Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Weep for Morwenna, dear Poldark fans. Hell, as it turns out, is not somewhere you get to in a handcart, but it is in fact Reverend Whitworth’s bed.
When we finally reunite with Morwenna (Ellise Chappell), she is literally trying to pray the sex away. That is, she’s hoping that praying with her stepdaughter will stave off having to submit to her husband’s lesser charms. But no. Morwenna is heavily, nay sickly, pregnant and forced to, well, deal with unwanted sex on a nightly basis. When Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) finally sees her again, she tries to keep it light, asking when Morwenna is expecting. But Morwenna does not know when she is expecting because, as she tells Demelza, her mother did not tell her what to expect when she was expecting, nor what to expect when she was straight up married. That means, yes, Morwenna probably didn’t know what sex was before Whitworth pinned her down for the first time. Horrors upon horrors.
Her only comfort is tearfully whispering to the dark how she loves Drake Carne again and again.
Drake (Harry Richardson) is also sad about Morwenna’s marriage. He spends his time just sitting on rocks, dripping wet. Thinking wet thoughts. As you can expect, the maidens of Cornwall watch him and have, well, wet thoughts of their own. Ross tries to perk him up by gifting him a house/business as a smith. It seems to work. Sure, Drake is bummed to hear Morwenna is with child, but he and Sam get to play Forged In Fire all the time!
To bolster Morwenna’s spirits, Whitworth sends for her sister and Morwenna’s sister is named…Rowella. And I’m having trouble getting a read on her. On the one hand, she initially comes across as essentially ready and willing to live that sub life. Kinks! Kinks lurk behind Rowella’s bright eyes! But then she also openly admits that Whitworth is a monster and delights in “controlling” him. I smell trouble from this little muppet-named sister. Trouble, indeed.
Good news on the rickets front! I know that you, gentle reader, like me, have been gripped by the Warleggan saga that I like to call: “My son has…rickets!” It turns out Valentine might be okay after all. Dwight (Luke Norris) stops by and tells George (Jack Farthing) and Elizabeth (Heida Reed) that the solution is a healthy diet and exercise. Imagine that! But George has bigger things to worry about, and that includes trying to impress Lord Falmouth and Sir Francis. These are the Tory and Whig gatekeepers of the county and they will get to help or hurt a potential MP bid. George thinks he’s a shoo-in, but there’s a catch. As George notices at Caroline (Gabriella Wilde) and Dwight’s formal wedding, both dudes have dude crushes on one Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner).
Yes, at long last, Ross has something to do with the story! Because he did something a few weeks ago! He is the hero of Campair (still officially spelled “Quimper”) and the man responsible for not only saving Falmouth’s hot nephew, Hugh Armitage, but for starting programs for redistributing wealth among the masses. He is the man of the moment and cannot turn down an invite to Sir Francis’s stately country home, called Tahiti. (I think. It sounds like it’s spelled like the sun-soaked island paradise.)
Ross reluctantly goes to a house party at Tahiti with Demelza in tow. And Dwight and Caroline are there. Oh, and Hugh Armitage, too! Imagine that! It’s quite a romp, you guys. Sir Francis does something crazy: he sets up bowling pins in the hall. Over dinner, Ross is too busy predicting the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte to notice Hugh Armitage is crushing hard on Demelza. You can’t really blame Ross. No, really, for once I don’t blame Ross! All is well on the domestic front, or so it seems. Because all is well, Ross kind of takes Demelza for granted…thus leaving a window for Hugh. The young gallant tries to woo her with sexy words and phrases like “shipwrecked” and “lost.” He also shows her a sketch of her that makes her look like Ms. Frizzle.
Meanwhile, George is like, “I’mma crash Sir Francis’s Tahiti house party.” Why? I don’t know. He’s George. He’s told to wait for Sir Francis, and so he overhears that Sir Francis wants Ross to lead a liberal revolution with him as an MP.
Totally aghast and emotionally destroyed, George rushes home to take his revenge on a totally innocent person who had nothing to do with this conversation — which I’ll get to in a moment. What George fails to piece together is that Ross, once more, has no interest in actually stepping up and helping people. Ross makes some stupid complaint that being an MP would be akin to losing his own voice, as he’d be expected to vote along with Sir Francis’s ideas (which are precisely the same as Ross’s). The nomination therefore goes to George Warleggan. Demelza finally confronts Ross about his absolute boneheadedness, but she conflates it with how he’s been ignoring her — not understanding that from Ross, his sort of nonchalance is probably a good thing because it means he trusts her and feels safe and secure in the marriage, but Ross is not only a dude, but an 18th century dude, so he doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to express this point in words. He can only smolder at the tide. And she can only spitefully take up Hugh as a fancy-man admirer.
(Jesus, Ross and Demelza could use couple’s therapy. Their only big problem this season is emotional communication.)
But the big tragedy of the episode has nothing to do with Ross’s stubborn refusal to stop George or Morwenna’s awful marriage. Remember Aunt Agatha’s big 100? She wanted to have a big party and get a new dress and dance on the graves of enemies laughing? Well, all that’s in order, except George does something vile. He does research. He does this shitty thing where he points out that Agatha is 98 years old and not 100.“That old woman will have no party,” he says bitterly.
An incensed Agatha reveals that George might not be Valentine’s dad. The revelation is awful because deep down George knows it’s probably true. This could be the end to George and Elizabeth’s happy, evil marriage. Which is sad because I kind of like their campy rhythm together.
Then Aunt Agatha dies. The baby cries. And Ross digs her grave alone in the rain. (I skipped some stuff, but you get the gist.)
Anything else? Oh, Sam finally has the hots for someone so I’m finally bothering to mention him in a recap. Go for it, Sam!
