The men of The Buccaneers are girls—every last one of them.
Such an observation is admittedly very cool and timely for a world in which most men in the public eye enjoy some degree of girldom. As the now-infamous TikTok sound goes, everything is kind of a girl. Dinner is a girl; 40-year-old men are baby girls — so it stands to reason that a handful of whiny bachelors in fictional 1800s England can also be girls.
But what of the actual girls in The Buccaneers, you might ask? They, too, are girls, but series creator Katherine Jakeways is depicting them in that Unconventional and Modern™ way that so many feminist-leaning period romps tend to do. They reject societal norms and climb trees and might even, on occasion, speak their mind in mixed company. That’s because they’re American, unlike the heroines you’ll find in a Jane Austen novel. They’re also new money, which grants them access to spaces that would typically keep them at arm’s length. That said, they still have their work cut out for them. Advantageous marriages are still a necessity, so it’s fitting that our series premiere should start with one.
The five heroines of The Buccaneers are each Unconventional and Modern™ in their own unique ways, but none more so than Nan St. George (Kristine Frøseth). Much has already been made of Nan’s decision to climb out of a window to fetch an earring in Episode 1, “American Poison.” What no one seems willing to say — probably to preserve the surprise — is that Nan actually jumps off a second-story balcony and rappels down onto the street, Jason Bourne style, to fetch this earring. Yes, she is a girl — but she’s not like other girls, clearly. That, of course, is what makes her the main character, try as she might to resist it. And it’s what makes her so irresistible to the many would-be suitors she encounters in Episode 1, starting with Guy Thwarte (Matthew Broome).
Nan meets Guy just as she’s finished scaling down the side of her apartment building. It’s love at first sight, kind of — until Guy very nearly kicks the earring into the gutter. Nan doesn’t let that phase her so much, as she’s much too frazzled by Guy’s cuteness to really be mad. She blurts out weirdly personal questions in this scene in a way she never will again, which I guess is meant to affirm all the awkward energy surging between these two. Whatever it’s trying to convey, we fortunately don’t have to sit with it for too long: all that matters at this moment is the earring, anyway, and returning it to its rightful owner.
The earring is so important because it belongs to Nan’s best friend, Conchita (Alisha Boe). It’s her wedding day, and she’s nervous enough already because her groom, a squirrely English nobleman named Richard Marable (Josh Dylan), is running late. Late enough to make her think she’s been jilted, which is doubly bad because she’s secretly pregnant. Yikes!
That Richard has the gall to keep his wedding guests waiting is the first of many red flags. The next pops up when he eventually arrives — not to make an honest woman out of Conchita, mind you, but to dump her via handwritten note. This is why the Brits can’t be trusted, by the way.
In his defense, Richard has a semi-good reason for wanting to break things off with Conchita. Things are very different in New York, romance especially — and he worries that, once they’re settled in England, her outspoken American ways will clash with his stuffy, aristocratic circle. He’s trying to spare her from the misery of rubbing elbows with British people all the time, I guess, which is sweet and selfless, in a roundabout way. If only he had the nerve to address these concerns with Conchita: he’s more than happy to pass his little note on to Nan, whom he runs into on the street.
First impressions in period dramas are often red herrings. This is a genre that deals almost exclusively in misunderstandings and communication issues, and is more likely to introduce an absolute prick than an outright stand-up guy. Richard, to his credit, falls somewhere in the middle. That said, I genuinely cannot stand his ass. I’m sure he’s got a lot of growth ahead of him — and I may end up eating my words later on — but as of this writing, it’s absolutely on sight. Do better, Dickie!
Thank God for Nan, who convinces Conchita’s fiancée to stop being such a silly goose and just marry her already. He loves her; why wouldn’t he want to be with her?
If only it were that simple.
