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Weekend Coffee Share

30 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by OmoresOtempora in Weekend Coffee Share

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

drama, series The Chosen, wine, work

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about a wine bar I went to for the first time with some friends. It was cozy and had a decent selection of food to nibble on. The downside was it was rather pricey, but with the inflation we’re experiencing that’s common—and discouraging.

On Friday I had an interview for a consulting job working with new expats and orienting to this area. I do hope that works out. Years ago I applied to this company that provides relocation services to international companies. I never heard anything, but this time they found me on LinkedIn. Go figure.

I finished watching season 3 of The Chosen. The storyline and character development was superb. Hats off to creator Dallas Jenkins and his team.

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Weekend Coffee Share

26 Sunday Feb 2023

Posted by OmoresOtempora in Weekend Coffee Share

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

books, Chicago, drama, Theater, Theater Week

If we were having coffee this week, I’d like one with a design on top.

I’d tell you that it was a holiday week as Monday we had Presidents’ Day off. That meant I got to go to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s orchid show. It was just glorious, an absolute must-see if you’re in the area.

Mardi Gras

For Mardi Gras I went to my sister-in-law’s for dinner. We had Danish pancakes called aebleskiver. The Dane’s pancakes are round not flat. I had no idea.

Chicago Theater Week

This week participating theaters slash prices to $15 or $30; some even let people name the price.

Wednesday I caught the Lookingglass Theater’s Villette, based on a Charlotte Brontë novel that was recently discovered. I’m not a big Brontë fan. None of the sisters’ books is a big favorite of mine, but I did like this play.

Villette is a town where the play’s heroine, Lucy Snowe has no family or fortune to support her. She decides to take a ship to France to see if she can get better prospects. On board she meets a flibbertigibbet named convinces Lucy to give Villette, the town this debutante is headed for school, a try.

Villette does offer work and success to Lucy, but it the house where her school is located is haunted. The romantically skeptical Lucy does become enamored of her godmother’s son, whom she discovers happens to live there. The school’s aloof headmistress and her brother, a popular, yet professor provide the conflict any good play contains.

The best thing about Villette was the staging, which consisted of two sets of Japanese style doors across the stage. All these doors had old style handwriting and patterns in sepia tones which conveyed the era. The furnishings were moved around easily and deftly to create atmosphere.

In this play Lucy talks a lot. It seems like she talked half the time. I allow for this as it was based on a novel. Still more dialog and less monologue would be an improvement.

This was the first play I’d been to since the lockdown of 2020. It felt wonderful to resume playgoing.

This afternoon my aunt, sister-in-law and I went to lunch at a new favorite Greek restaurant before going to Once at the Writers Theater. Once blew me away. I’ll see it again next month. The Writers Theater let us name our price for tickets.

Reading

I’m reading The Adventures of Caleb Williams, which is an enthralling story about power and tyranny. Published in 1794, Caleb is a country boy goes into service for the wealthy , influential Mr. Falkland. Though everyone believes Mr. Falkland is the epitome of generosity and kindness. When Caleb discovers Falkland’s secret, not only does he learn of Falkland’s despicable acts, Falkland seeks to torture Caleb and keep him in his power.

I’m also reading a book about sisu, a Finnish concept that helps us use resilience to strengthen our character and alleviate our stress. Swimming in a cold lake in January is an example of sisu.

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Once: Writers Theater

26 Sunday Feb 2023

Posted by OmoresOtempora in Theater

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

drama, humor, Irish, musical, Once, play, Theater, Writers Theater

As part of Chicago Theater Week, I saw Once at the Writers Theater in Glencoe. I was blown away! Based on the art house film of 2007, this play is …

Once: Writers Theater

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Poldark, Final Season, Ep. 2

12 Saturday Oct 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Anglophile, Masterpiece, PBS, Poldark, Television

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abolition, British, Caroline, Cecily, court, Demelza, drama, Dwight, Geoffrey Charles, George, London, madness, pleasure garden, Poldark, Ross, treachery, Valentine, Warleggen, young love

ned

Much of the episode takes place in London, where Demelza and the two children just arrived. Ned is out of jail! But he needs to clear his name because he wasn’t exonerated, but just released it seems. Ross discovers that Ballentine, Ned’s former secretary just happens to be in London.  If Ross can find Balletine, then Ned’s sure to be in the clear.

