Sanditon 2.1
Aug. 1st, 2022 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessIt’s back, and I’m back to my somewhat exasperated and amused involvement. I’d come to assume Sidney would be written out from what promo material I’d encountered, but I wasn’t expecting him to be killed off. I presume the actor didn’t want to come back, meaning Davies had an obvious way of writing himself out of that end-of-series-one hole. But to learn that Stringer was architecturing in London as soon as Charlotte had set foot back in Sanditon and that all the hot men we’re invested in are gone but Edward AND the doctor are back felt like a real slap in the face. It also makes it rather hard to get invested in the new batch of hot young men. Just saying.
I also refused to get that invested in the mysterious circumstances of Sidney’s death, although by the end of the episode, it looks as though that means that Georgiana’s fortune has gone. Speaking of Georgiana, she seemed to have a bigger role while remaining a ninny three quarters of the time. She was turning down suitors blithely, assuming they were all fortune hunters, which is probably accurate. But she also doesn’t seem to be over her no-good ex. It looks as though she’s going to have forced UST with The Artist (first thought: artists are impecunious; second thought, I don’t believe men waxed their chests in the Regency era – a point viewers with better vision than me can repeatedly ponder.)
But Georgiana was also a little sad because Tom is possibly an even worse guardian than dead!Sidney, and she’s still living with the comedy siblings (please don’t let them sing again. Ever.) So the Parkers sent for Charlotte. Everyone except Tom has realised that Charlotte is mourning Sidney because she loved him but has to repress it (in as much as this show does repression) because he married someone else. For Tom.
Charlotte also brought her sister Alison along, who seems to be as much of a ninny as Georgiana, in public, anyway. The town is also boosted/horrified by the arrival of soldiers. (In Austen, they’re not as highly rated as naval officers, so I wondered how they’d be depicted. Apparently Davies seems to think that what ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was missing was us following Lydia and Kitty to Brighton.) I will give props for the reveal that Forehead (boo hiss) was one of their number and had suggested they camped at Sanditon, because of course he has plans. And debts. (I doubt the British Army decided where to send its troops like that ever, but that’s the least of it.)
Otherwise the redcoats seemed a bit snoozeworthy to me: the ridiculously young colonel, the Irish one, the one who was dazzled by Alison’s beauty.
However, the show fortunately introduced some more intriguing new characters. I loved Leo when I realised she was a girl (although I suspect I’m going to get narked at how she’s developed in the light of 2020s gender politics), and I LOVED Augusta the walking attitude, especially after Mr Colbourne gave a sharp critique of his daughter and niece. I mean, I have to note that to do her heroics, Charlotte seemed to notice through a crowd that Leo was in danger from the horse and squirm and dash an awfully long way to get to rescue her. I was sad that neither Sidney (also good in a crisis) or Stringer could appreciate said heroics. But I appreciated them in their improbability with mirth.
I was also amused at Charlotte’s presumption she’d get the job of governess. (I mean, we all knew she would, but still…) although she’ll obviously have to do more than ask Augusta and Leo to play together nicely. In the build-up to meeting Mr Colbourne, they brazened out the ‘you’ve never talked about this wealthy widowed neighbour in his big house before’ being about him being against Tom’s plans for his Folly, er Sanditon, which made me like him already. The truth and obvious rejoinder is that Davies hadn’t needed to make him up yet. Also, with rumours about the death of Colbourne’s (unconventional?) wife, they seemed to be leaning into the Gothic, which I enjoyed, and fine, pilfer a bit from Jane Eyre, but let her be dead and not mad and locked up in an attic, plz.
The actor playing him is not Theo James levels of hot, but has a touch of the Matthew MacFayden to his voice, and the shipper in me started waking up in a way artists and soldiers alike had failed to inspire. They can move on from their past loves together! Charlotte’s anachronism got her the job, anyway – it helped that she forgot that whole time she was terrible at being Tom’s secretary - so she can be all Independent Woman, while Alison and the rest have the vapours that Charlotte is lowering herself to be a governess i.e. giving up (three and twenty is past it in Austen years.) At least she didn’t return to that brothel in London to ask for a job, peeps!
Because she was being less of a ninny than Georgiana and Alison (their accident totally served them right for stealing someone else’s carriage and riding on the sand, I only hope the innocent horses were all right!) and the fact that it was only three months since Sidney’s death, Charlotte cut a sympathetic figure, haunted by Sidney’s voice wherever she went. Actually, I side-eyed the Parkers and Georgiana for not wearing mourning, although I loved the sunny colour palate of the show. I wanted Charlotte to be kind to herself, as I did Esther, as we and Lady Denham learned she’d miscarried at five and a half months a month ago. I would feel happier if Babbington returned, specially because of her being ‘let me talk some more about how I don’t want to talk to you, Forehead’. I hope they’ll handle the grief of miscarriage/the dangers of childbirth and pregnancy/the pressure to be a mother with some sensitivity. I doubt they will.
