Yasssss Queen

Is your domestic political situation getting you down? Is it mirroring that of your average banana republic? Is your political discourse devolving into an ever-festering sewer of hyperventilating outrage and batshit insane conspiracy theories? Is someone trying to build a wall out of tacos and rage on your southern border? 

Well, never fear. ITV has installed teevee's Jenna Coleman (Dr. Who) as the queen of bloody England. Literally. She is now the queen and will henceforth be in charge. Stand aside and let Miss Thing run this bitch.

Sashay, shante

So, here's what happened. George III of England and Hanover (yes, that George III) had a fuckton of kids. A literal fuckton. What's the best way to ensure a smooth succession and have heirs to spare? Fuck like rabbits. 

There has been much speculation that Queen Charlotte's brandishing of her dairy products caused the royal squires to assemble posthaste to the sovereign quadrangle.

One would think with all of these offspring, keeping the Hanovers on the throne would be no biggie. Actually, not so much. It turns out that keeping your daughters locked in the palace, and not allowing them to marry isn't a good strategy toward procuring an heir. Neither is being unable/unwilling to stop your sons from having licentious (and public) affairs with every passing tart.  George III's sons who made it to adulthood, George (Prince Regent, then George IV); William (William IV); Edward, Duke of Kent; Ernest Augustus (Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover); Prince Frederick, Duke of Albany and York; Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge; and Augustus, Duke of Sussex, all failed to produce legitimate offspring (or they entered into morganatic marriage, which by definition made their children ineligible to inherit). 

Well, that's not entirely true. George IV put aside his drinking, whoring, gambling, and skirt-chasing aside long enough to marry Caroline of Brunswick, whom he hated, but impregnated and then abandoned. Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales. Thus securing the monarchy, George and his fellow brothers went back to drinking, whoring, and gambling. Accompanying these vices were good doses of immorality, wickedness, iniquity, villainy, lechery, and moral turpitude. Everything was going along swimmingly. Princess Charlotte was popular -- viewed by the British public and the press as a welcome antidote to her father's and uncles' debauchery.

Look at Miss Thing snagging King Leopold of Belgium.

AAAAAnnnd then Princess Charlotte died in childbirth. THUD. 

Princess Charlotte's tomb monument...I'm not saying you shouldn't blink, but...

FFS DON'T BLINK

Enter Clara. 

I mean Queen Victoria. 

The remaining male offspring of George III and Queen Charlotte (who were well into their 50s and 60s by the time of Princess Charlotte's death in 1817), rushed around to find a willing woman of childbearing age upon whom to beget a child. The first to the finish line (HA!) was Edward, Duke of Kent, who married Victoria, Princess of Leiningen, sister of Charlotte's widowed husband King Leopold. Princess Victoria of England was born in 1819. 

Having fulfilled his duty, the Duke of Kent dropped dead the following year.

Princess Victoria was left to be raised by her (by all accounts) controlling, parvenu mother, and her mother's advisor (some say LOVAH), John Conroy.

Side note: There is a conspiracy theory among some royal historians that the Duke of Kent was not actually Victoria's father. Rather, the conspiracy posits that John Conroy was her natural father. The line of reasoning comes from Victoria's introduction of the gene for hemophilia into the royal bloodline. There were no known hemophiliacs in the Hanover line until Victoria (the suspected carrier) passed the gene onto her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (infamously, Tsarevich Aleksei of Russia). However, Conroy was't known to have been a hemophiliac, and hemophilia has been known to arise in children of older fathers.

So, given all of that unnecessary historical context, what should we make of Victoria, airing on PBS this month?

PRINCE ALBERT IS HOT AF. 

Hold onto your ovaries, ladies.

Seriously. I am not all into the serious, moody, brooding type (shut up, Clovis), but OMG. That floppy hair. That dickish, condescending attitude. 

Gloriana.

Get it, girl,  

Episode I: Homegirl Awakens 

Episode I begins at the time history takes note of Victoria -- upon the death of her uncle, Princess Victoria becomes queen at the age of 18. 

Victoria, however, shows her immaturity pretty much right off the bat. Screenwriter Daisy Goodwin has chosen to focus on the Flora Hastings affair, which really happened, and which did indeed mark a turning-point in Victoria's reign.

A side note about Daisy Goodwin. I was a little hesitant to watch this drama when I discovered that Daisy Goodwin wrote the screenplay. I have read one historical fiction novel by Goodwin, and I can't say that it was terrible, but it was THE SILLIEST book I have read in a long, long time. It was amazing. Go read it. I giggled through the whole thing.  