When Ned is in the mood for fun and he takes his wife Kitty to the Pleasure Garden. Ross and Demelza, Caroline and Dwight join them. As you’d expect the Kitty, who’s African American is insulted and stared at. Kitty defuses a confrontation and Ned & Co. leave.

Back in Cornwall, Tess, a new snakelike servant that Demelza has helped by giving her a job, is plotting to seduce Ross. She dreams of being the lady of the house. Prudie is on to her though.

George is amenable to signing a contract with a devil, i.e. Hanson, who’s made a fortune across the pond trading who-knows-what and who has no problem with the slave trade. The ghost of Elizabeth convinces George not to sign, making Uncle Cary hit the ceiling. This grief-induced madness is not funny.

Geoffrey Charles and Hanson’s daughter Cecily are getting cozy. Both are going back to Cornwall, where they’ll picnic on the beach, but this romance is headed for rocky shores as Cecily’s father wants her to marry the rich George.

Ross finds Ballentine and eventually convinces him to do the right thing. Ballentine writes a letter to state what a noble, just man Ned is. Ross discreetly circulates the letter. He wants to protect Ballentine. However, Demelza figures all and sundry should know how great Ned is. She gets Kitty and Caroline to help her hand out copies of the letter, which given that some very powerful people oppose Ned and make a lot of money off of the slave trade, endangers Ballentine and Ned.

Morwenna shows her maternal side when Valentine, who’s the spitting image of Ross, tells her how he expects his mother Elizabeth to return. She tries to sympathetically break the truth to the boy. Drake dreams of starting a family, but Morwenna recoils much as she’d like to oblige. She’s still traumatized by odious Ossy’s fetishes. One day . . . In fact my guess is that the series may end with Morwenna giving birth or at least getting pregnant.

An incredible futurist, Dwight spoke about mental illness and how criminals should not be held culpable when they’re not of sound mind. Caroline beams with pride at his lecture. A lawyer hears him and gets him to testify at the trial for the man accused of attempting to assassinate the King. This does not go down well with the elite.

The episode had plenty to like and characters who infuriated. George is still dangerous and Tess should be sent packing. Ross better not give in to her “charms.” Ross and Dwight champion justice. Cecily’s complex so I don’t know if she belongs with Geoffrey Charles, but she seems to.

Dwight’s ideas about insanity seem too modern for the era.  The ghost of Elizabeth seems rather false, hard to buy, but I suppose the actress also had a five year contract, which doesn’t make much sense since if you read the books, you know she died.

SPOILER ALERT

Ballentine’s body washes up on the shore. That’s what you get for pointing a finger at the powerful.

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Poldark, Final Season, Premiere

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Anglophile, Masterpiece, PBS, Poldark

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Tags

abolition, Caroline Penvennin, Deborah Horsfield, Demelza, drama, Dwight, Geoffrey Charles, George Warleggan, loyalty, rivalry, Ross Poldark, slavery, Winston Graham

poldark5.jpg

It’s a bittersweet time with Poldark returning, but for the last year. What will 2020 bring from the BBC and PBS?

As I was viewing I was wondering if the storylines were based on the Winston Graham’s novels. I enjoyed the episode, but something seemed off. I was right. Deborah Horsfield explained that:

“we knew at the end of Season Four that we were not going to be able to finish all of the remaining five books, because the cast were only optioned for five series. So the options were to stop after Season Four, or to have a look at some of the events that might have taken place, some of which Winston Graham refers to in The Stranger from the Sea, and to cover a kind of similar time period that he would cover in each book, a period of about two years.”

So, we are getting a Horsfield story this year, which should be fine.

The episode began with a flashback to the American Revolutionary War when Ross is shot and a new character, his colonel and comrade Ned Despard finds him. We then move to Despard in jail giving his African American wife a note for Ross, his only hope. The governor of British Honduras, Despard is an abolitionist. He’s married his kitchen maid, Kitty. Kitty goes to England to get Ross’ help.

