Poldark 2.9
Vis-à-vis Demelza and their marriage, for much of the episode the point was at one end of Cornwall and Ross was at the other. (I’m on Team Demelza, even when she’s wrong. But she mainly wasn’t here.)
Ross started with a black eye and got progressively more rough looking as Demelza wouldn’t listen to Reason (according to him) i.e. how he saw things. In fairness, he did try to wrestle with his feelings a bit and think about what he’d done, as he’d told Elizabeth he would. But he didn’t seem to et very far. He proved when he rode to Trenwith and then away that he didn’t ‘have to’ act on his anger and lust, he could exercise a choice. But he didn’t seem to get that Demelza’s reaction was a totally fair response. Obtusely, he thought that finding tin, lots of tin, would change things between them. Oh, Ross, you plonker.
Speaking of plonkers, what oxygen-poor air the ladies of Trenwith reside in. Okay, Demelza also thought Ross was going to set her aside, but that speaks to her fear of rejection getting realised - but the whole idea of him becoming the Poldark of Trenwith? Totally conjured up by Elizabeth and the great aunt. He wasn’t thinking beyond the possession of Elizabeth in the moment. Even if he didn’t hold the marriage vows like Demelza did (and I can accept that Ross was her first love so she doesn’t have an Elizabeth figure, not to mention the issues of class and power), he had a wife he’d married in a church and had two children with. Divorce wasn’t an option. Moving to Trenwith and brazening it out - he didn’t have the social capital for that - and was reminded by his colleagues, BFF and servants all episode that his missus is St Demelza in their eyes. Elizabeth and Great Aunt Portents might not think that it mattered that the lower classes would be all ‘!?!?!?’ if he cast Demelza aside for a lady like Elizabeth, at least, I’m presuming that’s what they were thinking, but seriously, no.
What Elizabeth didn’t seem to be considering overtly was that she might be pregnant by it (I don’t put fainting a couple of days after sex down to pregnancy), which might have made it wiser not to postpone the wedding with George. But instead we had her just acting on pique because the man she’d kind of egged on to commit adultery with her (such a dependable chap!) didn’t want her as much as she thought he did.
George is going to be controlling and not at all what she thinks he is, and apart from Geoffrey Charles who doesn’t deserve that kind of stepfathering, there’ll be no sympathy from me.
OI, GEORGE, NO. YOU DON’T GET TO STARE MOODILY INTO THE SEA.
The encounter with Ross was delicious. Also, I presume Demelza could floor George in a fight.
Oh, Demelza, darling girl. We got full on accompanied singing to Jeremy, who is getting all the mother love, which stopped short of being Oedipal because I think he did get put back in his own bed, but showed that she wasn’t as emotionally frozen as she could have been. Instead she was hurt, because after the anger simmered down, that’s what she was left with. But her laying abed like a lady and letting Ross suffer Prudie’s cooking was satisfying. As for Ross being forced to sleep in the library, did she also consider the stables? I suppose on the floor next to the fire in the kitchen would have been too on the nose.
Like Prudie said, trying to pay Ross back in his own coin wasn’t going to make her happy. In hindsight, the use of costuming as social signal was pretty blatant. I was hoping it wouldn’t be MacNeil, but rather him than the old host and the oil slick, and she did lead him on. Interesting mix, given all that’s happened, of him obviously having feelings for her while still being icky, but the objectifying really came from Sir Hugh. Basically, all the upper class men (I am a gentleman!Dwight aside) got the side-eye for their attitude towards women.
So she ran. To walk beautifully, heartbreakingly along the sea.
I did think it was a pity that Verity didn’t go visit Ross and Demelza. I suppose Verity couldn’t go to Naparra for plot reasons, because if she’d made it all the way to Trenwith for the wedding, it would only be a little further to see people she loves, however pregnant she is.
My first response was unalloyed ‘Oh, sweet Verity’ but I’m not entirely convinced that Verity could really believe that it was love for Francis that made Elizabeth hesitate over marrying George. I mean, REALLY. She’d seen seeing Francis and Elizabeth together, even if she thought that Demelza was imagining things when Verity warned Elizabeth off visiting them over that Christmas.
Caroline made an appearance or two, and is still not over Dwight, but is not reconciled to marrying a doctor. I fear he was literally dissecting a heart. Oh show. Anyway, his bright idea is to go to fight to get over his feelings by going to war and that idiot Ross seems to be thinking along those lines too because Demelza is so unreasonable as not to care that he’s a provider and a Man and Men should be able to do what they want to do, although Ross isn’t entirely sure what he wants to do.
Basically Ross, Demelza and Elizabeth were miserable and/or in a temper and I only sympathised with one of them. And I am fairly sure the show was fine with that, because the music was even less subtle than usual.
