‘Mary & George’ Showrunner Admits Julianne Moore’s Lesbian Lover Sandie is the “Most Completely Created Character in the Show”

In last week’s episode of Mary & George, we learned that George Villiers (Nicholas Galitzine) is far from the only person in his family with queer desires. His mother, Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore), might easily be able to seduce her way into a new husband’s arms, but it’s Jacobean working girl Sandie (Niamh Algar) who truly catches her eye. The two women meet when Mary sets up a clandestine meeting in a brothel — the historic version of a WeWork? — and Sandie picks up on the higher ranked woman’s simmering, unsatisfied desires.

Mary and Sandie soon embark on a romance that begins as business and quickly tumbles into something far more intimate. Mary initially visits the sex worker as a paying customer, but their connection intensifies by the end of the second episode of the sumptuous Starz historical drama.

By the end of Mary & George Episode 2 “The Hunt,” Sandie has helped Mary knock a rival off the game board by murdering Sir David (Angus Wright) with poisoned prunes. Sir David was initially Mary’s strongest ally in King James’s (Tony Curran) court, happily scheming to push George into the monarch’s bed to supplant his Scottish favorite Somerset (Laurie Davidson). However, when Sir David learns that Mary had forged her identity and lied her way into nobility, he had to be eliminated.

Sandie and Mary’s romance adds not only an additional level of spice to the Starz show, but according to Mary & George showrunner D.C. Moore, it also widens the show’s scope.

“Not getting too pretentious, I did want some class analysis in this show, to see the different costs for people from different classes,” Moore told Decider. “I don’t know, it felt important for the show to have a wider canvas.”

Moore admitted to Decider that Sandie is the “most completely created character in the show.” Meaning, she is entirely fictional. There is no evidence that Mary Villiers necessarily had a lesbian sex worker lover who schemed alongside her.

That said, Moore divulged that his inspiration for Mary and Sandie’s relationship came from Sir Francis Bacon (Mark O’Halloran), the mysterious gentleman we see learning of the prune ploy at the end of last week’s episode of Mary & George.

“The real surprise is Bacon had these incredibly attractive male servants who were the best-dressed servants in London, right?” Moore said. “So he had obviously had a similar situation to James, but just amongst his household.”

(Slight spoilers, but in future episodes, Sandie’s station will rise through her association with Mary.)

“Often, the sort of more heterosexual relationships get defined by marriage and contracts. And actually, in some ways, there’s more freedom in same sex relationships,” Moore said. It was that freedom — and that nod to Bacon — Moore wanted to explore via Mary and Sandie.