Geoffrey Charles has returned to Nappara and since his mother, Elizabeth has died has decided to quit school and enter the military academy. That takes money (seems there’s no GI Bill or ROTC yet). Ross takes him to see George, who sends his stepson packing. No surprise there unless you count Ross’ naivety. Who thought George would be generous.

Grief has driven George crazy. He’s isolated himself and left the Poldark estate. He’s seeing Elizabeth at the dinner table and hallucinating that the nursemaid is Elizabeth. While I’m glad to see Heida Reed back, I can’t buy her ghost. TV programs often have the ghost of a dead character and it rarely works for me.

All’s well with Demelza and Ross in terms of their marriage. When Kitty arrives asking Ross to accompany her to London to champion Ned’s cause Demelza knows she can’t stop him and I think admires his decision to stand up for what’s right. We’ll see a lot about abolition this season, which is set in 1800. The date emphasizes how long it took for slavery to end.

Another new character, Tess is the Norma Rae of the village. An out of work kitchen maid, Tess resents Demelza and tells her off. Tess is the spokeswoman for the unemployed miners who worked for George, but won’t accept his stingy lower wages. thus these poor folks are starving or close to it. Demelza promises to help and Tess replies with sarcasm. Not much later Demelza offers Tess a job, but the jaded maid snaps that she doesn’t want charity, forgetting that a job really isn’t charity.

It’s unclear whether Tess is involved soon after Ross leaves for London, a fire strikes late one night. Luckily, no one’s hurt and the fire’s put out, but Demelza (and the audience) wonder whether Tess is at all responsible. Tess should be watched. She’s hard to read.

Caroline is still mourning the death of her baby daughter and Morwenna recoils from Drake’s touch. Both women’s psychological states make sense, but I hope this season we seen them heal and move on. Both have exemplary husbands now and it’s nice to see their patience and love.

Two more new characters are Ralph Hanson, a merchant, and his daughter Cecily, who’s of marriageable age. Ralph is cut from a Warleggen cloth and I wouldn’t trade with him for all the tea in China. Cecily is a question mark. She’s shrewd and at first I thought trouble, but she shows up at the lecture against slavery so she may have some good in her. George’s uncle wants George to marry ASAP and clearly thinks Cecily would make a good match if only for her father’s money. Yet she bristles at such talk. A strong woman, Cecily is not about to do someone else’s bidding.

The premiere has set up some interesting themes and plot lines. I’m unsure about a story not based on the books, but I’ll be back this week and hope for the best.

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Death of a Cyclist

15 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Film

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Tags

Death of a Cyclist, drama, fear, guilt, infidelity, love, melodrama, responsibility, Spain

muerte-de-un-ciclista.-grande

Death of a Cyclist (1955) is a powerful film from Spain. I found this via serendipity as the image on the DVD box intrigued me. The Criterion Collection site offers a plot summary I can’t trump, so here that is:

Upper-class geometry professor Juan and his wealthy, married mistress, Maria José, driving back from a late-night rendezvous, accidentally hit a cyclist, and run. The resulting, exquisitely shot tale of guilt, infidelity, and blackmail reveals the wide gap between the rich and the poor in Spain, and surveys the corrupt ethics of a society seduced by decadence. Juan Antonio Bardem’s charged melodrama Death of a Cyclist (Muerte de un ciclista) was a direct attack on 1950s Spanish society under Franco’s rule. Though it was affected by the dictates of censorship, its sting could never be dulled.

Compelling and intense, Lucia Bosé stars as Maria José, the stunning mistress who’s anxious about the black mail and incrimination she faces, while not worrying much about her responsibility for the death of the bicyclist. As the film progresses, the professor faces a career crisis caused by distraction due to his ruminating over the accident. As the university students lay siege to the administration building, the professor gains moral clarity which leads to a most surprising ending.
 