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see the level of detail and relative historical accuracy displayed in Goodwin's screenplay.  The miniseries is based on Goodwin's novel, also called Victoria. For this, Goodwin drew on her reading of Queen Victoria's diaries.

Goodwin  takes some...creative liberties with the relationship between Lord Melbourne and Queen Victoria. It is entirely possible that Victoria had feelings for Melbourne, because let's face it, she probably had a ton of daddy issues, but there's no extant evidence to suggest that Victoria was in the lovez with Melbourne, nor he with her. Their relationship certainly was very close, but Victoria tended to get close to her PMs, forming a close bond with Benjamin Disraeli later in life. It is all very juicy to watch, though. 

Rufus Sewell and Jenna Coleman are both very well cast in this. Coleman is especially noteworthy, convincingly playing an 18-year-old (she's 30).

Yo, dawg.

The action of the first episode is primarily centered around Victoria's struggle for independence from her mother and the presumptuous Conroy. Is he portrayal of Conroy and Victoria's mother entirely historically correct? Well, from what I have read about Conroy and the Duchess of Kent, it's not far off. In fact, the portrayal of the duchess is actually more flattering than some biographical accounts that I have read. Victoria was undoubtedly much more attached to her governess Lehzen than she was to her actual mother, and had more daughterly feelings toward her. Conroy is generally viewed as something of a villain, out to control Victoria, and, according to some accounts, to inveigle himself into the monarchy itself. In any case, the movie does a good job of setting up the conflict between Victoria and her mother and Conroy. 

Yo. 

Even those unfamiliar with the actual history behind all of this can get some satisfaction from how delightfully bitchy Victoria gets to be toward them.

However, Victoria's inexperience and immaturity are brought to the fore in the Flora Hastings affair. Basically, members of Victoria's court decided that her mother's lady-in-waiting, Lady Flora, was pregnant. In the movie, it is Victoria who accuses Lady Flora, but in actuality, it was Lehzen. Hastings had been visiting Dr. Clark because of pain and swelling in her abdomen, and I imagine after bleeding and sweating her, he decided she was pregnant, and not, you know, dying of fucking cancer. You have to remember this is 1839 and an unmarried pregnant woman at court was ESCANDELO!

Dang.

Lehzen passed her suspicions onto the queen and Lord Melbourne, and Queen Victoria wrote in her journals that she suspected Conroy was the father. So, the takeaway is the Flora Hastings affair did happen, only not exactly as it goes down in the movie. 

Of course, the only problem with the whole scenario was that Lady Flora wasn't preg. She agreed to be examined by royal physicians, and that is when they discovered the tumor. She died a few months later, but Victoria did reportedly visit her on her deathbed.

I gonna haunt dat bitch her dreamz yo.

The political intrigue following the affair wasn't quite as complex as it is in the series. Flora's father, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, was actually a Whig.

However, Flora's brother and Conroy stirred up some press hysteria, in an attempt to get Victoria to LEARN HER LESSON ALREADY and appoint Conroy to some kind of advisory position. 

Homegirl wasn't having it. As guilty as Victoria felt about the Hastings affair, she kept Conroy at a distance, and eventually finagled a way to have him leave court for good. 

Welp, that's all for Episode 1. Stay tuned for Episodes 2 and 3, brought to you by the letter Z. 

What Ben's Watched On Streaming for June/July

I've watched a bunch of things on streaming media recently. Here are my short-ish reviews:

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Season 3 (Netflix)

A friend of mine recently said, "yeah, I was watching Agents of SHIELD, and then it got really stupid." I think she was referring to sometime in Season 2. 

Which is true, Agents of SHIELD perenially has a plot which I'd describe thematically as "peak comic book," where all plot threads come together into a unified whole no matter how disparate they seem to be at the beginning, and some stuff seems shoehorned in. It is apparently inconceivable to the Agents of SHIELD writers that SHIELD could have to deal with two major issues at the same time and they never team up or subsume each other. 

The show is also knocking off characters at a Game of Thrones rate (okay, pre-season 6 season finale Game of Thrones rate) sometimes seemingly because Joss Whedon doesn't want to pay for an actor anymore. Similarly, the "big bad" for the last half of the season sometimes seemed to be down a henchman because, I think, either the actor they had for him (who's B-list famous) was too expensive to be in every episode if he didn't have lines or he had a prior commitment so he couldn't appear in half the episodes you'd expect to see him in.

