It’s not unusual to return from a lengthy trip abroad feeling like a changed person. You’ve seen things. You’ve learned things. You’ve probably embarrassed yourself at least three times. It happens to all of us. And it is definitely what has happened to our feisty buccaneers, who all make a quick stop back in New York for what was supposed to be Jinny and Seadown’s wedding before that slimy piece of shit forced her to elope. None of them has returned the person they were when they left. Conchita has learned how suffocating marriage can be, Lizzy has experienced true cruelty, Mabel has discovered a place and a person who makes her feel more like herself, and Jinny is slowly becoming a shell of a human thanks to her twisted and manipulative husband. But perhaps the most changed is our dear Nan St. George, who has just learned her entire life has been a complete lie. What a cool and fun time for her.
Nan has a lot to think about on her travels across the Atlantic: Not only is she trying to reckon with the fact that her family has been lying to her face and grapple with the fact that she will have to face her parents — her mother, especially — after learning the truth about her illegitimate birth, but she also is gearing up to become a duchess, a fact that the entire eastern seaboard of the United States seems obsessed with. But more than that, she has to decide if she will tell Theo about who she is, even though it may mean she will lose him — a duke marrying someone like her was a tough sell back in the 1870s. The other option is to lie to him for the rest of their lives. On top of all of that, Nan may not even want to marry Theo because she has just learned that Guy did come back for her at Runnymede, and she definitely has the hots for Guy. That is a lot for any person! That is stressful! If I were Nan, I’d ask the captain to do a couple of laps out in the ocean before docking in New York.
Instead of developing a plan during her time on the open seas, Nan lets her emotions lead the way. Upon her arrival, she proceeds to get wildly annoyed with her mother for throwing a lavish party to celebrate her daughters that features doves in cages as the decor (“it has to do with birds being chic”), runs upstairs and hides in her bedroom, and then deliver a supremely dramatic “I am nothing to you” as a means of telling Patty that she knows everything. You can’t really blame Nann … but can you really blame Patty? Or, at the very least, can you blame Patty more than Tracy? He’s the dude who couldn’t keep it in his pants and forced Patty to devise a way to keep her family’s reputation from being destroyed! Also, while he may have a great mustache, he’s still flirting with hot young women right in front of his wife’s face. Tracy can take a hike! And yet, when Nan and Jinny discuss it later, they just say, “Oh, daddy will always be impossible,” and move on. I’d expect it from Jinny, but Nan? Nan?!
Patty is a tough broad, though. After Nan tears into her for the lies and mistakes she’s made and twists the knife by wondering if she was closer with her father when she was little because somehow she knew she didn’t belong to Patty, Mrs. St. George tracks down her husband to let him have it. Of course, she makes a big scene in the middle of the party before dragging the Colonel off to remind him that this is all his fault as he continues to brush any responsibility off. When she tells her husband that Nan knows — excuse me, NAN KNOWS — his first thought is if Nan’s going to tell Theo and ruin her chances at becoming a duchess. It’s infuriating. “Do you have any idea what we’ve sacrificed for your utter belief you can do exactly as you please? You have turned us into liars,” she hisses at him before declaring the inevitable: That she will fix this and keep this family together because it’s what she’s always done.
It means another conversation with Nan (all the scenes between Christina Hendricks and Kristine Frøseth in this episode are devastating and lovely; they make a great mother-daughter pairing). This time, Patty impresses upon Nan that she is her daughter in every way that counts. From the moment she met Nan, she loved her. Every part of Nan is a part of Patty and always will be. “You nestled into my heart and made it so much bigger and brighter and more important.” They decided — well, Patty decided — not to tell Nan the truth because then she’d always have a secret, she’d always feel different. Patty just wanted her daughter to be fearless. And so, Nan makes quite a fearless decision: She wants to tell Theo the truth. He is an honest man, and she doesn’t want to have to lie to him for the rest of her life. If he walks away from her, so be it.
What Nan doesn’t realize is that she might not even have to tell Theo about her mama drama for him to want to call this whole thing off — she doesn’t know what he’s been up to while she’s locked herself up in her room. Oh, Theo. He’s very kind about this big party being thrown in his honor. He shuts down the snotty Paramore daughter trying to embarrass the St. Georges by reminding her that technically, in America, it’s all new money, honey, and he genuinely wants to spend time with Nan. But then that boy reads. Reading always gets people in trouble, and we should never do it. Theo comes across a telegram left on the front table and sees a message from none other than Guy Thwarte, who is hanging out at Tintagel Castle with Theo’s mother while everyone else is gone. Theo assumes that since the message is from his best friend, Guy, who doesn’t really know anyone else in New York, it must be for him. What a real duke move, you know what I mean? If only he had looked at the front of the telegram, he would’ve seen that it was actually addressed to Nan.
In a drunken stupor, egged on by Theo’s mother’s pep talk about going after love like Theo’s mother did when she wrote a letter to his father after meeting him, Guy writes a letter to Nan and confesses all of his feelings. It says things like, “I am weak, and I am confused, but Nan, my love for you is neither.” This is a capital-L Love Letter. Now, in Guy’s defense, once he sobers up, he does attempt to squash the letter from getting to Nan, but he is entirely too late, and so instead, he goes to scream into the void off the side of a cliff, as brooding men trapped in complicated love triangles during the 1870s are wont to do.