I liked that the story offered unpredictable plot turns. Lucia Bosé’s beauty and style were simple and captivating. The cinematography was bold and showed how black and white films can achieve more stunning results than color more often than not. I do wonder was Spain of the 1950s that immoral? How much of this is exaggeration?

I highly recommend Death of a Cyclist and I’ll look for more films with Bosé and directed by Juan Antonio Bardem.

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Les Misérables, Ep. 3

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in French, Masterpiece, PBS, Television

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Tags

Cosette, drama, Fantine, Jean Valjean, Les Misérables, Thenardiers

Screen Shot 2019-05-01 at 4.22.13 PM

The story moves on. Jean Valjean (J.V.)decides to go to the court to exonerate a man falsely accused of stealing and mistaken as Jean Valjean. It would be so easy to let this pass. Le Mayor (J.V.) could let this go and race to save Cosette, whom the Thenardiers abuse and neglect. But Jean Valjean (le Mayor) realizes he should free the man wrongly accused, even though that man is a thief. It’s a tough decision and few would sacrifice as J.V. does.

Fantine dies alone without seeing her daughter Cosette. She’s alone, emaciated and looks white as a ghost. A nun tries to pacify Fantine by lying that the doctor won’t let Cosette come because she’s so sick. Really, if Cosette was there, consider how zombie-like poor Fantine looked her daughter might have been traumatized for life. Better that Cosette remember her mother when she was healthy.

Jean Valjean entrusted his manager to rescue Cosette, but that grumpy, judgmental woman didn’t bother. Time passes and eventually JV manages to get free from jail and race ahead of Javert to get Colette.

At Thenardier’s we see how horribly they’ve treated Cosette. This production adds more suggestion that JV is buying Cosette for untoward reasons. It was particularly slimy. After JV departs with Cosette and her new porcelain doll, the Thenardiers report her as kidnapped. That was a strange, unnecessary addition. Then the Thenardiers are soon evicted from their inn. That was a change from the book and odd, because they had just received a windfall from JV.

JV and Colette make a life in a lower class neighborhood in Paris, where they live a quiet life, except for a nosy neighbor who wears an elaborate powdered wig, which I thought only rich people could afford. Any way this French Mrs. Kravitz suspects that JV isn’t Cosette’s kin and reports him to — da da da da –Javert. Hugo sure gives us a small world for this story.

Javert goes after JV, who manages to flee to a cloistered nunnery. In this story rather than a gardener, whom JV knew, helping him. The nuns do. The abbess agrees to let Colette attend school there, hires JV and lies to Javert.

I think it’s impossible to ruin this Victor Hugo’s story, but I could have done without a few of the changes that modernized or over-explained. Fantine’s make up was overdone IMHO and the added scenes on with Thenardier’s eviction and the nosy neighbor who suspected pedophilia didn’t improve the story. Nonetheless I enjoyed the episode.

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Victoria, Season 3, A Coburg Quartet

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Anglophile, Masterpiece, PBS, Television

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Tags

Albert, ball, Bertie, costume, dance, drama, duchess, duke, infidelity, Jenna Coleman, Monmouth, phrenology, Sophie, tension, Victoria

victoria-s3-e6-fact-or-fiction-04

Ready for the ball

This week’s Victoria was fascinating. Storylines were:

  • To celebrate the christening of her youngest child, Victoria holds a Georgian era themed costume ball and Feodora is charged with doling out the invitations.
  • Uncle Leopold returns. I didn’t like him in the first two seasons as he’s got a reptilian personality. With Feodora in the palace, he comes off as more humane.
  • Albert is worried about Bertie’s behavior and his education. Even though Bertie went through a horrendous experience at the hands of his abusive tutor. Nevertheless Albert hires a quack phrenologist who measures Albert’s skull and concludes based on pseudo-science that Albert has a tendency towards madness like King George III. Albert buys into this “science” and goes on to say that it all makes sense since Victoria’s more emotional than logical. What a way to make matters worse with Victoria, Albert!
  • Sophie, the Duchess of Monmouth, whose husband is a complete churl, is in love and acting on it with the strapping new footman, Joseph. Their clandestine affair is getting hotter. Yet her indifferent, abusive husband is now suspicious. He believes Sophie is fooling around with Lord Palmerston. He can’t conceive of his noble wife loving a servant, but there you go. Throughout the episode, the Duchess obliviously fools around with Joseph unaware of how thin the ice she was skating on was. I feared she’d be found out, but she wasn’t. Perhaps in the next episode.
  • Victoria and Feodora’s conflicts boil up as Albert is enthralled with Feodora’s logic and Victoria wonders how her half-sister is affording new horses and other goodies. It turns out that Feo’s sold invitations to the ball, which turns out to have a slew of déclassé guests that Victoria doesn’t know.