That said, as a guy who just read all the issues of Radioactive Spider-Gwen and spin-offs available on Marvel Unlimited (Gwen Stacy is a much more interesting Spider-Person than Peter Parker! Also she's in an alternate universe where Captain America was always an African-American woman and Daredevil is evil! You really should read it!), I have a pretty high tolerance for comic book stupid (I had to read through several issues with Spider-Ham -- yes, the Spider-Man that is an anthropomorphic pig -- crossovers) if a show is otherwise diverting. And Agents of SHIELD remains entertainingly diverting.

Also, Clark Gregg is still clearly enjoying his job and is a joy to watch.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (Amazon Prime)

Elevator pitch for this show: "It's Attack on Titan, but with zombie mobs instead of naked giants, and it's set in a steampunk late Tokugawa Japan where most of the action takes place one of the armored supply trains for the rail system that keeps the last few human outposts connected."

The execution is, at best, fair. Writing seems to be done by folks given the directive: "use the formula we know works for shounen [teenage boy-marketed] anime for the elevator pitch you just heard. Do not, under any circumstances, take any risks with plot or characterization or otherwise give the audience something they likely have not seen before in another anime."

It's always magical zombies with glowing hearts covered in some sort of difficult-to-penetrate metal alloy. isn't it?

I could go on and give details, but it would really be a waste of your brain space. It's not good.

Penny Dreadful (Netflix)

This was reviewed before on this blog, but I actually like it a little more.

Let's not get too excited: I don't love Penny Dreadful as high art. I like it as a television version of a gothic horror (which also has influence from - and name-checks - the Grand Guignol style of gory theater) acted by people who are capable of much more substantial work than being "morally compromised supernatural evil-hunting team."

And that's what Penny Dreadful is -- Timothy Dalton plays the rich African explorer father of Mina Harker -- yes, that Mina Harker -- who assembles a semi-random team of dangerous misfits to rescue his daughter from a vampire. They are:

• the African explorer's mysterious African warrior butler/something (Danny Sapiani)
• demon-possessed psychic childhood friend of Mina (Eva Green)
• American gunslinger whose dark secret would be only revealed in the last episode of the first season if it wasn't spoiled by the credits sequence (Josh Hartnett)
• Dr. Victor Frankenstein -- yes, that Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadway)

In a parallel plotline, for reasons I can't quite understand, there's Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney); yes, the Oscar Wilde one with the painting. He seems to be there mostly to create multiple romantic issues with Josh Hartnett's character; Gray has sex with two women Ethan Chandler (Hartnett) is romantically entangled with, plus Chandler himself. I don't think this spoils much in the first season because, as I said, Dorian Gray has no direct relationship to the main plot. 

Here's Ethan Chandler and Dorian Gray making out. While there is a bunch of male full-frontal nudity in this show, sadly not of these guys. 

Also, Billie Piper is in this as a prostitute dying of consumption. She needs a better post-Doctor Who agent. 

As I said above, this show is sort of an update of gothic horror and Grand Guignol; the point is not that it's good, it's that it's constantly entertaining or at least shocking in a visceral way. There is a plot and there is dialogue. As the previous blogger on this beat noted, neither are particularly compelling (although the pacing of the story is good). But the production values, the acting, and the fact that everyone making this is taking it seriously instead of winking at the audience somehow raise it above "dumb" to "weirdly fun." 

Vicious - You Missed It and You Should Be Sad

For about two months last winter, PBS had the ITV comedy Vicious, starring Magneto/Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) and I, Claudius (Sir Derek Jacobi). If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should buy all six episodes of season one (plus the Christmas special) on DVD immediately.

This was amazing and you should start 

feeling bad for not having watched it.

The premise of Vicious is that Freddie (Gandalf) and Stuart (Claudius) have been a couple for nearly 45 years, although Stuart has been in the closet to his mother for that entire time. After four decades, Stuart and Freddie's relationship mostly consists of being verbally and wittily nasty to the other, with occasional petty jealousy or overweening vanity thrown in for spice. 

Basically, it's two dude Dowager Countesses in a never-ending cage match of Brit wits throwing shade. I know. It is as awesome as it sounds. 

Despite their being pretty horrible people, Freddie and Stuart have friends: the omnisexual Violet Crosby (Frances de la Tour), the grump Mason (Philip Voss),  the memory-challenged Penelope (Marcia Warren), and Ramsay Bolton:

"Strangely, none of my lines in this show involve the term 'flaying.'"

That's right, Iwan Rheon is Freddie and Stuart's young neighbor Ash, a combination of optimism and naivete. That's right; he's the innocent and gullible one. It's ironic, but frankly, Rheon plays it well enough that you forget what happened to Theon Greyjoy for a while.

