Oh, baby, the boys are brooding this week. It’s not just a little brooding, either. This is “stare out into the open field before symbolically dousing the remnants of a dying fire as the sun begins to rise” level of brooding. Someone needs to give these English men a serotonin boost or something because they are very sad. Is that part of their allure? Probably!
After the drama of New York, the gang’s all back in England, and they’ve assembled at the Thwarte estate for what is his annual Bonfire Night party celebrating Guy Fawkes’s failed Gunpowder Plot; remember, remember, the fifth of November and all that. As Mabel points out, this “holiday” is “the most English thing ever — he was bad at it, so let’s celebrate.” Honestly, bless this show for having zero hesitation to tie our Guy and his failed attempt to break up Nan and Theo to Guy Fawkes and his failed attempt to overthrow King James I. It is so deliciously melodramatic and also gives Theo the opportunity to say he’s going to “burn Guy to the ground,” and no one bats an eye since they all think he’s talking about that Guy Fawkes effigy but we know he’s also talking about the Guy (and also the guy) who’s trying to take his girl. It is not one tiny bit subtle, and for this show about living loud and in your face, that really just works for me. Hit me over the head with symbolism and metaphors, especially when it comes to historical events from the 1600s, I am begging for it.
Things are a bit off from the get-go. First of all, the Thwarte’s Bonfire Night is apparently a rager every year, and yet this year, there’s like ten people invited, no servants around so these aristocrats will have to do stuff like chop their own wood, and the house is in disarray. Guy explains it all away by saying they’re doing some renovations, and everyone, including his friends for many years, are just like, Yeah, okay, that tracks. If anyone had asked even one more question about that obvious lie, they would’ve all realized that Guy’s family is broke as hell. A lot of the conflicts in The Buccaneers would be resolved if people just spoke honestly with one another, but that is not the way of hotties from the 1870s nor of period soap operas, and so here we are.
Perhaps Theo, Guy’s best friend in the entire world as we’ve been reminded repeatedly, is too distracted to question what’s really going on because the boy is fuming. Fuming! As you may recall, Theo intercepted Guy’s drunk text, er, telegram for Nan, in which he confessed his undying love. Nan has no idea it exists. Guy thinks Nan read it and doesn’t even want to entertain it, and Theo doesn’t look like he’ll be telling either of them about what he read anytime soon. Instead, Theo chooses cruel passive aggressiveness, which by the end of things seems mostly like aggressive aggressiveness.
The first step in the Duke’s plan to assure Guy isn’t a threat to his relationship is to invite Jean Hopeleigh to the bonfire in a misguided attempt to set Guy up with someone else. Jean almost immediately realizes she wasn’t actually invited by Guy and Nan. It is awkward for everyone involved, but mostly for Jean Hopeleigh, who has been humiliated enough, okay? Let’s hope this woman gets a happy ending at some point because, wow, does she deserve one after everything. Thankfully, Nan calls Theo out for treating Jean like a hat he can toss around instead of a human being, although some of her anger is definitely jealousy talking. Still! It’s better than nothing.
Nan seeing this less-than-desirable side of Theo only gets more complicated since Guy, although bruised believing Nan wants no parts of him, is becoming more desirable by the second. Nan has already been having second thoughts about Theo after learning that Guy, who really seems to understand her as a human being, did in fact return to Runnymede to apologize for running off after she told him about her mother. Then, as the two are out together chopping wood (not a euphemism, as badly as I wish it were), he starts talking about his mother and how he wanted to host this event to remember her. He describes her as “made of fire,” which is, admittedly, a phrase that would automatically make me want to marry the guy who said it. He says that “everything about her was energy and warmth and unexpected,” and if you haven’t realized these are also ways to describe Nan, you will once he goes on about how his mother “refused to be less than” in her relationship with Guy’s father. They were equals and best friends, and that’s what he wanted for himself. It’s everything Nan wants, too. It’s a charged moment that is left unresolved.
Don’t worry; it doesn’t take too long for them to rehash it. Part of Bonfire Night includes racing through a hedge maze for the torch to light said bonfire and, honestly, we should bring back hedge mazes at parties. There’s so much drama packed into those impeccably trimmed bushes. When Nan and Guy catch each other through a hedge, with their faces obscured so they don’t have to look each other in the eye, they can be a little more honest. Nan thinks Guy marrying Jean is a big mistake because she is definitely not his best friend, and Guy’s taken aback. One, he does not want to marry Jean. Two, how dare she have any opinion about it after completely ignoring everything he wrote in his telegram. Oh, baby, once Nan hears about this mysterious telegram full of mysterious feelings she does what any of us would do — she gets the hell out of that maze.
She turns to Conchita for help. Conchita’s own life may be a disaster, but the girl is the perfect get-a-grip friend. She can cut through the bullshit. It’s Conchita who tells her pal to stop playing dumb — she must know what the general contents of that letter were, and she must know how obvious it is that she is in love with Guy Thwarte. When Nan denies it, saying that all Guy does is piss her off, Conchita’s like, There, there, dummy, that’s love! Love isn’t stability and calm, which is clearly what Nan sees Theo as; Conchita says, no, “Love is a heart attack.”
