Summary
The Buccaneers remains partial to sudden romances in Season 2, and in Episode 5, it expects us to care about them a bit more than seems reasonable. However, an undercurrent of tragedy still gives the whole thing some texture.
Welcome to the Gilded Age, where a lusty attraction can morph into a passionate declaration of love in just a couple of hours. This is a trick that The Buccaneers seems to be relying on in Season 2. As soon as Nan was out of the way after leaving for Italy in Episode 3, Theo immediately set his sights on Lizzy, and Episode 5, “A Whole Love”, expects us to buy into the intensity of their romance on a deeper level than I think is reasonable. But it also keeps Guy busy by doing the exact same thing, although, to be fair, at least his new romantic conquest doesn’t come with marital obligations.
Ah, marriage. That’s the word of the day this week, and The Buccaneers continues to imagine the concept as a kind of prison, an exchange not of vows but of personal freedoms, all in the name of public image. It’s rare I’ve ever seen such an unromantic portrayal of the most romantic of institutions, but I can’t say it’s a bad or inaccurate idea.
For this reason, Lizzy’s pending nuptials have the vibe of a death sentence, or at least some kind of impending doom. “A Whole Love” rubs it in with a cold open comprising a montage of Lizzy and Guy’s torrid love affair after they did the no-pants dance in the previous episode, and from that point on, her marriage to Hector becomes a ticking-clock device counting down to a loveless future. Nan’s sudden return only compounds the feeling of misery.
Luckily, Nan is pretty up-front with Theo, explaining that she never should have married him in the first place. Theo understands that, given his mother’s pushy involvement in the arrangement, but it doesn’t solve the obvious problem that they remain married, and divorce just isn’t the done thing. Nan proposes they remain a united front publicly until Jinny is able to return home legally, at which point she’ll leave, and they can live their lives totally independently (with her remaining as duchess for appearances’ sake, naturally.)
This leaves Lizzy in a pickle, since she feels like she can’t be with Theo because of Nan, and because of the inevitable secrecy such an arrangement would entail, but she also feels like she can’t be with Hector, because she’s in love with Theo. Lizzy working through this dilemma internally and with the other buccaneers forms a large — and largely uninteresting — part of this episode, but it’s still ultimately Theo that makes the decision for her (or at least compels her to make her own). More on this in a bit.
In the meantime, let’s return to Italy. The dynamic here has been completely unsettled because Lord Seadown is still trying to coax Jinny into returning to England with him by playing Mr. Nice Guy, and Guy is forced to admit to Paloma that he and Jinny have never been an item, since she spotted him with Nan. Yikes.
Guy Remmers in The Buccaneers Season 2 | Image via Apple TV+
As for the Lord Seadown stuff, I’m not buying it, and to be fair, I don’t think Jinny is either. When he attempts to force the issue with a couple of tickets home, she refuses almost point-blank to accompany him, and you get a glimmer of his nasty side fluttering to the surface. It’s brief, granted, but he knows the stakes. Any outburst will ruin the chances of Jinny falling for his ploy, but leopards don’t tend to change their spots, and there’s simply no way this guy’s intentions are genuine.
Guy, on the other hand, forgets about Jinny altogether as soon as he gets a sniff of interest from Paloma. Now, to be fair, you can’t exactly blame him, since he gave up his entire life to protect Nan’s sister out of love for Nan, finally had his heart’s desire in reach again, and then was forced to watch her skip back to her husband and leave him behind. He’s still smarting from that, and Paloma represents a fresh, and more importantly, unfettered kind of liaison. Sure, it’s out of the blue, but there’s alcohol involved, and Paloma has the decency to treat the whole thing like a one-night stand. Guy really wants to see her again, though — it’s like casual sex doesn’t exist in this universe.
Anyway, the meat and potatoes. The big dramatic question in The Buccaneers Season 2, Episode 5 is whether Lizzy will marry Hector, and as of right now, we still don’t know. It certainly looks like she’s going to go through with it, but a mad dash by Theo like he’s channelling Ethan Hunt leads to a conversation on the church steps that seems very much like a declaration of true love… until it isn’t. Theo loves Lizzy, that’s for certain, but he also knows that they can’t pursue that love in any way other than secretly. She deserves better. But that isn’t to say that she deserves Hector; the first man who’ll have her is not, after all, necessarily the best fit. The decision should be Lizzy’s and Lizzy’s alone.
What decision she makes isn’t clear for now. Maybe next week. But what’s certain is that this season isn’t intending to give the Buccaneers a break of any kind, and it’s probably going to get even worse for them all from here.
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