I hate to say it, but Richard was somewhat justified in wanting to dump Conchita. By the time we catch up with the freshly-hitched Lord and Lady Marabel, their dreary new life in England has snuffed the flame of blissful summer love right out. Conchita is now super pregnant and effectively in confinement, stuck at home with her in-laws and obliged to defend herself against their steely microaggressions. Richard’s parents, Lord and Lady Brightlingsea (Anthony Calf and Fenella Woolgar), are supremely prejudiced against Americans, and probably hate Conchita all the more because she’s (half) Black. Richard, meanwhile, is hardly ever around to protect his new bride. His last good deed, after marrying Conchita, was probably inviting her friends across the pond for an extended visit. I’m honestly shocked that his parents agreed to housing Nan, her sister Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse), her mother (Christina Hendricks), their best friends Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) and Mabel Elmsworth (Josie Totah), and their mother (Viss Elliot Safavi) for the debutante season. But Lord and Lady Brightlingsea do have two more kids to marry off — Richard’s younger brother, Lord James Seadown (Barney Fishwick), and stiff-lipped sister Honoria (Mia Threapleton) — and not a lot of options to choose from. They’re also, and this really tickled me, practically broke. Our buccaneers are the only thing saving them from imminent destitution.
Though Conchita has been struggling to fit into her new role in England, Nan, of course, charms Richard’s family instantly. This is particularly annoying to Jinny, who is officially “out” in society and is searching earnestly for a husband. She thinks she’s found a potential candidate in Seadown, though she’ll have to compete with BFF Lizzy — also out and also very fetching — for his attention.
Why both of these perfectly agreeable girls immediately decide to fight over the first guy they see is beyond me. Seadown is the second son, so he’s barely rich. His fate, and that of his family, hinges on him marrying a wealthy girl, which seems like light work, from where I’m sitting. As it is with most men of his ilk, though, Seadown resents not having a choice in the matter. “I’m to be sold to the highest bidder,” he sighs, which only furthers my point about the men in this series acting like total girls. Do you know how many times I’ve heard an Austenian heroine whine about the same thing? At least you have rights! At least you can vote!
Another male lead dissatisfied with his lot in life is the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), the most eligible bachelor of the season. He’s got girls lining up to court him, which of course makes him squeamish, as it distracts from his ultimate goal of brooding and talking back to his mom, the Dowager Duchess (Amelia Bullmore). “I’m sick of being tracked like a wild animal!” he tells her in one of his many petulant fits. But he’s got to fulfill his duties and snag a wife; sooner rather than later. The Dowager Duchess already has the perfect girl: the clear-skinned, open-eyed Jean Hopeleigh (Francesca Corney). She encourages him to attend the queen’s debutante ball and meet her himself, which he does — but he ends up utterly taken with a very different girl in the process, one who’s not even on the marriage market.
The queen’s ball is not nearly as fun as Bridgerton would have you believe. Nan and Mabel watch on the sidelines as Jinny, Lizzy, and a stampede of young girls in white present themselves to a ballroom full of men, most of whom are either taking copious notes or critiquing the girls on form, et al. It’s all particularly triggering to Nan, who imagines the debutantes holding up numbered paddles as if up for auction, and does not hesitate to remind everyone that they are, in fact, people. Not cattle. Not sex toys. People!
It’s one of the series’ more heavy-handed proto-feminist moments (but if you enjoy an anachronistic Taylor Swift needledrop, you’ll probably love it). It leans even more contemporary when Nan disparages some random English misogynist, inadvertently catching the duke’s eye in the process. But she’s not even checking for the duke, because Guy is also at the ball! Nan very diligently asks after his mother, who has tragically passed on, leaving Guy and his dad with a boatload of debt and the pressure to marry well. Nan doesn’t know about that last part, of course, nor does she know that Guy is basically fixing to propose to her because she’s super rich. Is that icky? Yeah. Also, why are period shows so obsessed with making their one Black male lead into The Rake? Guy isn’t quite a rogue just yet — and if he is, he’s something of a reluctant one — but if The Buccaneers wants to avoid the Bridgerton allegations, they’ll have to do a bit better than this.
