Sanditon 3.6

[shallowness]

Event of the episode: The wedding that wasn’t (but it’s the finale, so there were weddings.) Jane Austen characters I was reminded of: Eleanor Tilney, as Lady Lydia basically got her plotline, Darcy because Colbourne got to do his proposal. Again. Edward Ferrars because Lady D thinks Forehead No More ought to become a clergyman. I don’t, but so long as he’s not in Augusta’s face… Theme song of the episode: you don’t own me. Thing to remember: it’s a finale, so NO STUPID CLIFFHANGERS.

So, Mary was Gravely Ill, and the doc uprated it to Needs a Miracle (just as the Hankins were popping in to offer prayers.) Myself, I still would have liked to see the doctor try something that resembled the medical science of the time. Charlotte, Georgiana and the Parker men were hovering at Mary’s bedside or pacing, with Tom upbraiding himself for not even having listened to Mary’s plans for the old town. Charlotte offered to fill him in, and took him visiting where Mary had caught the dread fever, although in fairness to the writers, Dora (?) had fully recovered, so I shouldn’t have snarked at the Miraculous Recovery that ensued. But I did grumble that Austen wouldn’t have had truck with such superstition when Dora’s mother handed Tom her necklace as a kind of talisman for Mary.

I mean, a pale, pale Mary was soon urging Charlotte to go tell her man she was free. So she did, but her man was out riding with Lady Lydia. I did feel, especially when she heard Augusta wasn’t doing great, that Charlotte could have spared her some time. We’d already seen the exchange where Leo commented that love seemed dreadful given the state Augusta was in and Xander confirmed it was, which they’d used in the trailer way back for this series, which is Bad Form. (For clarity, by that, I mean don’t use material from the finale for a trailer for the whole season.)

He’d then intimated that, like, the day after Charlotte had explained she had to go through with her marriage, he was thinking about the future.

Well, so was Samuel, and to his surprise it involved marriage. He didn’t quite say it outright to Lady Susan, but gave her enough hints, and she seemed to be of the same mind until: boom, a redcoat (never a good sign on this show) gave her a message that was basically a summons from the king. (Actually, she seemed to hang around for a very long time after this, even though she said she was going.) So, she told Samuel that they’d had a lovely moment (there was space to wonder if they’d spent the night together) and it was over, even though it was clear from his face that she was stomping all over the heart he’d only recently rediscovered. Ouch.

The Hankinses encountered the doc on the streets of Sanditon, and Beatrice sincerely congratulated him for Mary’s miraculous recovery (I am on her side romantically, but see above, we saw no evidence that he, like, did anything. If anything, the show put Mary’s recovery down to the talisman, not even prayer.) Her brother shot that down. In fact, he treated her like a lap dog, so I was delighted when she later told him off, even if I had issues with the whole ‘if Jesus paid me a compliment’ line of argument. Mr Hankins did bend eventually and say they should invite Her Last Hope of Happiness (eyeroll) over and he’d be polite. Still, yay for middle-aged romance.

It was rockier for old age romance, though. The more Mr Price talked (or issued commands, to someone who’s used to doing likewise), the less Lady D liked it. He must have had a special licence, because it was all ‘We’re getting married tomorrow. You have a day to pack up your belongings and close up the house.’ Edward was slightly going, ‘Eek, I’m going to be homeless.’ I was like, ‘Eh, get a job that removes you from Augusta’s vicinity.’

Dress fitting for Georgiana’s wedding (I thought it looked a bit loose, myself), and Lady Lydia let slip to her, but not her own mother, that she was secretly engaged. Georgiana picked her best friend over her sister in law and told Charlotte. Obviously, there was a loophole that even a drunk Samuel would have been able to see because Lydia hadn’t said to who, but why would she keep an engagement to Xander Colbourne quiet from her mother? But I was feeling magnanimous about why Georgiana, and then Charlotte, would jump to the assumptions they did about this engagement.

I was a bit more confused about what happened with Agnes, but that was partly because I didn’t realise her first scene was in Georgiana’s apartments. She left a note (but doesn’t know her daughter’s habits well enough to realise that she gets loads of correspondence, she and her maid assume its hate mail and ignore it.) Georgiana never saw it, assumed her mother had abandoned her again, despite Mary’s ‘She never! Mothers know mothers’ protestations. That’s fair enough.

Where I take issue (because I’m very lukewarm about the ship) is that Agnes went to Otis because she’s interpreted certain looks and thought he’d make a better husband than the Duke. Myself, I think Georgiana could do better than being a beard or being patronised for the rest of her life, and probably needed a few more months to get to know and trust her mother (the moment where she was all cuddled in her lap said a lot about her life thus far.) She’d only come to her senses and apologised to the people who loved her for having dodgy priorities of late that day. But it’s the finale, so, eventually we’d get a wedding scene between Georgiana and Otis, where, to be honest, I thought Charlotte and the Parkers should totally have attended. As it was, it was a vicar and Agnes. Er, wouldn’t they have needed another witness to make it legal? TBH, that scene raised so many questions that I’d have dropped it and had Otis sitting beside her at the wedding, Georgiana having not quite achieved co-heroine status.