Am I racist for snickering at Lady D for dropping some sugar into her tea in defiance of Georgiana’s anti-sugar stance? (Bless Georgiana, but it’s not exactly school strikes, is it?) I also wondered for a second if Arthur wa going to fancy the Artist in their joint dislike of soldiers and anti-French sentiment, but he seemed to be very eager to introduce Georgiana to the Artist. I like Arthur’s friendship with Charlotte and Georgiana and how much freer he seems without his sister.
[Edited for typos 29/1/25.]
I also refused to get that invested in the mysterious circumstances of Sidney’s death, although by the end of the episode, it looks as though that means that Georgiana’s fortune has gone. Speaking of Georgiana, she seemed to have a bigger role while remaining a ninny three quarters of the time. She was turning down suitors blithely, assuming they were all fortune hunters, which is probably accurate. But she also doesn’t seem to be over her no-good ex. It looks as though she’s going to have forced UST with The Artist (first thought: artists are impecunious; second thought, I don’t believe men waxed their chests in the Regency era – a point viewers with better vision than me can repeatedly ponder.)
But Georgiana was also a little sad because Tom is possibly an even worse guardian than dead!Sidney, and she’s still living with the comedy siblings (please don’t let them sing again. Ever.) So the Parkers sent for Charlotte. Everyone except Tom has realised that Charlotte is mourning Sidney because she loved him but has to repress it (in as much as this show does repression) because he married someone else. For Tom.
Charlotte also brought her sister Alison along, who seems to be as much of a ninny as Georgiana, in public, anyway. The town is also boosted/horrified by the arrival of soldiers. (In Austen, they’re not as highly rated as naval officers, so I wondered how they’d be depicted. Apparently Davies seems to think that what ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was missing was us following Lydia and Kitty to Brighton.) I will give props for the reveal that Forehead (boo hiss) was one of their number and had suggested they camped at Sanditon, because of course he has plans. And debts. (I doubt the British Army decided where to send its troops like that ever, but that’s the least of it.)
Otherwise the redcoats seemed a bit snoozeworthy to me: the ridiculously young colonel, the Irish one, the one who was dazzled by Alison’s beauty.
However, the show fortunately introduced some more intriguing new characters. I loved Leo when I realised she was a girl (although I suspect I’m going to get narked at how she’s developed in the light of 2020s gender politics), and I LOVED Augusta the walking attitude, especially after Mr Colbourne gave a sharp critique of his daughter and niece. I mean, I have to note that to do her heroics, Charlotte seemed to notice through a crowd that Leo was in danger from the horse and squirm and dash an awfully long way to get to rescue her. I was sad that neither Sidney (also good in a crisis) or Stringer could appreciate said heroics. But I appreciated them in their improbability with mirth.
I was also amused at Charlotte’s presumption she’d get the job of governess. (I mean, we all knew she would, but still…) although she’ll obviously have to do more than ask Augusta and Leo to play together nicely. In the build-up to meeting Mr Colbourne, they brazened out the ‘you’ve never talked about this wealthy widowed neighbour in his big house before’ being about him being against Tom’s plans for his Folly, er Sanditon, which made me like him already. The truth and obvious rejoinder is that Davies hadn’t needed to make him up yet. Also, with rumours about the death of Colbourne’s (unconventional?) wife, they seemed to be leaning into the Gothic, which I enjoyed, and fine, pilfer a bit from Jane Eyre, but let her be dead and not mad and locked up in an attic, plz.
The actor playing him is not Theo James levels of hot, but has a touch of the Matthew MacFayden to his voice, and the shipper in me started waking up in a way artists and soldiers alike had failed to inspire. They can move on from their past loves together! Charlotte’s anachronism got her the job, anyway – it helped that she forgot that whole time she was terrible at being Tom’s secretary - so she can be all Independent Woman, while Alison and the rest have the vapours that Charlotte is lowering herself to be a governess i.e. giving up (three and twenty is past it in Austen years.) At least she didn’t return to that brothel in London to ask for a job, peeps!
Because she was being less of a ninny than Georgiana and Alison (their accident totally served them right for stealing someone else’s carriage and riding on the sand, I only hope the innocent horses were all right!) and the fact that it was only three months since Sidney’s death, Charlotte cut a sympathetic figure, haunted by Sidney’s voice wherever she went. Actually, I side-eyed the Parkers and Georgiana for not wearing mourning, although I loved the sunny colour palate of the show. I wanted Charlotte to be kind to herself, as I did Esther, as we and Lady Denham learned she’d miscarried at five and a half months a month ago. I would feel happier if Babbington returned, specially because of her being ‘let me talk some more about how I don’t want to talk to you, Forehead’. I hope they’ll handle the grief of miscarriage/the dangers of childbirth and pregnancy/the pressure to be a mother with some sensitivity. I doubt they will.
Am I racist for snickering at Lady D for dropping some sugar into her tea in defiance of Georgiana’s anti-sugar stance? (Bless Georgiana, but it’s not exactly school strikes, is it?) I also wondered for a second if Arthur wa going to fancy the Artist in their joint dislike of soldiers and anti-French sentiment, but he seemed to be very eager to introduce Georgiana to the Artist. I like Arthur’s friendship with Charlotte and Georgiana and how much freer he seems without his sister.
[Edited for typos 29/1/25.]
