Mary & George Recap: Bearded Men in Shadows
Look, you can’t be doing a sexy gay history show and suddenly drop us into a random room with a man we’ve never seen before who talks with some other new guy about the Spanish and a battle we also have no idea about. These men don’t even make out. Would I want them to? Probably not, but it would be better than their inscrutable conversation, which is followed by one of them stabbing the other in a particularly violent way.
We eventually discover that Man No. 1 is Sir Walter Raleigh (the stabber, not the stabbee). That’s right, the Sir Walter Raleigh from Elizabethan times! Here, he is 66 and just back from Guyana, where he was searching for El Dorado. Okay! On the way to do that, he attacked the Spanish, when he specifically promised not to (there is a peace treaty). Now the Spanish ambassador, Count Gondomar, is mad and demands the banishment or execution of Raleigh.
The show is pretty explicit about Raleigh and his men attacking first, although apparently it’s more complicated than that (Raleigh appears not to have been there?), and Raleigh comes off like a real asshole here. His real purpose in the episode, though, is for George to come into his own and start wielding real political power through James. Even though I found the Raleigh plot boring, I’m mainly mad that I was expected to be able to tell Gondomar and Raleigh apart. They’re both new characters! They both have beards! When Gondomar came in, I was like, “Ah, I see the stabby man from the boat has cleaned himself up.” Then they bring in Raleigh, and I had to back up all the way to the beginning of the episode to verify that he, in fact, was stabby boatman. It doesn’t help that this episode felt particularly dimly lit. So it’s just bearded men in shadows.
But onto the characters we know and love: Mary is moving up in the world. James buys her a house in London and creates her Countess of Buckingham, telling the court to “smash your fat little palms for the great star of our firmament.” Overall this week’s episode was a bit of a letdown since the rest of the show has been so solid, but “smash your fat little palms” was a highlight. Mary has plans, which I probably shouldn’t even need to say at this point. Of course she has plans. What else would she be doing? Sitting somewhere, enjoying life?
Mary wants George to marry Katherine Manners, the daughter of the Earl of Rutland, mainly (only) because she is Extremely Rich. This works out great for Katherine, a.k.a. Katie, because she thinks George is supercute. Her father is not into the idea and neither is George, so both of these obstacles must be overcome. Mary also remains determined that John’s marriage to Frances will work, even though Frances is banging randos at court and John has proven himself to be capable of extreme violence and in need of help. I’m not on board with this one, Mary. Neither is Sandie, who, after helping Frances through an abortion, demands that Mary set Frances free, or Sandie will leave. Lesbian love wins again, and Frances is able to leave.
Meanwhile, George is getting all full of himself despite his frequently proven incompetence. Mary encourages him to put himself forward, and while that does get him a seat on the Privy Council (NICE), he immediately ruins it by acting like an idiot. Literally, the first thing he adjudicates is Raleigh and how he has pushed them to the brink of war with Spain. Raleigh goes up to George because he can tell he’s a soft target, and he’s all “I was so close to finding El Dorado, but here I am, back in England. My son died in this fight against the Spanish, and his dying wish was definitely that I go back and look for more cities of gold that I made up in my mind.” George says “SOLD” and everyone on the council is super embarrassed for him. James is furious, and it takes some time for George to get back into his good graces. Now the U.K. is even closer to war with Spain, damnit, George.
Speaking of James, we see his son Charles some more! Hello, Charles! Charles will eventually become a failed king, but for now, he is a sulky youth who hates George. To be fair, he thinks Queen Anne is dying and that James doesn’t care, but instead only cares for George. Not great of James, if true. Anne has been coughing ominously, so that doesn’t bode well for her. When Mary speaks with her, though, we get some good intel about her husband. Mary wants to know how she can get closer to James, and Anne intimates that James was brought up by men in a world of men, and women do not really matter to him. Interesting.
Mary isn’t sure how to move this “George marrying the Earl of Rutland’s daughter” idea along, but her daughter Susan, it turns out, also has plans. Susan’s plans involve marrying a baron’s son, which can’t happen until they have Katie Manners’s money for a dowry, so Susan fakes a letter from John asking George to visit, then the servants lock George in a bedroom with Katie. This is dastardly behavior, but again, George is very annoying. I also like Katie, so I approve. Katie says if they stay together overnight, her father will have to support a marriage. She tells George that she knows who he is and she’s fine with it, which he can’t guarantee from someone else. Otherwise, she’ll have to marry a rando that her father chooses, which does not sound fun. Katie also tells him that everyone is making fun of how quickly he caved to Raleigh at the Privy Council. Four for you, Katie! I hope we have more of her in the final episodes and that she gets to keep being funny and having a personality. Not that this show is afraid of women with personalities.
George returns to court after agreeing to marry Katie, and he goes to see if James has forgiven him yet. He encourages James to think for himself. George’s later conversation with Bacon suggests that this was a manipulation tactic, but it does really seem like George is genuinely telling James to finally lean on his own counsel and not do what everyone else demands of him. James wants peace with Spain, so what does he do? Well, Raleigh is getting executed. This makes The People really mad, but the Spanish happy, so here we are. Raleigh tells a nervous executioner to strike, which apparently is real. There’s an apocryphal story that his wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton, carried his embalmed head around with her for the rest of her life, but it’s like 99.5 percent not true. Still a fun story!
Bacon tells George that Mary and Sandie murdered a man, and George is then very rude to both of them. After he leaves, Mary says that if George doesn’t bend, it means war. Exciting! Does Mary have any actual power over George anymore? How can they go to war when he has the backing of the king? I guess she has schemes and plots on her side and he only has sulking and dumb decisions, but still! Very excited for our final few episodes.