S03.E05: Season 3, Episode 5

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2019.08.07

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As Margaret turns her mind to revenge, her family wonder just how far she’ll go to get justice for those she loves. But with the clock ticking, can North and Lucy protect her from the law?

[LadyintheLoop]

Talk about Chekhov's gun. . . .

[nodorothyparker]

Man, they cast one GOT alum and suddenly this show is GOT: Whores Who Wear Clothes edition.  That sucks if that's really it for Alfie Allen, although in all fairness he hasn't had the same sparkle without Charlotte to play against.

Poor Jonah Young is wishing he'd never bought himself a indentured servant to cook for him and stayed clear of Margaret and everything that comes with her.  This episode did a nice job of paralleling Margaret and Lydia, down to the wording of their efforts to warn Kate and Jonah respectively off, each referring to the other as misshapen souls who would suck their victims dry.  Lydia is Margaret's Mrs. May, just as Margaret has it in her to potentially be someone's Lydia if she's not careful.  Margaret hasn't reached Lydia's levels of almost Disney villainy yet, but everything that's happened that's led to Charlotte and now likely Isaac dead too happened because Margaret wouldn't listen to anyone who actually knew all the particulars of Charlotte's feud with the Pinchers and barreled ahead to do what she wanted with little regard for any potential fallout after she would supposedly be back on the boat to America.  It sounds like Margaret and Jonah could have had a nice enough life together that wouldn't have resulted in a body count, but Margaret just can't help herself.

That Elizabeth Harvey is as shady as hell and leaves other people saddled with a trail of debts everywhere she goes has to be about the least surprising reveal ever.  Lucy's going to be lucky if she manages to walk away with anything at the end.  I like Emily Lacy a lot, but she's working my last nerve trying to play both sides, constantly backtracking, and then not understanding why either side might take offense to that.

It's a little jarring after sitting through a full season of Lady Fitz warbling about what a terrible horrible no good very bad beast Blayne is, (which he clearly is) to see her hotfooting to ally again with him five minutes after Charlotte is dead and out of the picture.   It feels like the writers are struggling to justify the character's continued presence on the show with that connection gone and so have nowhere to go but revisit the uncle-daddy storyline.  I liked the wife's visit to Harriet to remind us and her that all of these richer than rich assholes at this time period were making their money in some really nasty exploitative pursuits. 

I love the discordant costuming choice of putting Lydia as the show's darkest female character in delicate little girl pastels that mostly make me think of confectioneries.

[heckkitty]

I think Lady Fitz is playing both sides with Blayne. She went to him after Will suggested she do it in order to find his weakness and use it against him. 

One of the things I like about this show is how I’m back to not being sure where things are going. I wish they had kept Alfie around longer though. 

Edited August 8, 2019 by heckkitty
i hate autocorrect

[Jlina]

I was counting plot threads and gave up.  Kiddos show for so far keeping so many balls in the air.  I'm also confused about if Issac would've given her (Lacy) the money?  Now she has "love" from a murderer that hates whores. Hmmm

People willing to sacrifice themselves for Margaret kind of bewilder me.  She never even hugged the small boy when she came home.  She was more charismatic before she died.

I agree Lady Fitz is looking to follow the advice given her.  The wife's words to the mistress were the most amazing burn so far on this show hands down.  Quigley's got nothing on her!

I hope they do something asap to give me someone to like!  I miss Charlotte Wells.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Jlina
*kuddos

[ElizaD]

2 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Poor Jonah Young is wishing he'd never bought himself a indentured servant to cook for him and stayed clear of Margaret and everything that comes with her.  This episode did a nice job of paralleling Margaret and Lydia, down the wording of their efforts to warn Kate and Jonah respectively off, each referring to the other as misshapen souls who would suck their victims dry.  Lydia is Margaret's Mrs. May, just as Margaret has it in her to potentially be someone's Lydia if she's not careful.  Margaret hasn't reached Lydia's levels of almost Disney villainy yet, but everything that's happened that's led to Charlotte and now likely Isaac dead too happened because Margaret wouldn't listen to anyone who actually knew all the particulars of Charlotte's feud with the Pinchers and barreled ahead to do what she wanted with little regard for any potential fallout after she would supposedly be back on the boat to America.  It sounds like Margaret and Jonah could have had a nice enough life together that wouldn't have resulted in a body count, but Margaret just can't help herself.

