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Poldark

Last week on Poldark, the Warleggans revealed plans to ruin our gallant hero Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner)! Will they succeed? Let’s find out!
Verity and Captain Blamey have developed a system of exchanging messages that rivals gchat. First, Captain Blamey hides a hand-written note behind a rock in a desolated stone wall. Then, Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) finds it. After that, she walks to Trenwith, sneaks in the gardens, and then…OMG I have never thought I’d enjoy dating in the time of texting. Basically, Demelza is helping Verity and her love sneakily stay in touch.

Meanwhile, after years of being lazy, drunk, and altogether foul and untrustworthy, Ross finally fires Jud and Prudie. Over what? Well, he overhears Jud spreading malicious gossip about him and Jinny, but really, it’s that Jud calls Demelza a troll. It gets Ross’s fire up to hear his wife compared to a scaly beast who lives under bridges. Later, losers!

Verity finally decides to leave the Poldark clan to be with Captain Blamey. The problem is that one of the servants saw Demelza sneak Verity a note, so Francis immediately assumes that Ross is behind all of this. Francis is so upset about this that he throws a temper tantrum and runs off to his room — where he presumably cries and plots Ross’ downfall.

George Warleggan conveniently shows up immediately after this to apologize about that whole card shark cousin thing and to give them a ton of money. Francis is so excited to have a friend that he ignores the fact that George is hitting on Elizabeth and decides to spill the beans on who’s in cahoots with Ross. (Hint: everyone in cahoots with Ross happens to owe the Warleggans a lot of money.) Well, well, well…now it’s Francis who’s in cahoots with someone. CAHOOTS!

That flirty actress Keren finally wore Dwight Enys down. The two get down and dirty with it. The problem is that her sweet, dopey husband Mark finds out. How does Mark respond? He hugs Keren to death! (Okay, he grabs her in a rage, squeezes too hard, and breaks her neck.)

So, Mark is wanted for the murder of his wife. Naturally, he’s going to turn to our hero, Ross Poldark, for help. He has a plan! They’re going to sneak Mark out of town in the middle of the night on Ross’s own boat. What a plan! What could go wrong? Oh, redcoats are in town to catch some smugglers. They’re led by a smart dude who served with Ross in the Revolutionary War (and therefore knows all his tricks and will totally be able to predict Ross’s plan).

But things are about to get even stickier for Ross Poldark. He gets a letter from Trenwith announcing that Verity is marrying Captain Blamey. Alarmed, he confronts Francis and Elizabeth and discovers that Francis blames him for everything. The two cousins almost come to blows.

Things are also pretty bad for Demelza. She has to house both Mark and Dr. Enys at Nampara. Yikes.

Demelza is clever enough to convince the men to reach an uneasy truce, so no one gets hugged to death again. As soon as Ross arrives home, it’s time to sneak Mark out. Of course, they run into the Redcoats. Shots are fired, Ross gets hurt, and Mark somehow makes it away in the Poldark family boat.

When Ross’s old Redcoat pal comes to the house to check on him, he lets Ross pretend that he’s gotten away with it, but gives him a cryptic warning about how the law will eventually catch up to him like a giant squid. Oh, 18th century metaphors… How I sort of get you!
However, things are already catching up to Ross. The Warleggans have moved against his shareholders and Demelza visits Francis to reveal that she was responsible for uniting Verity and Captain Blamey. Suddenly everyone realizes that Demelza’s sweet interference has ruined all of Cornwall. Ross is furious with her and so is Francis and so is everyone. Francis even calls her a troll.

Man, things are terrible, right? Really bad. But guess what? Things are about to get worse because there’s a “putrid throat” thing going around and killing everyone. All the servants at Trenwith have it, Francis has it, Elizabeth has it, and it’s all yucks.
Ross Poldark does not have the putrid throat; he has a soul full of burning passion. He enters the latest copper auction knowing that this is his last chance to hold off the Warleggans. Alas, our hero fails and his great copper company is dissolved.