For the sci-fi and fantasy record, Frances de la Tour was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sir Derek was in Underworld Evolution and a bunch of Doctor Who, and Philip Voss was in original Doctor Who as well as a small role in Octopussy, the most incoherent James Bond film ever made. You could have a convention just with the six-person cast of this show.

So, you missed Vicious last year. And it's basically available nowhere I can find streaming. You are saying to yourself, "how did I miss this?" I don't know, but it is a tragedy. On the plus side, season two will be on PBS sometime this summer.

Burn It Down. BURN IT DOWN TO THE GROUND.

Maggie Cats: Well, hello there, m'lady! So any initial thoughts on Downton's Season 5 premiere?

Arsenic Pie: Just all kinds of insane.

Maggie Cats: It was certainly lightning quick in terms of characters moving around and plots being set up.

Arsenic Pie: I like how it started two years after the end of the last season, but none of the plots had changed. I felt like Thomas was still trying to get info, and Lord Gillingham was still chasing after Mary, even though two years had already passed.

Maggie Cats: Well, Downton has pretty much recycled the same plots over and over since season 1. And yet, we still love it. How many times have we heard, "Times, they are a-changing." And yet Lord Grantham is still as useless and nobody just tells him to get a job.

Arsenic Pie: I really don't get why Thomas is still plotting. Is he still plotting to get rid of Bates? Because I feel that ship has sailed.

Maggie Cats: It's very sad how one note he has become. I think EVERY scene he had involved him at some point badgering Baxter. I don't get it. It was the biggest flaw in an otherwise pretty enjoyable episode. Why does he even care anymore?

Arsenic Pie: I know, right! Isn't there something else they can do with Thomas? If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: If Thomas got laid once in a while he wouldn't be such a dick. Also, why is everyone in love with Mary all the time?

Maggie Cats: Again, see season 1. Also. Asking Mary to sleep with you. EVERYONE WHO SLEEPS WITH MARY DIES. Don't do it, Lord What's His Name.

Arsenic Pie: I KNOW!

Maggie Cats: Her vagina = death.

Arsenic Pie: I've been warning Lord Gillingham about this but he doesn't seem to be able to hear me through the TV. Also, I liked the other guy better, honestly. Well Lord Gillingham asked her to be his booty call in the season premiere so we'll see how long he lives after that.

Maggie Cats: The other guy, Charles Blake, was cuter; Lord G-Spot's teeth make me squirm.

Arsenic Pie: Charles Blake is way cuter. Also Lord G hires rapey valets. I think we're firmly anti-Lord G.

Maggie Cats:  There is that.

So...what exactly is making this a difficult choice for you, Lady Mary?

Arsenic Pie: There is that. And knowing how repetitive this show is, he's likely to do it again. And then Bates will shove him in front of bus. And so on ad nauseum.

Maggie Cats: You know, as much as I love Downton, I feel like I enjoy it more when I DON'T talk about it like this. Because I end up deconstructing it and realizing all the flaws. All the plots are the same, there is almost no real character growth (Lord Grantham is still an idiot, Edith is a sad sack, Cora is dumb as a rock...), and if I don't think about it....then I don't realize it. At this point, I was kind of hoping Edith would end up burning it to the ground. At least that would be something new.

Arsenic Pie: But Thomas got in the way.

Maggie Cats: But I will point out that was just about the only time I can remember Lord Grantham being very useful; I will admit he sprang into action and took charge when everyone else was just sitting on their asses. Thomas bumbles into heroism a lot.

Arsenic Pie: I just think the show is funny. You can't take it seriously as a drama because it makes no damn sense. But on a positive note. I like Tom's new girlfriend, the schoolmarm. She is adorbz.

Maggie Cats: OMG, she is insane. And while I do like her as a character, she is really fucking rude.

Arsenic Pie: But you know that's going to end badly.

Maggie Cats: Just because I agree with her doesn't mean it's ok to openly insult people at their dinner table. Oh, god yes. AND I LOVE IT.

Arsenic Pie: There's no way they're going to get together. THEY ARE SO DOOMED.

"Tom's going to teach me a lesson about how my attitude toward 1%ers actually makes ME the snob, and we've done this plot before, so don't mind me. Hey! Are those canapes? I LOVE canapes!"

Maggie Cats: I am sure she will get pushed in front of a bus. Driven by the proletariat.

Arsenic Pie: I bet that's what happened to Gregson.  I bet the Nazis pushed him in front of the Hitler bus. Like who goes to Germany in the 1920s? Nobody. It's just a bad idea.

Maggie Cats:  Do you think he is dead? Or will make a reappearance? I wouldn't past Julian Fellowes to have kept it open in case he has some divine inspiration reason to bring him back.

