Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This is it, guys. Poldark season two has finally come to an end. I can’t say it was all sunsets and shirtless wheat scything, but life must have its hills and its valleys. When we last left our heroes, they were licking their emotional wounds. Demelza was reeling from Ross’s misdeed and Elizabeth had married George Warleggan. So how does it all resolve itself? DOES IT ALL RESOLVE ITSELF? Let’s scamper into it!
George is settling into Trenwith and he’s already taking to redecorating. First thing that must go: Francis’s portrait! Second thing: poor people! That’s right. George has decided to hire thugs to rough up and shoot at any poor person who happens to wander onto his land. Dickensian sidekick actually starts to reveal he has a soul when he objects to this. When pressed about his alarming display of morality, said sidekick tries to spin it into strategy explaining that Warleggan might be making enemies. This is foreshadowing, my lovely sweets. This is foreshadowing something big indeed.
But for now, George can’t be bothered with the burden of narrative devices. He’s pissed because Ross bought Jeffrey Charles’s shares back in the mine to help Elizabeth survive on her own and now that the mine is doing gangbusters, George wants that share back. Ross calls bullshit. The two have tense meetings in the drawing room over the legality of the deal and who really loves the tow-headed scamp. Things come to a head when George insults Demelza. That’s when this happens:
Followed by this:
The two men go beyond fisticuffs! They go full beast on one another.
A bruised and bloodied Ross returns home. Oh, home. Demelza is still rightfully chafed by her husband’s infidelity and reveals that she had a little Highland fling with Malcolm MacNeil. It leads both her and Ross to lament the state of their marriage. “What’s the point?” he growls. What’s the point, you guys? You need to be together forever! The world is full of enough crushed dreams and failed romances. I need you pretty people in corsets and cravats to give me a rush of hope. I need this fantasy, Poldark. I need this. Wait—what are you doing, Ross? Are you? Oh, no. He’s running away from his problems by joining up to fight Napoleon.
Question for another day: Did war develop because ancient men were afraid of confronting their heartache and domestic failings? Talk amongst yourselves. Discuss. Get back to me with a strongly worded email in seven months time.
Hot Doctor Dwight is still depressed over being jilted by Caroline for her pug. Things get worse when he attends her uncle – he is sick with the “sugar sickness,” which is a nice old timey name for THE DIABEETUS — and Uncle Ray gloats that Caroline is marrying Lady Windemere’s fan’s son. This causes Dwight to cry masculine tears on a cliff and pushes him to join the Navy. Oh, what is to be done!
Well, when Ross goes to settle his affairs in town so he too can run away from his problems and fight in a war, he discovers that Caroline was his generous benefactor. Ross does his one altruistic deed for the season and decides to reunite the prettiest lovers in Cornwall. It’s actually pretty cute how Ross drags her into the military saloon and how Dwight’s eyes light up when he sees her again.
However my favorite part of this reunion was when Caroline asks how much time they have together and Dwight says I leave tomorrow and then she’s like, “Where’s your room?” Reader, I must make a confession, as much as I am a true romantic of the highest order, I am also a perv. (OH WAIT, YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT.)
What else happens? Oh, Verity has her baby! Sweet Verity gives birth to a unnamed child of indeterminate gender and Demelza is there to help out. This opens up the door for girl talk and Verity gives a very impassioned plea for believing in love and acting from the heart. Demelza takes this advice, sneaks onto the Warleggan land, and reads Elizabeth the riot act in the woods. Demelza declares that she is leaving Ross. It’s all very noble in an ABC daytime soap way. Then, the unimaginable happens (unless you’re good about picking up on foreshadowing). Demelza literally gets shot.
She’s not hurt badly or anything, but the idea that an actual “lady” would be shot by a Warleggan goon is enough to set the town off. The poor folk of the town get torches and pitchforks and a rudimentary understanding of pre-Engels communist theory. Demelza tries to stop them. Heck, she even tries to warn George and Elizabeth about the threat. Instead of heeding her warnings, Warleggan villain-monologues about how he’s taken everything from Ross. Demelza is all, “That’s a shitty thing to point out, but there’s a mob outside RIGHT NOW and they are going to hang you all.”
It seems very bad. George and his four goons have firearms, but the mob has fire. Just as it seems everything has gone to hell, a shot rings out. It is our hero, Ross Poldark, saving the day!
Ross quells the mob and declares that he’s not going to fight Napoleon after all. He’s going to try to lead a grassroots political resistance in his own town. He’s also going to try to win back his wife. Later that night, Demelza does try to move out. But Ross explains that however imperfect their love is, it is still true love. You guys, love — much like dinosaur life in Jurassic Park – might actually find a way!
There is one more little twist. Life with George is not all Elizabeth hoped it would be. The final straw for her is when George declares he wants to ship Jeffrey Charles to Harrow, where in the years ahead, he’ll have the opportunity to learn Greek, Latin, and to bully a young, club-footed Lord Byron. Elizabeth tells Aunt Agatha that she hopes maybe the new baby will sooth George. Then, Aunt Agatha drops the bombshell that the baby might not be George’s. Lightning crashes as Elizabeth’s face falls in horror. She is only now realizing that sex makes babies, and not just sex in marriage. Oh, for comprehensive sex ed!
In the end, love prevails — but so does war. For now, though, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that Ross and Demelza have reaffirmed their love to one another. Now our characters just have to survive the wars ahead.