So, back to the church, which everyone called a chapel. By this time, it was fairly obvious that Mr Price was going to be in the same situation as young Louisa had found herself. Augusta begged Charlotte to sit next to her in anticipation of seeing Forehead, which she of course had to, which meant that when Xander came to the family pew –

Sidebar: did they ever come up with an explanation as to why the Colbournes never went to church, specifically in season 1, other than the writers hadn’t had to invent them?

- he and Charlotte had to sit next to each other and be awkward. But in a church this time. He asked what she’d wanted to talk about. She, thinking him engaged, lied and said it was ‘to say goodbye. Again. Really and Truly this time.’

And then there was the drama of Edward (having been quite decent to his aunt just previously) telling Mr Price the bride wasn’t coming, and then, because Mr Hankins didn’t know what to do, telling the congregation. (The wording was a bit painful for Augusta.)

Out they went. Charlotte couldn’t bear the Colbourne/Lydia of it all, but ended up talking to Samuel (who she is totally on first name basis with…) and telling him that it wos the king wot summoned Samuel’s lady love. (Over one of the breaks, my brilliant solution was that Samuel and Susan elope to France, or failing that, the US.) This inspired Samuel to make an impassioned plea that made it pretty clear he was offering marriage, but got turned down. Ouch.

Mr Price demanded an explaination, and got one – Lady D was choosing Sanditon and her independence - and left in a huff. Georgiana exposed her Wannabe Mother-in-law, and Harry had the decency to be outraged at what his mother had done, but Georgiana dumped him. I mean, said they’d both be miserable and deserved to be happy. I reiterated what I thought from the outset, namely he needed to tell his mum that the Dukedom would pass on to his cousin (make your own Downton Abbey references) and they needed to retrench and stop trying to bribe mothers to abanodon their children, for one thing. He and Arthur would later kinda make it up, but it wasn’t very clear if the trip to the Wye Valley was back on, and I still think Arthur deserves better.

Lady D got talked into paying for the old town repairs and a new school (which was getting build because Xander loves Charlotte) for her legacy. Later, Mr Price would return and say he’d pay for the not so grand hotel at a place of Mary’s choosing so that he had somewhere to stay when he came visiting Lady D, because he didn’t want to go cold turkey. Fine. Have a pseudo long distance relationship then.

Samuel was pining like his little brother has been all season, when…Lady Susan returned and said love had made her a republican and yes please could they marry. (I paraphrase.)

Crying faces at Sanditon, because Charotte couldn’t stay there and set up the school while watching her man marry AN Other (again), which is fair enough from her POV, so she was off to Ireland to start a school (with no capital, mind, but sure…) BUT Samuel and his fiancé were having one of their beach walks and Susan was sighing that their matchmaking (okay, you put in more effort that the doc did into treating Mary) had come to naught, because Xander would be marrying Lady Lydia. Samuel did a decent double take for this was news to him! He returned home, used Leo as a messenger to tell her father, and…I liked that we came back to the beginning of this season visually, with Charlotte in a carriage on a cliffside track by the sea, only they were making it right. The fact that there would be no crazy volte-faces made me quite indulgent about what came next.

So great visuals, as Xander (clearly without bothering to stop to put a jacket on) on the big black horse, brought Charlotte’s carriage to a halt. They talked enough to make the situation clear (Lady Lydia’s secret being the worst kept secret ever, with Charlotte having fortunately told Lady Susan, and Lady L herself telling Xander. Actually, a bit more thought made me realise that Lady Lydia probably revealed it to Xander because he had proposed, otherwise, why would she?) And then, Xander tried proposing again (what is this, the third time? Well, at least it was clear that he was proposing and he’d get accepted. I think I’ve had questions about the lack of proposals with most of Charlotte’s kisses, be that with the never-to-be-mentioned-again Sidney or Xander.)

Finally! Some smooching with no take backs (Granted, the cut from close-up to a slightly further away shot was a jolt because it was obviously another take.) But I didn’t mind the slo-mo as we finally got a wedding at Sanditon church with nearly everyone in this season’s cast there. (Did Lady Mother-in-law get enough of a comeuppance? If we’re being picky we could have seen Lydia or Harry do some straight (heh) talking to her.) And if we hadn’t got the message, everyone was invited over to Charlotte’s future home.

They could have ended there, but as is too often to be found in romances (never in Austen) we had a ‘one year after’ epilogue that was ripe for snark. I’ve just read a Regency romance that tried this ‘the heroine started a school for all’ nonsense. It’s so anachronistic! I’d only buy it if the schoolmistress were strongly religious (non-conformist or Quaker?) and even so, I don’t think it would be easy to teach Leo with kids of her own age who had only started reading. But sure! Girls can be anything! (Not in the nineteenth century England you’re meant to be depicting they can’t. Women were only just getting the right to have a say in who they married.) Also, that baby looked huge for a three-month old or younger. It wasn’t clear if it was a he or a she, the tone of the scene would suggest ‘she’, but really Colbourne would have wanted it to be a he, although I can buy that he would mostly be delighted that it was totally his. And Charlotte’s. So much so that he was totally willing to play househusband to his working wife three months (at the outset) after she’d given birth!!! Totally.

I snarked, but I grinned too.