Margaret's return has ended up being a great argument that everyone would be better off without her. With Lydia warning Jonas, I think he'll leave next episode, barred from further marriage unless he lies that Margaret died and having lost his land to Hal. Margaret will be bawding after that ridiculous pardon is granted, but the storylines that her return is blocking are far more interesting. Lucy trying to find a way to be independent and make money without having sex, with William as her superior parent who's looking out for her and warning her without trying to control her. William getting into boxing and maybe having a thing with Elizabeth (who got a welcome moment of honesty). Even a bigger role for Fanny, graduating from best girl to the bawd who runs the house with Lucy and William's approval. But no, it's more of Margaret rushing in and never learning.

I still don't like Kate, but I love that Cherry and Anne are back in Lydia's supporting cast. That suddenly feels like the most female-focused plot of the show; I don't think the male cast have ever felt as prominent as this season, and while William deserves his upgrade I loved that this was a show where women's lives and relationships with each other, good and bad, were the most important thing.

The scene about the sugar plantations was exactly the kind of historical context I was hoping for when Harriet started her house.

As shown by the scene with William, Isabella is out to flatter her brother until she can recover Sophia and take him down. She'll also reunite Anne with her baby, I expect, and give them an income.

[tennisgurl]

The whole scene where Harriet was speaking with her best costumers wife and she heard about the horrible ways he got his money was deeply chilling. Its the kind of historical context that I love from this show, reminding us that much of the money that is changing hands here is blood money from horrible trades and exploitation. 

So I guess when Alfie showed up, the show just decided to go full on Game of Thrones on our asses! Deaths everywhere! I wish that Alfie would have gotten to stick around longer, but Isaac wasn't the same without Charlotte to play off of. It is kind of funny that all of this revenge was over something that was actually, for once, really an accident. He did seem to have feelings for her, and clearly wasn't just buttering her up for the kill, as bad of a guy as he clearly was. Now they have yet another murder to deal with!

As sad as it sounds, everyone really was better off without Margaret around it seems like. Lucy was gaining independence and had found a house that suited her (all attitude and no sex), Charlotte was wheeling and dealing and had a girlfriend AND a fienemy with benefits, North was being the superior parental figure as always, and the Finchers were just about to take their land and they and Emily Lacy were about to go off to American to no longer be a problem. But then Margaret shows up and she just barrels into everything without a thought, deciding she knows better than everyone, wont stop when he daughters ask her to lay low and chill, and fucks everything up. Charolotts death was a horrible accident, but if she had just left well enough alone and respected that Charlotte had handled the Pinchers, she would probably still be alive. Margaret just takes up so much room in any given space and wont let anyone else have any, and she is now getting into situations she doesn't even really understand and just plowing ahead because she is convinced she always knows best and that she has to get her dramatic revenge, even if it just makes everything worse. Plus her new husband, who seems like a nice enough guy, is already getting his life turned around by her and her old business, even though he is clearly fine with making peace with her past and moving on. He should just get on that ship and start looking for a new wife.

Kate is rather slow on the uptake, but I feel awful for her, imagine having the best person in your life being freaking Lydia?! I also like that she, Anne, and Cherry are all in the same plot, with lady Fitz on the periphery, presumably going after her brother to take him down once she gets her daughter back. Poor Anne, what an awful situation to be in, Lady Fitzs brother really is a monster. 

Edited August 8, 2019 by tennisgurl

[kieyra]

My head is spinning at the pacing. I’m about 20 minutes in and so far a majority of scenes are about fifteen seconds long. I’m not complaining, it suits my attention span. 

[rubinia]

Maybe I missed something, but why aren't the authorities coming to bring Kate and Lydia back to Bedlam...?

[kieyra]

Wow, so that was like 100 microplots spread out over a ton of very short scenes. Interesting editing. Some scenes (many) were only two sentences long. 

Big picture ... I’m still enjoying the frenetic pacing, but I’m finding myself missing the season I thought I was getting, particularly with Isaac and Charlotte. I suppose it’s just as well that he’s dead, because every time he’s in the room you remember that she’s not there. 

It does make going back to the old wheel-spinning of Margaret v Lydia seem a little drab. 

They absolutely have to stop introducing new characters for at least one episode. Right?

What was with the flashback dialogue audio over Lucy watching the fencers, the stuff about the Spartans? This show doesn’t usually waste that much breath on reminding us of past events. 

[nodorothyparker]

1 hour ago, rubinia said:

Maybe I missed something, but why aren't the authorities coming to bring Kate and Lydia back to Bedlam...?

Kate's family declared her dead in a newspaper obituary.  Lydia laughed that it meant they wouldn't be bothering with trying to snag her to send her back since you can't commit a dead woman.  Charles as the male relative who committed Lydia has disappeared and the "doctor" in charge of her has been publicly disgraced.  It doesn't seem like there are any authorities beyond that to care since she was confined as a private matter and not as an official punishment.