Demelza takes it upon herself to be a heroine. She goes to Trenwith to tend to the asshole Poldarks. When she enters the house, it looks like something out of a horror film. The house is empty and covered in dust. Aunt Agatha barks at her and curses Verity like a stereotypical hag. Oh, and pretty Elizabeth looks like she’s an extra in a zombie film.

Demelza quickly gets to work helping Francis, Elizabeth, and their son get better. No one is looking after the servants because they don’t matter. Still, this endears Demelza to Francis and Elizabeth. At first, Ross is pissed that she would put herself in danger, but admits that she was just behaving heroically — the way he does. And who knows…maybe he’ll appreciate it in a fortnight.
And then Demelza and baby Julia get sick.

Dr. Enys comes over and says it’s so bad that he’d be surprised if they both survive the night. Ross is beside himself and Demelza slips in and out of some trippy hallucinations that play into all her worst nightmares.

It’s bad, right? This is all bad! And then, it gets even worse! Baby Julia dies and Ross buries her in the tiniest coffin ever.

OMG, YOU GUYS. STUFF IS ABOUT TO GET TERRIBLE. I DON’T LIKE THIS. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SUPER-COOL FUN-TIME SHOW ABOUT A HOT GUY AND HIS SASSY SERVANT GIRL WHO FLIRT A LOT? UGH.
Anyway, as Ross rides home to tend to his sick wife after burying their infant daughter, he notices that the weather is picking up and that the sea is tossing a ship — the Warleggans ship — towards a rock outcropping. Ross calls upon drunk Jud and all the miners to loot the shipwreck for their own purposes. The grieving Poldark is a man on a mission and that mission is to, uh, take stuff from the Warleggans.

Naturally, the Warleggans want to fire back. Namely, mean, gravel-voiced Uncle Warleggan wants everyone to hang for plundering the shipwreck. The weird thing is that usually convention holds that what washed on a shore belongs to the finder, but the Warleggans are new money and they play by new rules. They pay off a redcoat to make sure that the rabble on the beach is brought to heel.
Ross cottons to this and tells everyone to scatter, but soon fights erupt between the villagers and the shipwreck survivors. It’s bedlam. Ross discovers that the Warleggans’ cardshark cousin, Matthew, is dead on the beach. He rolls the body over and closes the eyes. Bad move, bro! You’ve been seen at the scene of the crime touching the corpse! Don’t you watch Masterpiece Mystery?

Ross finds the shipwreck survivors and bring them back home. He returns to find his once beloved Elizabeth watching over his once beloved Demelza. When Elizabeth asks if there’s anything she can do to atone for the fact that baby Julia’s dead because Demelza saved baby Geoffrey Charles’ life, Ross says, “You can pray to god I don’t lose the love of my life.”

There it is: Ross loves Demelza! He loves Demelza and not Elizabeth. Phew. At least something kind of good (for everyone but Elizabeth) happened. Of course, this also means that Ross also has to tell his wife that their daughter died in his arms. Which…is not good. It’s very sad.
George Warleggan is pissed. He’s pissed his pretty ship wrecked. He’s pissed his cool fun-times cardshark cousin is dead. Most of all, he’s pissed that Ross was kind of a dick to him on the beach. So, he struts on over to Trenwith to tell Elizabeth that he loves her and wants to steal her away from Francis.
Ross takes a grieving Demelza to a beautiful cliffside where they can bid their daughter a final farewell. Demelza uses this time to convince Ross to make amends with Francis with the hopes of restoring the Poldark family name. It seems for a moment that there could be hope…and then all that is DASHED! The Redcoats come and arrest Ross for the crimes of wrecking, inciting a riot, and murder.

Well, that concludes this season of Poldark. The next one might end with our hero hanging! OH NO!
[Watch Poldark on the PBS App]

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