(I have discovered the Guardian recaps and comments which were v. entertaining and part of the reason I haven’t caught up with Humans yet.)
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/258972.html.
Ross started with a black eye and got progressively more rough looking as Demelza wouldn’t listen to Reason (according to him) i.e. how he saw things. In fairness, he did try to wrestle with his feelings a bit and think about what he’d done, as he’d told Elizabeth he would. But he didn’t seem to et very far. He proved when he rode to Trenwith and then away that he didn’t ‘have to’ act on his anger and lust, he could exercise a choice. But he didn’t seem to get that Demelza’s reaction was a totally fair response. Obtusely, he thought that finding tin, lots of tin, would change things between them. Oh, Ross, you plonker.
Speaking of plonkers, what oxygen-poor air the ladies of Trenwith reside in. Okay, Demelza also thought Ross was going to set her aside, but that speaks to her fear of rejection getting realised - but the whole idea of him becoming the Poldark of Trenwith? Totally conjured up by Elizabeth and the great aunt. He wasn’t thinking beyond the possession of Elizabeth in the moment. Even if he didn’t hold the marriage vows like Demelza did (and I can accept that Ross was her first love so she doesn’t have an Elizabeth figure, not to mention the issues of class and power), he had a wife he’d married in a church and had two children with. Divorce wasn’t an option. Moving to Trenwith and brazening it out - he didn’t have the social capital for that - and was reminded by his colleagues, BFF and servants all episode that his missus is St Demelza in their eyes. Elizabeth and Great Aunt Portents might not think that it mattered that the lower classes would be all ‘!?!?!?’ if he cast Demelza aside for a lady like Elizabeth, at least, I’m presuming that’s what they were thinking, but seriously, no.
What Elizabeth didn’t seem to be considering overtly was that she might be pregnant by it (I don’t put fainting a couple of days after sex down to pregnancy), which might have made it wiser not to postpone the wedding with George. But instead we had her just acting on pique because the man she’d kind of egged on to commit adultery with her (such a dependable chap!) didn’t want her as much as she thought he did.
George is going to be controlling and not at all what she thinks he is, and apart from Geoffrey Charles who doesn’t deserve that kind of stepfathering, there’ll be no sympathy from me.
OI, GEORGE, NO. YOU DON’T GET TO STARE MOODILY INTO THE SEA.
The encounter with Ross was delicious. Also, I presume Demelza could floor George in a fight.
Oh, Demelza, darling girl. We got full on accompanied singing to Jeremy, who is getting all the mother love, which stopped short of being Oedipal because I think he did get put back in his own bed, but showed that she wasn’t as emotionally frozen as she could have been. Instead she was hurt, because after the anger simmered down, that’s what she was left with. But her laying abed like a lady and letting Ross suffer Prudie’s cooking was satisfying. As for Ross being forced to sleep in the library, did she also consider the stables? I suppose on the floor next to the fire in the kitchen would have been too on the nose.
Like Prudie said, trying to pay Ross back in his own coin wasn’t going to make her happy. In hindsight, the use of costuming as social signal was pretty blatant. I was hoping it wouldn’t be MacNeil, but rather him than the old host and the oil slick, and she did lead him on. Interesting mix, given all that’s happened, of him obviously having feelings for her while still being icky, but the objectifying really came from Sir Hugh. Basically, all the upper class men (I am a gentleman!Dwight aside) got the side-eye for their attitude towards women.
So she ran. To walk beautifully, heartbreakingly along the sea.
I did think it was a pity that Verity didn’t go visit Ross and Demelza. I suppose Verity couldn’t go to Naparra for plot reasons, because if she’d made it all the way to Trenwith for the wedding, it would only be a little further to see people she loves, however pregnant she is.
My first response was unalloyed ‘Oh, sweet Verity’ but I’m not entirely convinced that Verity could really believe that it was love for Francis that made Elizabeth hesitate over marrying George. I mean, REALLY. She’d seen seeing Francis and Elizabeth together, even if she thought that Demelza was imagining things when Verity warned Elizabeth off visiting them over that Christmas.
Caroline made an appearance or two, and is still not over Dwight, but is not reconciled to marrying a doctor. I fear he was literally dissecting a heart. Oh show. Anyway, his bright idea is to go to fight to get over his feelings by going to war and that idiot Ross seems to be thinking along those lines too because Demelza is so unreasonable as not to care that he’s a provider and a Man and Men should be able to do what they want to do, although Ross isn’t entirely sure what he wants to do.
Basically Ross, Demelza and Elizabeth were miserable and/or in a temper and I only sympathised with one of them. And I am fairly sure the show was fine with that, because the music was even less subtle than usual.
(I have discovered the Guardian recaps and comments which were v. entertaining and part of the reason I haven’t caught up with Humans yet.)
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/258972.html.