End of an era? No, end of a season
Sep. 10th, 2025 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessMiss Scarlet and the Duke 2.6 - The Proposal
This started off with what looked like a conversation (because their minds run along parallel lines except when they don’t) between Eliza and William, but was in fact them practicing what they wanted to say to each other, putting a gloss upon his departure for Glasgow before he left. This idea of Eliza practicing her speeches (just like the actress playing her does) was repeated later, as were some of the lines from this scene when they met later that night and much later, when he was hours from leaving.
Neither of them actually wanted to admit their true feelings, and instead got into a fight because Eliza offered William a job, so they didn’t go out for a last dinner. Obviously, this offended his manly pride and hadn’t been remotely thought through by her, but was basically coming from a place where she didn’t want him to go! I was very much not tense about all this because his name is in the show title. (For now.) So, even if the Duke left, he’d be coming back (though if they do eventually write him off by taking a promotion in Glasgow, I’ll grumble.) Which is also why Nash is never going to win Eliza over to work under him for more than a few episodes ever.
Apart from that ‘end of an era’ being dangled in front of us, there were other reasons that the episode felt like it was ending a season, with Nash offering Miss Scarlet a deal to take some of his cases. My advice? Don’t trust him most of the time. She refused until Mrs Parker got in her head, because Eliza stood up for Hetty wanting to marry for love. Mrs Parker wanted her to marry a man of her choosing who would be happy to stay under Mrs Parker’s roof and look after Mrs Parker – tall order, I thought. Couldn’t she just hire a companion? Eliza started thinking about dying alone without any money, which was why she agreed to Nash’s offer, but on a trial basis.
And then he got shot, and hired her to investigate who’d shot him, because he knew his men weren’t up to it and he trusted her because she was upfront about her dislike for him. (He seems rather taken by her, poor man, because he’s never met a woman like her before, and will therefore have to suffer her pig-headedness and her using him, as do Moses and William.)
Speaking of, Inspector Wellington’s last few days in London were to be spent giving Fitzroy guidance as he led on a case, which would be the Nash case. Eliza ran rings around Fitzroy, and got Moses to help her out for a very long hour, where she eventually got the name of the likely assassin, who lived in the worst slum in Victorian London. Moses warned her not to go there alone, she went alone and had got as far as regretting it when he turned up to save her.
It soon became apparent that she had been the target, not Nash, and she and Moses and, separately, Fitzroy and the Duke (with the help of Mr Potts of the morgue) figured out that the now dead assassin had been hired by the man from her first case. Which I didn’t remember.
Now that Eliza was in danger, William stopped even pretending to let Fitzroy run the show. It was like watching him kick a puppy to see him turn on Fitzroy and force him to stay put. Fortunately, as there were lots of people running all around London, Eliza was smart enough to outwit her would-be killer. I had been worried about Clementine, but she was in on Eliza’s plan. I should have been worried about Fitzroy, who decided to go to the Rookery AKA that slum alone and got shot for it. He was less shot than Nash had been, but still. But Nash was still happy to work again with Eliza, and took the whole getting shot by accident when it should have been her fairly well.
Eliza and William had one last confab after she’d solved the case, and then Eliza found out that Hetty had given up and got engaged to a man of her aunt’s choosing. Would Eliza come to the engagement party that night? As the alternative was moping as William took his train to Glasgow, she would, and she would be bringing Ivy and her Barnaby. Eliza was dressed in a take on a Victorian gown that appeals to modern taste, in teal, of course, because that is this show’s key colour. Hetty was in something flouncier, BUT her youthful looking fiancé was quite attractive. And Dutch!?!?
William was dragged away from bidding a mournful adieu to his office to be given a lecture by his boss’s boss (Fitzroy sr) for getting his son shot. Having reached his limits, he answered back, and was about to get kicked out of the force when Fitzroy turned up, showing some of the backbone that the Duke has been trying to bring out. He hadn’t realised until now that the Duke was being sent to Glasgow as a punishment because of him, thinking instead that William was abandoning him for the promotion, but he finally stood up to his father and for the Duke and got the other detectives to listen to him. Huzzah!? (Really enjoyed Stuart Martin’s facial performance during this scene.)
Seeing Hetty and Ivy coupled up with their paramours, lonely Eliza decided to do a dash…not to the train station (because it would have meant another set), while William knew to come to the Parkers. After some more missing each other all over London, Eliza found William outside her office, and before she opened up her heart (to use Victorian English) found out he would be staying in London. He tried to get her to say what she had been going to say, and there was some fervent handholding until Ivy and her Barnaby turned up, tipsy and worried, and decided they’d have more sherry and play charades. And that is how the second season ended.