With that in mind, Nan decides to go find Guy and tell him HOW DARE HE. How dare he love her! How dare he put her in this awful position! How dare he say all the right things and make her fall in love with him! Now, when Nan says all of this, Guy’s response is that he is “desperately in love” with her and has been “since the first second [he] set eyes on [her].” Once again, Nan does what any of us in this situation would do — she makes out with that boy!
Upon realizing what she’s done, Nan takes off, and Guy rushes after her. They, of course, run into Theo, who is not having any of it. He channels his insecurities into an impromptu poker game between the three of them — why, yes, they do sit in a triangle formation, in case you were wondering! — which Theo mostly uses as an excuse to make fun of Guy for being poorer than him. When his insults don’t seem to be having the effect he wants, he drops the little tidbit that Guy only traveled to New York to look for a wealthy American to make his wife and save his family from ruin. Guy can’t say anything to defend himself lest he talk openly about his love for Nan, and Nan is left humiliated. She wins the poker game but as she so dramatically points out, she feels like she’s lost everything.
Later, during the actual bonfire of Bonfire Night, Nan really gives it to Guy. She feels so betrayed — twice she’s trusted him, and he’s proved it to be a mistake. She wants nothing to do with him. Guy doesn’t fight back; he believes he has lost. But you know who does fight to win back Nan’s good favor? Theo. For what it’s worth, he does apologize to Guy for being a dick, and Guy confides in him about his money troubles. Theo also apologizes to Nan for having to see this awful side of him; he doesn’t want to be a dick, but he does get so jealous of Guy for being so likable. So, there’s that. It’s not the best apology, but he does win Nan over when he starts going on and on about how strong and overwhelming his love for her is. She starts kissing this boy, too! Guy might be standing out there in the distance watching this with his sad little face and then dumping water on the Guy Fawkes bonfire as if to say, Like this fire, my heart has also been extinguished! (This is the guy who was screaming off a cliffside not too long ago, he lives for this shit!), but something tells me he isn’t to be fully counted out just yet. Nan St. George’s love life remains, as ever, quite complicated.
Nan’s not the only one! Bonfires get people hot and bothered; it’s science. Back in each other’s presence, Honoria and Mabel pick up right where they left off. They ditch that hedge maze and find a little cottage on the property where, after pretending as if they are married and discussing their home life just like any other couple, they have sex in front of the fireplace. It seems like it’s going well, but later, Honoria finds a distressed-looking Mabel sitting away from the bonfire festivities. When Honoria tries to cheer her up by playing the game of pretend again, Mabel lashes out. Her whole life is pretend. The game is ridiculous and thinking they could have anything together is ridiculous. She’s tired of it. She walks off, leaving Honoria sobbing alone. Mabel’s mother’s disgust really did a number on our girl. We still have several episodes to go, so most likely these two will figure things out. Still, it turns out it’s not just the boys who are sad beyond repair on this show. Everyone is! The days of pink poodles and spinning on lawns just for funsies are long gone.
The Society Pages
• There’s a gorgeous scene between an unlikely pair: Lizzy and Guy, who hide out from their respective problems on the kitchen floor while sharing a bowl of marshmallows (relatable!). Perhaps because she barely knows Guy, Lizzy is finally able to unburden herself by (vaguely) talking about the shame a certain someone made her feel and how suffocating that shame has been. She doesn’t know how to change that. Guy tells her that she already has the answer: “You didn’t say you did something shameful; you said he made you feel ashamed.” And he’s right — the shame doesn’t belong to Lizzy, it belongs to Seadown.
• Lizzy decides to fight a little harder for her friendship with Jinny. During the maze, she convinces her to ditch Seadown and hang out with her, like old times. You can actually, FINALLY, see why Lizzy and Jinny are friends, as they share an afternoon laughing together. Of course, when Jinny returns, she faces consequences from her husband. Jinny’s situation is getting much, much worse.
• Jean and Honoria have a quick English lady–to–English lady chat about how free and confident the American women seem to be. “I used to think that [the Americans] needed to be taught how to behave. I wonder if it’s us who need to learn how to live,” Honoria says. Didn’t Jean just break your heart with her “my whole life I’ve been told to make less noise and now they wonder why they can’t hear me” line? Justice for Jean!
• Conchita and Dickie are secretly separated but still very into each other. Who’s going to give up what to make this relationship work? I wish them happiness, even if they seem to be the couple with the least amount of chemistry out of everyone.
• Without any servants around, does that mean Guy was out there trimming those maze hedges by himself in preparation for this party? Can you even imagine? Do you think he was crying the whole time he was doing it? The answer is yes, that man is like 85 percent angst. (I cherish him.)