That aside, I kind of like Guy. Even if he is scheming to wed Nan for her fortune, at least he’s bringing something to the table. That “something” is, crucially, chemistry. He and Nan have it in spades. Their easy, giddy rapport felt just the slightest bit rushed in their initial meet-cute, but hindsight is 20/20. I can easily forgive his dialogue for seeming too on-the-nose: he’s on a mission, after all. And Nan appears to like him well enough — you don’t accidentally drop your shoe into a cake for just anyone, right?
As endearing as her reunion is with Guy, Nan immediately gets into trouble … again … for drawing too much attention to herself. Jinny was making headway with Lord Seadown, and she might have gotten him to propose if Nan wasn’t being so damned interesting and unconventional in front of everyone. Their mother is also sticking up for Nan at every turn, which irks Jinny all the more, since she’s apparently trying so hard, and wearing such tight dresses, only to be ignored by the one guy she likes.
Of course, there are myriad solutions to this problem: Jinny could choose to Be More Interesting — but as she’s played by one of the Waterhouse sisters, I’m not seeing that happening. (Sorry to Suki, but I do not really enjoy her, visually or dramaturgically, and it’s going the same with Imogen.) She could also choose literally any other man to seduce — but for some incredulous reason, she is set on the beady-eyed, unblinking Seadown. He’s the personification of slimy, but she wants him all the same, poor thing. And since Nan is evidently standing in the way of their perfect future happiness, she’s well-prepared to lash out at her rather than examine any of her own shortcomings.
“This wasn’t supposed to be about you,” she tells Nan — which is technically true, since she’s not even out yet. But then, things take a turn: apparently, nothing is supposed to be about Nan. Ever. Because she’s adopted.
According to Jinny, Nan is the product of one of her father’s illicit affairs, adopted by her mother in order to save face. Her whole life is basically a lie — and she doesn’t even have time to process this or confront her mom about it, because the second she absorbs the news, Mrs. St. George is pulling her aside to tell her that she’s being sent away! To Cornwall! Wherever that is!
As much as we may hate Jinny for this (and we do hate Jinny… bad), Nan does end up getting the last laugh. She travels to the coast with her governess, Mrs. Testvalley (Simone Kirby), and ends up in the domain of the brooding Duke of Tintagel. She finds a new occupation easily enough, and doesn’t seem at all fazed by the bombshell. So what if Jinny basically had her banished for dropping a shoe into a cake? So what if she won’t be by Conchita’s side when she goes into labor, leaving her and her newborn alone in a pit of snakes? It’s not ideal, but at least she gets to go for an impromptu swim in her bloomers. It’s on one such swim that she ends up running into the duke, emerging shirtless from the ocean like some twink-y incarnation of Ursula Andress. He’s just as surprised to see her wandering in the dunes as she is to see him, but this pair strikes up an easy, giggly repartee in no time at all.
Nan has no idea that the duke is, in fact, a duke — and that ignorance inadvertently makes her his perfect woman. He introduces himself as Theo and nothing more, and she’s new around these parts, so of course she doesn’t contest it. He shows her his shoddy, unfinished paintings, one of them a literal blank canvas, and Nan gets all woo-woo and romantic about “what it might become.” Naturally, this dazzles Theo: he was already half in love with Nan after bearing witness to her outburst at the debutante ball. Now that he’s finally talking to her face to face, he simply must have her. He has to see her again!
Unfortunately, Nan and Testvalley aren’t staying in the area for long. They’re set to depart very soon, so Nan assumes that she will never see this cute artist boy ever again. But we’ve all seen the trailer for this show, I’m guessing, so we know that’s not happening. And honestly, thank God for that. I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about Theo upon his introduction. Like the rest of the leads in The Buccaneers, he’s hard to pin into one archetype. That’s nice, if you like the mystery of it all. I don’t, usually – but the second Theo smiled at Nan for the first time, shaking off the pout that felt like a complete façade already, I realized why Remmers was cast in the role. He’s adorable. A meow-meow, if you will. So long as Nan is around to put that smile on his face, I think I can forgive his brattier qualities. The other boys on the show, however, are on notice until they change my mind.
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