This started off with what looked like a conversation (because their minds run along parallel lines except when they don’t) between Eliza and William, but was in fact them practicing what they wanted to say to each other, putting a gloss upon his departure for Glasgow before he left. This idea of Eliza practicing her speeches (just like the actress playing her does) was repeated later, as were some of the lines from this scene when they met later that night and much later, when he was hours from leaving.
Neither of them actually wanted to admit their true feelings, and instead got into a fight because Eliza offered William a job, so they didn’t go out for a last dinner. Obviously, this offended his manly pride and hadn’t been remotely thought through by her, but was basically coming from a place where she didn’t want him to go! I was very much not tense about all this because his name is in the show title. (For now.) So, even if the Duke left, he’d be coming back (though if they do eventually write him off by taking a promotion in Glasgow, I’ll grumble.) Which is also why Nash is never going to win Eliza over to work under him for more than a few episodes ever.
Apart from that ‘end of an era’ being dangled in front of us, there were other reasons that the episode felt like it was ending a season, with Nash offering Miss Scarlet a deal to take some of his cases. My advice? Don’t trust him most of the time. She refused until Mrs Parker got in her head, because Eliza stood up for Hetty wanting to marry for love. Mrs Parker wanted her to marry a man of her choosing who would be happy to stay under Mrs Parker’s roof and look after Mrs Parker – tall order, I thought. Couldn’t she just hire a companion? Eliza started thinking about dying alone without any money, which was why she agreed to Nash’s offer, but on a trial basis.
And then he got shot, and hired her to investigate who’d shot him, because he knew his men weren’t up to it and he trusted her because she was upfront about her dislike for him. (He seems rather taken by her, poor man, because he’s never met a woman like her before, and will therefore have to suffer her pig-headedness and her using him, as do Moses and William.)
Speaking of, Inspector Wellington’s last few days in London were to be spent giving Fitzroy guidance as he led on a case, which would be the Nash case. Eliza ran rings around Fitzroy, and got Moses to help her out for a very long hour, where she eventually got the name of the likely assassin, who lived in the worst slum in Victorian London. Moses warned her not to go there alone, she went alone and had got as far as regretting it when he turned up to save her.
It soon became apparent that she had been the target, not Nash, and she and Moses and, separately, Fitzroy and the Duke (with the help of Mr Potts of the morgue) figured out that the now dead assassin had been hired by the man from her first case. Which I didn’t remember.
Now that Eliza was in danger, William stopped even pretending to let Fitzroy run the show. It was like watching him kick a puppy to see him turn on Fitzroy and force him to stay put. Fortunately, as there were lots of people running all around London, Eliza was smart enough to outwit her would-be killer. I had been worried about Clementine, but she was in on Eliza’s plan. I should have been worried about Fitzroy, who decided to go to the Rookery AKA that slum alone and got shot for it. He was less shot than Nash had been, but still. But Nash was still happy to work again with Eliza, and took the whole getting shot by accident when it should have been her fairly well.
Eliza and William had one last confab after she’d solved the case, and then Eliza found out that Hetty had given up and got engaged to a man of her aunt’s choosing. Would Eliza come to the engagement party that night? As the alternative was moping as William took his train to Glasgow, she would, and she would be bringing Ivy and her Barnaby. Eliza was dressed in a take on a Victorian gown that appeals to modern taste, in teal, of course, because that is this show’s key colour. Hetty was in something flouncier, BUT her youthful looking fiancé was quite attractive. And Dutch!?!?
William was dragged away from bidding a mournful adieu to his office to be given a lecture by his boss’s boss (Fitzroy sr) for getting his son shot. Having reached his limits, he answered back, and was about to get kicked out of the force when Fitzroy turned up, showing some of the backbone that the Duke has been trying to bring out. He hadn’t realised until now that the Duke was being sent to Glasgow as a punishment because of him, thinking instead that William was abandoning him for the promotion, but he finally stood up to his father and for the Duke and got the other detectives to listen to him. Huzzah!? (Really enjoyed Stuart Martin’s facial performance during this scene.)
Seeing Hetty and Ivy coupled up with their paramours, lonely Eliza decided to do a dash…not to the train station (because it would have meant another set), while William knew to come to the Parkers. After some more missing each other all over London, Eliza found William outside her office, and before she opened up her heart (to use Victorian English) found out he would be staying in London. He tried to get her to say what she had been going to say, and there was some fervent handholding until Ivy and her Barnaby turned up, tipsy and worried, and decided they’d have more sherry and play charades. And that is how the second season ended.
