period before you fell for your next great love Margaret, Mr. Beecham....

[dargosmydaddy]

17 minutes ago, magdalene said:

How old is the baby supposed to be? He doesn't look older than a year at most.

I'm pretty sure they've never said, probably because they don't want to draw attention to the fact that John is so recently widowed. (But, we have eyes! And if they didn't want him to look like he's moving on so soon, why not have a somewhat older baby/ toddler? Or save the falling-in-love-with-Miss-Osborne plot for a second season... which isn't happening, of course, but still...)

To me, the baby doesn't look much more than 6-7 months, which also seems to jive with the recent storyline about him trying his first solid food.

[Ilovepie]

On 7/13/2020 at 6:49 AM, dargosmydaddy said:

Daniel FINALLY figuring out Samuel is the rat while staring at the literal rat had me laughing out loud.

The timeline of this show drives me nuts... Chanchal only hooked up with Daniel in the previous episode, and I have a hard time believing more than two weeks have passed. Dr. Google tells me morning sickness doesn't typically start until six weeks of pregnancy, maybe four weeks at the earliest. If that much time passed in-show, they need to make it more apparent.

Similarly the amount of time since August's mother has died... that baby looks six months old, tops (which jives with the recent solid food eating ceremony). Even if his mom died when he was literally right out of the womb (which didn't seem to be the case), John has moved on to Miss Osborne in less than six months, and more likely it's closer to three or four months. Seriously? I mean, I get that you can't age-up the baby (and that baby August is adorable and they clearly want to keep using those babies), but either give us specific dates and let us handwave the fact that the baby is on the small side, or have John slow his roll a bit with Miss. O.

Came here to vent about pretty much everything in your post - I don’t know why I keep watching. It’s so stupid. Again, I thought I missed something because how can Chanchal be pregnant enough for morning sickness when they’ve only been together for what, a week or so?

And John declaring he’s in love with Miss Osborne? I’m not buying what they’re selling. 

I concur, Daniel is the real star of this show. John is an idiot and a bore. That final montage where he (finally!) figures out he’s been betrayed by his friend was ridiculous. 

[Fireball]

I've been watching this on Amazon... Such a pretty show; it's too bad that the story is horrible.

On 7/18/2020 at 6:37 PM, dargosmydaddy said:

I'm pretty sure they've never said, probably because they don't want to draw attention to the fact that John is so recently widowed. (But, we have eyes! And if they didn't want him to look like he's moving on so soon, why not have a somewhat older baby/ toddler? Or save the falling-in-love-with-Miss-Osborne plot for a second season... which isn't happening, of course, but still...)

To me, the baby doesn't look much more than 6-7 months, which also seems to jive with the recent storyline about him trying his first solid food.

John doesn't come out looking good in this. He says he was devastated by his wife's death..... so devastated that he is totally in love with Miss Osborne 3-6 months after said wife's death. Yes, I have been rolling my eyes at John all through the show. At first I thought John was cultivating a friendship with Margaret because she had an in with the Empress which I thought would be interesting. But nope John's really in love with Margaret  because of reasons the show hasn't shown us.

I struggle with why John is in love with Margaret . I kept thinking well Margaret does have hug breasts, so maybe that's John's thing.....  It seemed like her breasts were pushed up so much she was almost popping out of her dress. 

I found Margaret kind of bland, and just didn't understand John's being interested especially considering his wife just died!  

Edited January 17, 2021 by Fireball
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