Summary
The Buccaneers Season 2 continues to exhibit some of its old storytelling and pacing problems in Episode 2.
Sending letters is a nightmare, isn’t it? You never know who might read them, for one thing, and then there’s the not insignificant fact that they take ages to get where they’re going. And that’s if your chosen intermediary – hopefully not the British Royal Mail; you’ll never see it again – doesn’t dilly dally on the way or decide that the intended recipient needn’t bother themselves with the contents. The Buccaneers has leaned on the impracticalities of letters before, and it’s doing so again in Season 2. Episode 2, “Holy Grail”, opens with Guy composing an intensely romantic missive for Nan and entrusting Lizzy to deliver it.
As the premiere briefly reminded us, Guy is still living in isolation with Jinny, but it’s not going entirely well. She wants to return to England, so Guy has to drop the bombshell that it wouldn’t be a good idea, since the talk of the town is that she has gone mad. This is how it works: women who act out are publicly discredited because that’s easier to explain than the idea that they might have any agency of their own. Because of this, Lord Seadown is able to pull the levers of power in high society to ensure that he remains the victim. And he’s incredibly smug about this to the point that he comes across as almost moustache-twirlingly comical. Every time he’s on screen, he’s making threats and flamboyantly gloating about the inevitability of him getting Jinny back.
He might be right. Then again, he might not. An emerging arc seems to be Jinny and Guy forming a kind of surrogate family that looks a little bit – at least to me – romantically inclined. Nan is trying her best to leverage being the Duchess of Tintagel in their favour, such as wearing red to a black-and-white ball in the premiere to keep the press focused on her, but it scarcely feels like enough. She’s having to reckon with that feeling of powerlessness while also sulking about the fact her true love is elsewhere, with another woman, while she’s shacked up with someone she feels little for but has to cosy up to for the optics.
Nan sulks a lot in Episode 2 of The Buccaneers Season 2. But she also continues to make moves. Like the dress stunt, she takes her social obligations as an opportunity to push her own agenda. In “Holy Grail,” it’s a speech at a dinner party about how women deserve to be seen as more than property of their husbands, which gets publicly supported by Theo. Theo also smacks Seadown at one point when he’s getting threatening with Nan. I feel for this guy, honestly. He’s really trying to be the ideal husband, but Seadown holds a trump card that we’re all aware of – that Guy left England with Jinny, and was spotted in the castle the night before, meaning he must have stayed the night. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out who he stayed with.
Guy Remmers and Barney Fishwick in The Buccaneers Season 2 | Image via Apple TV+
Losing Theo as an ally would be a terrible blow for Nan, especially since she seems to be coming around to the idea of being his wife. Sure, she’s spending all night crying, but she’s doing her best to keep up appearances in public, and she’s reassuring to Theo about it not really being his fault (which it isn’t.) Nan’s main issue is committing to this too much. Burning the shirt from her final tryst with Guy is a nice symbolic gesture, but reiterating to Lizzy that she’s doing all fine and dandy as a Duchess compels her to burn Guy’s letter, which isn’t ideal.
This does slightly highlight a problem that Lizzy mostly just acts in ways that facilitate more plot for other characters. There’s a feeling of artificiality to the storytelling in The Buccaneers that was present in Season 1 and doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere in Season 2, and it can get annoying that the complex web of English high society feels less like an organic tapestry and more like it’s expressly designed to prohibit any one character’s personal story from progressing too much. It leaves implication and foreshadowing to do too much of the heavy lifting in lieu of actual drama. You’re always wondering what might happen instead of enjoying what’s actually happening.
You can, though, enjoy some of the character interactions in the meantime. Nan’s getting tedious, admittedly, but there’s good stuff between Honoria and Mabel in “Holy Grail”, and even Mabel and Lady Brightlingsea, a reliable source of laughs who has just moved into Richard and Conchita’s residence following the death of her husband. But I’m still waiting – for something to blossom between Guy and Jinny, for Seadown to receive some kind of comeuppance, for Theo to turn on Nan (potentially) and leave her feeling even more trapped and isolated in her new life. This is the real dramatic meat, all still to come, but how long we’ll have to wait to get to it remains a point of some concern.
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