‘Mary & George’ Episode 1 Recap: “The Second Son”

If you consider yourself a history buff, you may already know the story of Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham. Her biggest claim to fame is getting her son George to seduce King James I so that she and her family could move into the upper classes (which worked incredibly well, I should add). I didn’t know all of that before I Wiki’d it, of course, but my love of gay scandal (gasp!) and Julianne Moore — who plays Villiers herself in the new Starz series Mary & George, alongside Nicholas Galitzine’s George — had me finding out so that I could be prepared for Episode 1, aptly titled “The Second Son.”

The show opens with Mary giving birth to George, who she deems pretty useless given that he’s her second son and won’t inherit anything. The poor thing is dropped on his head by the servants, but seems to escape relatively unscathed. He appears equally unscathed when Mary cuts him down from a tree some two decades later in what appears to be a botched (or half-hearted?) suicide attempt.

George recuperates in bed, where he’s momentarily treated by the house servant Jenny, with whom he appears to be in love (and the feeling is mutual). However, Mary isn’t having it — she’s ready to send George off to France where he can use his “gifts” to get ahead, since the eldest son appears to have mental disabilities. The dynamic between Mary and George is clearly toxic (and rather entertaining to watch), that much is clear early on.

The entire family appears to be waiting for the patriarch of the family, the eldest George Villiers, to kick the bucket. He does, eventually, but not before we see a few flashbacks to just what a nasty piece of work he was — abusive, STD-ridden, and just generally pretty awful. That’s when we discover that the eldest George’s death was largely thanks to Mary pushing him down the stairs in a fit of rage. Can’t say I blame her, to be fair.

Sadly, Mary gets nothing after her wretched husband dies. He signed the home over to a cousin and has left her zilch. That means she has no cash to send her second son, her only hope, off to France as she’d planned. The executor of the estate advises she just needs to get married again, but that she should wait until an appropriate amount of time has passed. She waits two weeks before tying the knot with Sir Thomas Compton. (Fun fact: Before the real-life Mary married Thomas, she had a short marriage to a Sir William Rayner, but that’s not mentioned here.)

The younger George (henceforth simply known as “George”) now has the money to head off to France, but it’s safe to say he’s not thrilled about it. In fact, he’s absolutely “bricking it” as the Brits say, terrified as he’s never left the country and barely speaks French. Ah well, off he goes!

George is met by a lovely French guy named Jean, who wants to know how his journey was. Before he can answer, he spews all over the beach. Charming! He seems to recover enough by the time they reach the palace (?) where he’ll be staying. Jean puts him on the spot by asking about his suicide attempt and insists that George needs to be honest so Jean can help him like he “helps all English boys who come here.” That sounds… promising? Foreboding? A bit of both? I can’t decide.

Once inside, George wants to know why no one was there to greet him, but he soon realizes it’s because they’re all busy having a giant orgy, which stretches through several rooms. George is visibly uncomfortable (and perhaps a little turned on).

Meanwhile, back in England, Mary has moved house, into the estate owned by her new husband. However, he wants the 16th century version of a prenup before they wed, and one is signed (though, given that it was created by her personal attorney, it’s hard to know if the conditions are particularly favorable to Sir Thomas.

George needs to learn how to be a fine, upstanding gentleman, and Jean is intent on getting him there. He’s instructed to only speak in French rather than English, which Jean describes as a “disease of the tongue.” Oddly enough, George seems to resign himself to the experience thanks to this conversation, and he then begins learning fencing and dancing (as well as starting to get in touch with his bisexuality, it appears).

The advance party scouting for King James comes to visit Mary and Sir Thomas, and while Mary loves the idea of hosting royalty, her husband isn’t on the same page since the last time he came by, he nearly bankrupted him. Mary thinks she could potentially seduce him (on a non-sexual level, one assumes), but Thomas thinks it would never work since James is gay and awful. Sounds like a fun time!

The visit does happen, much to Mary’s delight. However, King James never shows his face — he’s “too tired” to be welcomed to the home, refuses to show up at dinner (or let anyone else eat, either). His spokesperson of sorts claims he’s “ill,” but who knows what the truth is.

Everyone heads to bed, but not Mary. She goes to look for King James and runs into Lord Chamberlain, privy counselor, who’s clearly quite, ahem, busy with the king. However, this does draw the king from his room, only long enough to get Chamberlain to come back so they can continue their fun. A fireside chat between Mary and a member of James’ entourage gets the gears turning in her brain as she considers what “homegrown sodomite” she might supply to the king.

Back in France, George heads to Jean’s bedroom one night and says through the door that he likes it there, and he’s “ready to play.” Jean doesn’t believe that George is ready to make his debut in society because he’s probably going to embarrass himself. However, his disappointment soon dissipates when he realizes Jean has been busy getting it on with a man from “the lower classes.” He’s soon invited in, and George finds the temptation too powerful to resist this time. It’s not long before he strips naked and hops into bed with them.

Fast-forward… an unknown amount of time, and George is back in England a week earlier than expected. Mary seems pleased, and George looks much more refined than when he left. She begins telling her second son about King James, and she wants George to try to get a position as one of James’ cupbearers. It’s clear she hopes he’ll end up doing much more than that, of course.

Thanks to a bit of wrangling, he gets to serve the king his meat (ahem), which appears to be a rather illustrious position (ahem). To be clear, we’re talking about an actual banquet here — at least for now. George carries the tray to the banquet table, or at least he tries to before he’s tripped by the man whose job he unintentionally usurped. No one at the table seems particularly shocked or perturbed, and King James himself doesn’t laugh. In fact, a fight breaks up as George begins punching the man who tripped him.

Lord Chamberlain is about to chop one of George’s hands off, but King James — and visiting Queen Anne and King Christian — all agree that George simply sought his own justice for a wrongdoing. He’s sent back to work without incident, though he certainly hasn’t made any royal pals as yet.

That night, George takes a knife from Mary’s bedside drawers and takes it outside, where he contemplates slicing his wrists. However, Mary finds him before he does anything — and instructs him on how to do it right. However, she recognizes he has too much pride to actually go through with it and instead wants him to share what happened.

Mary tells George that now King James has seen him, he’ll be thinking about him all night, and that now they just need to get George back inside the palace again. Once they manage that, the world is their oyster. Somehow, you believe her.

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor from New York who cares too way much about fictional characters and spends her time writing about them.