 
BertieVickySeason3-1-864x486

My Thoughts

My heart goes out to Bertie who picks up on his father’s displeasure with him. He and Alice, his older sister, try to fix his skull by wearing some sort of basin on his head. By the end of the show, he tells his mother that he knows his father doesn’t love him and they share their feelings brought on because it seems Albert’s disappointed with them as they aren’t logical enough.

I worry about what will happen to Sophie when her husband finds out she’s fooling around with the footman. He might have a heart attack, but more likely he’ll go ballistic. She’s been lucky so far, but that never lasts forever. Joseph will lose his job, but she can face worse consequences in this era.

The fact ball was over the top and interesting. I prefer the Victorian gowns. Sure they’re hard to move in, but the Georgians had even more hoops and fabric to manage. They all had the big powdered wigs, which must have taken hours to style and would have weighed a ton. Did you know that the term “big wig” came from the Georgian era?

Albert continues to find it hard to be Mr. Victoria. That’s understandable, but for someone so logical, he doesn’t apply that logic to himself, to his weakness dealing with his unusual role of having a wife with a higher level position. He’s not aware of how much hurt he’s causing Victoria and Bertie. I’m perplexed that he’s so blind to how conniving Feodora is.

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Victoria, Season 3, Episode 2 & 3

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Anglophile, Masterpiece, Television, Victoria

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Albert, Chartists, drama, Feodora, flirting, hanky panky, Lord Palmerston, manipulation, marriage, parenting, plotting, strife, tiptoeing, Victoria

VICTORIA SERIES 3

Episode 2: London Bridge is Falling Down

Starting right when the first episode ended, the second episode begins with Victoria in labor and the barbarians, a.k.a. Chartists are storming the palace gates. With Bertie and Vicky peering through the doorway, Victoria gives birth to Louise. Albert gets the guards to protect the palace and then scolds the former French king, duke and the blond noble from last season. How Albert abhors gambling!

The Chartists decide to take their petition to the palace, but one of the rebels, puts up a fuss. Abigail is a bit perplexed and smitten with him.

The Duke of Wellington comes to the castle to inform the Queen that hundreds of thousands of Chartists are coming to the castle. The Duke, Lord Palmerston and PM advise stopping them with soldiers. The Queen doesn’t want to go to that extent.

Francatelli convinces Miss Skerrett to elope after he’s bought a small hotel. While she’s in love, her work means a lot to her. I don’t think she’ll be able to quit. Francetelli even kids her on that account.

Louis-Phillipe gets in trouble for scaring Bertie and Vicky by telling them about how royals can violently lose their heads. Albert asks him to leave.

4h

Albert’s “cottage” Osborne House

Someone finds a load of guns (500!) in the office space for the Chartists. The PM and Lord Palmerston take this as proof of their danger. They come close to convincing Victoria to send the army out to deal with them. However, Victoria realizes that the Chartists are too poor to acquire all that weaponry. She gets word out to Duke Wellington in the nick of time. The crisis is averted and the spy was caught. Still Albert gets his way and the family and nobles are off to the Isle of Wright to his “cottage.”

20190127_vict_s3_ep3_02

Episode 3: Et in Arcadia

All are frolicking at Osborne House, but soon the Prime Minister and Lord Palmerston, who brought the troublemaking King of Hungary to London in the Queen’s absence, are summoned to the Isle of Wright.

Francatelli quits, which causes a stir. His wife “Miss” Skerrett still hesitates about announcing that she’s married and leaving.

