Summary
The Buccaneers still feels like it’s trying to force a few things in Season 2, but Episode 3 gets Nan moving in the right direction if nothing else.
Love is a complicated thing, and The Buccaneers is struggling to keep track of it in Season 2. Episode 3, “Get Her Out”, is probably the strongest yet in how it finally gets the core romance between Nan and Guy back on track, or at least moving in the right direction, but it also attempts to sketch out subplots for everyone that seem to be cropping up a little too rapidly to be believed. Of particular note are budding attractions between Theo and Lizzy and, crucially, Jinny and Guy, though one suspects the latter might not be entirely reciprocal. If it is, there will presumably be a lot more drama to follow, especially with Nan’s last-minute departure from Tintagel.
There’s some more mature stuff going on elsewhere – like the Dowager Duchess and Reede Robinson – but it’s undeniable that the core of the drama is that involving Nan, Theo, Jinny, and Guy, sometimes to its detriment. Some of this has the distinct feel of plotlines sprung from someone in a writer’s room leading with “wouldn’t it be cool if?”, and such ideas rarely stand up to scrutiny.
But you never know. Either way, I liked “Get Her Out” for fittingly getting things moving. There’s nothing more frustrating than stuff being dragged out for a needlessly long time, and so it’s a bit of a relief that Lord Seadown’s baiting revelation in the previous episode leads directly to Theo finding out that Nan spent the night before their wedding with Guy. He doesn’t take it well, which is understandable, so the idea that he has to stay wedded to her and keep up appearances to secure Tintagel an heir doesn’t sit especially well.
This would have probably been enough conflict to be going on with, but The Buccaneers Season 2, Episode 3 doesn’t stop there and also has Blanche reveal to her son that she knew about Nan’s liaison with Guy and said nothing. Yikes! Theo takes this news even worse, but in doing so has a minor epiphany that he and Nan are both prisoners of circumstance. The reputation of Tintagel must necessarily come first, and individual happiness doesn’t really factor into it. The marriage wasn’t fair to Nan, but she needed the sway of a Duchess to protect her sister. And it wasn’t fair on Theo, since his own mother was complicit in him forming a union with someone that she knew didn’t love him, but such is Gilded Age life.
Guy Remmers in The Buccaneers Season 2 | Image via Apple TV+
For this reason, I can’t quite decide whether Theo is a hypocrite or not. “Get Her Out” really pushes the idea introduced last week that he has a major thing for Lizzy, which is weird since it hasn’t really been developed in any meaningful sense. It’s almost like Theo needs something to be doing in Nan’s absence, which comes about after she discovers some letters sent to Blanche about Guy and Jinny’s whereabouts. So, as she makes her way to Italy, Theo remains behind to presumably court his new beau.
The really daring thing would be Nan making it all the way to Italy to discover Guy in bed with Jinny, and we do seem to be moving in that direction. To be fair, there’s evidence to suggest this is one-way traffic, or at the very least that Jinny is more compelled by the idea right now. Not saying that Guy couldn’t be swayed, since dude’s will be dudes, and while Nan’s nice, her life is exceedingly complex. There’s something about the sunny quasi-domesticity they’re experiencing that will probably be quite compelling.
This is assuming that Nan gets there in good time. I imagine getting to Italy won’t be especially easy and that we’re a few episodes away from a potential reunion, which is just as well since it gives whatever’s going on with Guy and Jinny enough time to percolate. If, in the worst case, Nan leads Lord Seadown right back to Jinny, that’s likely to cause some serious problems for everyone.
All in all, most of this stuff works. The stuff that doesn’t is at least brushed aside unceremoniously, as if reminding us not to pay too much attention to it. I’m sceptical of this season’s abilities to truly convince us of certain plot points, with Theo’s entire outlook changing on a whim every couple of scenes, but you tune into a show like The Buccaneers for drama, at the end of the day, and there does seem to be plenty of that brewing. Let’s see how we get on.
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