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Kate is rather slow on the uptake, but I feel awful for her, imagine having the best person in your life being freaking Lydia?! I also like that she, Anne, and Cherry are all in the same plot, with lady Fitz on the periphery, presumably going after her brother to take him down once she gets her daughter back. Poor Anne, what an awful situation to be in, Lady Fitzs brother really is a monster. 

Kate's had a lot to take in in the relatively short of amount of time since her literal roll in the hay that kicked off her story.  Her family tossed her into Bedlam where she was assaulted, she escaped, and now after being declared dead has been thrown into the deep end of the courtesan pool with very little prep or training.  Lydia has been her one constant in that.  Even Anne conceded that while Lydia is a terrible person she's one you can learn a lot from.  

Cherry wasn't wrong that Anne has mostly been a bitch to the other women up to this point as she clearly had aspirations last season to be the next Charlotte Wells.  As shitty as Blayne has been to her, the sad reality is that women at this time period don't really have rights to their own children against fathers or male relatives, especially not against a wealthy aristocratic father who's already telling people that his son's mother is dead.  There's probably not much she can do about it, as the other women seemed to get in sympathizing with her, and most people of the time would likely be of the opinion anyway that the best thing she could do for her kid is bow out and not call attention to his mother being a prostitute.

[chaifan]

21 hours ago, Jlina said:

I'm also confused about if Issac would've given her (Lacy) the money? 

* * *

The wife's words to the mistress were the most amazing burn so far on this show hands down.  Quigley's got nothing on her!

There was a final shot of Issac where it seemed the money was in his pocket, about 1/2 peeking out.  Or was that something else?  I can't believe all three would have run away without checking to see if there was money.  a) it's money.  and b) if he's found without money his death will be assumed to be a robbery.

I loved the scene with Harriet and the wife, but I didn't see it as a "burn".  I think the wife truly hates her husband (sorry, can't remember his name right now) and telling Harriet about the plantation & slaves was meant to enlighten Harriet that her lover is a truly horrible person, which would result (as it did) in Harriet dumping the husband.  I saw it more as a "I don't necessarily like you, but I hate my husband more, and even you deserve better."

I'm on the fence with Margaret's return.  I missed her a little, but the show was just as good without her.  I really don't want the story to return to the Lydia vs. Margaret plot that we started with.  I'd be fine with Margaret going back to America with Jonas, but I doubt that will happen.  From a plot standpoint I think it would make sense if Emily returns with him, but I like her character and don't want to lose her.  I wonder if Nancy will really pack up and leave.

[Jlina]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

There was a final shot of Issac where it seemed the money was in his pocket, about 1/2 peeking out.  Or was that something else?  I can't believe all three would have run away without checking to see if there was money.  a) it's money.  and b) if he's found without money his death wil

Yes I saw money, I thought it was in his hand or near it.  Interesting, which deal would have been better for Emily Lacy? But yes also hard to believe that they'd leave money laying there in that day and time!  For that matter NO ONE seems to be worried about money!  Lucy can't even pick it up off the table she's got her feet on and finally Fannie turned a trick last night.  It's a bit of a disconnect.

In a way, I don't see the season as being about the men, but more about the men's decisions impacting the women. And the women trusting each other more than any man even when or if they're enemies.   Except Margaret lol who gets two good ones. 

Didn't the wife have a shock at seeing her husband with the mistress at the party?  Or maybe that was another wife.  So it was brutal, and true and the motive was unclear.  Pretty sure it won't end well if the guy gets spurned.  

I really need someone to root for.  And I think Lucy and her partner wore the same dress? Blue with apricot ribbons.  Wonder if that was costuming or financial need of the day?

[nodorothyparker]

The wife called Harriet an expensive toy but one who kept her husband out of her bed, for which she was grateful.  I actually do believe she meant that, but she was also rather miffed that her husband brazenly showed up at Charlotte's wake with Harriet on his arm in her fairly expensive looking brocade dress.  It's hard to get much of a read on the wife, who's identified on IMDb only as Lady Leadsom, beyond that although I too got the impression that she was primarily telling Harriet to get back at her husband.

It didn't fully register with me until rewatch that Elizabeth Harvey's intended new husband is also in dire financial straights and pushing to marry her quickly to get out of it, just as she's clearly planning to use him.  Lucy's going to be lucky if she walks away from the molly house venture with anything at the rate they're going, having earlier already incurred trade debts in her name because Mrs. Harvey couldn't get credit.  I liked her rare moment of seriousness in admitting to Will that she's all "hats and smiles" because that's what the world requires of her.  Will still wins the prize for best summing up the philosophy of the entire show to Jack Lively though in advising him that to love women like Margaret or Harriet you have to just accept that they do what they do and take the long view on their using whatever they have available to them.  