Regardless, Theo reads the entire thing and is sent reeling. He stumbles out into the street only to be faced with newspapers full of headlines about him, a duke, marrying a New York socialite. His greatest nightmare is being only thought of as his title instead of a human being, and so he reels some more. He, unfortunately, does not have a cliffside at his disposal from which to scream, but that boy would if he could. Theo finally catches up with Nan just as Colonel St. George attempts to smooth things over by getting Nan and the Duke to dance in front of everyone (the Colonel is a dope, we know this). He takes her hand and pulls her away from the party into the coat check room. It’s frantic; you don’t know exactly what he will do — and then he kisses her. “I love you, Nan. Do you want me?” He pleads. He needs to hear her say it. He isn’t going to yell at her or demand answers; he just wants to know if she loves him too or if, maybe, she loves someone else. She says yes, she wants him, and they furiously make out some more! It’s very hot! From now on, I’ve decided that coat checks should only be used for kissing.
Still, Nan wants to do the right thing and tell Theo the truth about her mother, but Theo, thinking he already knows what she’s about to say, stops her. If she’s truly happy, she shouldn’t “tell [him] anything that might spoil it.” And then he asks if they can get married quickly. You know that’s never a great sign, but these two angsty lovebirds will attempt to be the exception to that rule. (I bet they aren’t!)
Even if Nan and Theo might be doomed — or, at least, certain to hit some bumps in the road when truths are made public — for now, they seem happy. And that’s good news for Mrs. St. George, who is in the throes of getting emotionally sucker-punched by her other daughter in the middle of this truly bungled dove-themed party. We can’t fully blame Jinny since she is trapped in a toxic, emotionally abusive relationship that she either can’t see or doesn’t want to see … but we can blame her a little bit. She knows better, and you can see it all over her face. But Seadown is a master manipulator, and currently, he has both of his favorite playthings available to him at this party.
First, Seadown sees Lizzy attempting to ignore him, and when she accidentally bumps into him, he reasserts his power over her by pretending he has never met her before. She is humiliated all over again. But this time, instead of running away, after seeing her friend grow more deeply entwined in this man’s awfulness, she decides she’ll return to England with the group. She wants to protect Jinny, regardless of what Seadown will do to her. But is it too late? After multiple public dances and watching the little drama between the St. George’s go down, Seadown tells Jinny that this party is disgusting and her mother owes him an apology. He isn’t going to force her to ask, he says, but we all know he is forcing her to ask. And she does it! In the middle of everything, she tells her mother the party is in “bad taste” and embarrassing and that she should have more respect for Lord Seadown. She owes him an apology. Seadown swoops in and stops his wife, pretending like he can’t believe she is asking this, he has felt so welcome, and he thanks his mother-in-law for her hospitality. He’s gaslighting Jinny, and she is falling for it completely.
Thankfully, Nan is there to step in and praise her mother — she makes sure to emphasize “my mother” — and hugs her. Nan rules. She and her mother are going to be fine, and for now, she and Theo seem to be happy, if not in denial of some real problems that will surely rear their heads soon.
Patty is appreciative and relieved, but she also takes a moment to reassert herself and remind everyone, especially her eldest daughter, that she does not give a flying “fig” about what others think. It’s an impressive way to close out a party, and it gives Patty a much-needed power boost to go and handle her husband, who, even after all the drama with Nan, is hitting on other women in plain sight. In private, Patty tells her husband that she is done with all of this. This marriage is over. He laughs. No one will take her seriously on her own, he tells her. While she might fall in line for now, something tells me this won’t always be the case.
The Society Pages
• Okay, so who do we think Nan’s real mother is? The Colonel lies to Nan when she asks and says he doesn’t remember and that she’s dead (how Nan doesn’t figure out he’s lying remains a mystery since those two statements clearly can’t both be true), and Mrs. St. George is pleased to know that at least one secret isn’t out yet. What kind of trouble could this mystery woman cause, and when will she inevitably pop up?
• Mabel apparently hooks up with a St. George housemaid on the regular, but this time, she’s caught by her mother. Mrs. Elmsworth looks horrified but then refuses to bring it up later, reiterating that Mabel will find a good man to marry. Mabel is more than happy to learn that she’ll be going back to England with Lizzy.
• When Conchita sees how free Dickie is away from his family (the man dances like no one is watching), she tells Mrs. Testvalley that she wants to take Dickie and Minnie away from England. Mrs. Testvalley wisely warns her that, in the end, Dickie will never give up the power he has in his homeland. She’s right! Dickie tells his wife that he can’t up and move to New York. She tells him that she refuses to live in his house anymore and she won’t let their daughter be “extinguished” by his family like he has been. That’s going to be a problem.
• I’m sorry, WHAT is the deal with Dickie and Mrs. Testvalley? After his crushing discussion with Conchita, he walks into the bathroom where Mrs. Testvalley is bathing and looking at him seductively. He sits down next to the tub and lets her run her fingers through his hair. The Buccaneers just upped the twisted factor.
• Speaking of Testvalley … what is that strange look that passes between her and Colonel St. George? What is this woman’s deal??