Throughout the episode, Albert hectors Victoria for wanting to return to London and for craving her subjects’ love. On top of that, they clash over how Albert handles Bertie and his resistance to books and tutoring. Albert sees Osborne house as a paradise and it’s quite annoying that his family doesn’t love it there. Victoria and Albert’s conflict escalates to an argument at dinner with the full court watching when the Queen throws a glass of water in Albert’s face.

Victoria’s feeling overwhelmed by her marital strife and political problems back in London when Skerrett finally announces that she’s leaving and that she’s gotten married. Victoria feels betrayed and is hurt that Skerrett did all this behind her back.

My Take

Both episodes speed along and in addition to the main plot have storylines with the Duchess who’s married to an ogre, who’s sent her young son to boarding school against her will and the men she’s flirting with. Victoria’s sister Feo continues to plot and manipulate.

I was surprised that Miss Skerrett did tell the Queen she was leaving because she got married. I thought she wouldn’t be able to and I stand corrected. I still don’t see how Skerrett will be happy not working at the palace.

We’ve got plenty of comic relief with Victoria’s attempt at swimming and a mix up with the bedrooms between Foe and the Duchess.

The sibling rivalry between the adorable Vicky and Bertie is realistic as is Victoria and Albert’s marriage problems. Sure most people aren’t married to royalty, but V & A’s arguments and reactions are authentic and engaging. Again, Victoria offers compelling drama.

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Victoria, Season 3, Episode 1

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by smkelly8 in Masterpiece, Television, Victoria

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Albert, Chartists, drama, excitement, Feodora, Lord Palmerston, new characters, Victoria

The premier of Victoria starring Jenna Coleman delivered great historical drama.
The series opens in Paris with yet another uprising in 1848. The barbarians are storming the gate and the King Louis-Phillipe flees for is life. Cut to a dignified, pregnant Victoria knighting a noble. Soon word reaches Victoria about her French counterpart.

Next Feodora, Victoria’s half sister, washes up on the shores and heads to the castle. Feodora, who seems to have a plotting and dramatic nature, seeks refuge with her younger sister the Queen. She’s seeking the high life as well as refuge, but is disappointed. When she hints around that she needs new clothes Victoria’s offer to let her wear her old dresses with some alterations was quite a bitter pill.

In Parliament another new character Lord Palmerston, the supercilious Foreign Minister, is stirring up trouble. Without consulting anyone, Lord P. wrote to the rebels in France. Neither Victoria nor Albert took this news well. In addition to being a political maverick, Lord Palmerston is coming off as a philanderer. Victoria’s new Lady of Robes had best be careful so she doesn’t get in trouble with her husband or the Queen.

screen shot 2019-01-16 at 10.11.48 pm

At home, there’s a bit of trouble in the nursery. Albert and Victoria now have five children. The oldest son Bertie, now 7, has no clue about the line of succession. He believes in England only queens rule. Throughout the episode he’s making comments about how women rule in England and how he doesn’t want to be a king. When Louis-Phillipe arrives and the children perform for him, Bertie dramatically refuses to play the king. Inadvertently, this pours salt in the wound for Albert, who’s never liked the role of Prince. Victoria seems very concerned though she does realize Bertie’s just a little boy.

Downstairs a new footman and maid arrive. The footman’s quite robust and Mr. Penge warns the women that he’s a known ladies man. He soon proves Mr. Penge right with his flirtation. Skerrett and the pastry chef are betrothed but haven’t set a wedding date. As the Queen’s right hand maid, Skerrett realizes life will be quite different as a married commoner. We see she’s got cold feet. I’m doubtful that we’ll see her marry this season.

The maid who is hired is a Chartist, so she’s part of the lower class activist movement that is protesting for workers’ rights. It’s 1848 and with Marxism getting popular and the French King getting deposed and begging to stay with the Queen, Victoria is quite worried. By the last scene of the episode, we see she’s right to be concerned.

The first episode had a brisk pace and lots of new characters, most of whom spell trouble. Lots of tension and uncertainty along with the gorgeous gowns and luxurious settings. We’re in for a good season.

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