[aradia22]

Such a fitting way to honor your supposed love for Charlotte, Isaac, threatening to put the law on her mother's trail.

Now that Will and Margaret are properly back together, I find Jonas boring. He can go.

Lydia looks fully like her old self again. That didn't take long.

Blayne continues to be awful for no reason. He must always be the most evil. 

It is impossible for Isaac to be so misogynistic towards Emily and genuinely love Charlotte. As soon as Charlotte displeased him (which she did), he would have turned that hatefulness on her.

Kate's outfit for the prince was lovely. I like that print. I still find the actress too modern for this setting.

I didn't really need that sassy scene from Lady Leadsome but good for the actress, I guess. I'm not even mad at Harriet (now that she's not chasing after Will) to think she needed the setdown. And surely she knows Leadsome is hella racist. But again, good for that actress for getting her own little scene. 

Well that was an anticlimactic death for Isaac. Being a little shit threatening women to the end. Maybe I'm too bloodthirsty but I wish he'd been caught up with the more disreputable characters on this show instead of getting a quick death.

[aradia22]

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I don't think the male cast have ever felt as prominent as this season, and while William deserves his upgrade I loved that this was a show where women's lives and relationships with each other, good and bad, were the most important thing.

I blame the Pinchers. Jack Lively pining after Harriet isn't even that bad compared to how much time has been wasted on Isaac and Hal. And for what???

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But then Margaret shows up and she just barrels into everything without a thought, deciding she knows better than everyone, wont stop when he daughters ask her to lay low and chill, and fucks everything up. Charolotts death was a horrible accident, but if she had just left well enough alone and respected that Charlotte had handled the Pinchers, she would probably still be alive. Margaret just takes up so much room in any given space and wont let anyone else have any, and she is now getting into situations she doesn't even really understand and just plowing ahead because she is convinced she always knows best and that she has to get her dramatic revenge, even if it just makes everything worse. 

Say what you will about Margaret, but she has one of the most consistent characterizations on the show. Also, I couldn't really let it go either. I hated that Charlotte had an inexplicable attraction to Isaac who is both A) not really attractive and B) a misogynistic asshole. Yes, everything was sorted out. But I appreciated Margaret getting some retribution... and really, for most sane people, having a business deal fall through (one that you finagle before the wares are being sold on the open market) is not cause for violent rage. There are other ways to turn the money they have into more money that could go into buying the tavern. They were being ridiculous about this one plot of land in America. It's like if you killed yourself because you looked in the classifieds one time and got rejected for the one job you interviewed for. The Pinchers are ridiculous. They are so extra. In past seasons we've had characters who were actually in high stakes situations. 

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What was with the flashback dialogue audio over Lucy watching the fencers, the stuff about the Spartans? This show doesn’t usually waste that much breath on reminding us of past events. 

The closed captions (I need them sometimes with the mix of mumbling and thick accents) said it was Croft speaking. I wasn't sure if that was true. I don't remember Croft being one of the Spartans. But I don't know how else to interpret that scene of him fencing.

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There was a final shot of Issac where it seemed the money was in his pocket, about 1/2 peeking out.  Or was that something else?  I can't believe all three would have run away without checking to see if there was money.  a) it's money.  and b) if he's found without money his death will be assumed to be a robbery.

I blame plot-induced stupidity for making three pretty canny women act like they've suddenly never seen a dead body before.

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I loved the scene with Harriet and the wife, but I didn't see it as a "burn".  I think the wife truly hates her husband (sorry, can't remember his name right now) and telling Harriet about the plantation & slaves was meant to enlighten Harriet that her lover is a truly horrible person, which would result (as it did) in Harriet dumping the husband.  I saw it more as a "I don't necessarily like you, but I hate my husband more, and even you deserve better."

Nah. My interpretation was that she was being honest when she said she was happy Harriet was keeping her husband occupied and out of her bed. She wanted Harriet to keep him as a client. But she also wanted her to feel bad about it. She wanted Harriet to know that even if he gave her his wife's dress and seemed obsessed with her, he still didn't respect her or see her as a full person. Keep doing what you're doing but here's the full context so you understand exactly what's happening here.

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 I liked her rare moment of seriousness in admitting to Will that she's all "hats and smiles" because that's what the world requires of her.  Will still wins the prize for best summing up the philosophy of the entire show to Jack Lively though in advising him that to love women like Margaret or Harriet you have to just accept that they do what they do and take the long view on their using whatever they have available to them.  

Both excellent moments. I hang in there with this show for these kinds of moments.