Arsenic Pie: Oh, I am sure he will reappear.

Maggie Cats: Maybe he joined SHIELD? Oh, wait that's the 1940s. My bad.

Arsenic Pie: Maybe he went TO THE FUTURE and joined SHIELD. I am totally waiting for him to reappear. Like reappear and be a Nazi. He's be like, "No, Edith. I'm totally a fascist now. And it's fucking sweet." I really don't know why we aren't writing for this show.

Maggie Cats: Ooooh, that is totally what is going to happen. "Can I have that German primer I left here? It had microfiche in it with secrets that I really need."

Arsenic Pie: Yes! Yes!

Maggie Cats: We don't write for the show because we are too good.

Arsenic Pie: Like really he joined them in secret and is passing secrets and he disappeared because he's a spy.

Maggie Cats: Let's talk some more about the Downstairs folk. Daisy wants to learn numbers, Jimmy slept with Caroline Bingley...

Arsenic Pie: Then Edith can be like, "Um. I burned it. But look! I made you a kid!" JIMMY TOTALLY SLEPT WITH CAROLINE BINGLEY WHO HAS NOT CHANGED AT ALL IN THE PAST 100 YEARS.

"Yes! Barged in on us in the midst of le grande delicto to say the house was on fire! The impudence!" 

Maggie Cats: Also: Duckface from Four Weddings and a Funeral. Watching this show I sometimes feel like a British IMDB. "Oh, it's THAT guy!"

"A little lower, Jimmy! No, lower! No, not to the right. To the left. The left!"

Arsenic Pie: Yes, Duckface was there, too. I like Daisy. I never warmed to Ivy and I'm glad she's gone.So is Alfred going to realize that Daisy is sweet and true? I really do think Thomas needs to get laid.

Maggie Cats: On one hand, it's great to have a gay character. There are amazing stories to tell about homosexuals in this era. On the other, Julian Fellowes has no interest in telling those stories, and since Thomas is gay and can't date any of the downstairs ladies, it seems there are no other plots for him. This bothers me.

Arsenic Pie: Right. It's one thing to be like "Look! We're progressive with this gay character" but he never has a relationship and he's always being an asshole. It's not a positive portrayal in any way. Aren't there any hot farm lads around for Thomas? Mary has some extra dudes. He could date one of them. I really do like the other guy for Mary. He is way hotter.

Maggie Cats: I would approve of that for sure.

Arsenic Pie: When was the last time Thomas had a date?

Maggie Cats: Um, never? And I say good for Daisy, and good for Mrs. Patmore for supporting her. She's not dumb and I think Tom's teacher will start tutoring her. Daisy clearly has a learning disability.

Arsenic Pie: I thought the same thing. :( Poor Daisy. I thought she had dyslexia or something. I thought maybe Tom's lady friend could teach her.

Maggie Cats: You and me share a brain.

Arsenic Pie: Or maybe the show is just that obvious. So, let's talk about Isobel. I like how Violet is trying to get her lord friend to be interested in someone else so Isobel can't raise her social position. We wouldn't want Isobel to be ranked higher socially than Violet.

Maggie Cats: This subplot fascinates me; beyond giving Maggie Smith more chances to be hilarious, it's one of the few times we see Violet actually scared. She is TERRIFIED of Isobel being ranked higher than her.

Arsenic Pie: AND IT IS AWESOME I really do ship Dr. Clarkson and Isobel, but this plot is good for a few laughs.

Maggie Cats: When Isobel figures this out, she will probably marry that lord just to have the win. Poor Dr. Clarkson. Also, how hilarious is that Violet's butler is named Spratt. And is a total snob. Even SHE thinks he's a snob.

Arsenic Pie: Spratt is the worst. I like how he won't serve Dr. Clarkson because he's, you know, middle class.

Maggie Cats: I love it. I would want some of that cake too. Except I would have said, "EXCUSE ME, BUT I WANT SOME CAKE, YOU ASSHOLE."

Arsenic Pie: I'd just take the cake from him. I'd be like GIVE ME THE WHOLE THING. And then I'd be like WHERE IS THE FROSTING.

Maggie Cats: I would have tripped him too, and caught the cake like Edward Cullen in Twilight.

Arsenic Pie: There was no frosting on that cake. I looked. If Edward Cullen shows up on Downton Abbey I will die happy. Like as a vampire.

Maggie Cats: And then come back as an undead. Edward should date Thomas. And they can be weird and stalk each other.

HOT. 

Arsenic Pie: That would be a match. Thomas would be totally into the sparkly boyfriend thing. I bet Thomas reads Twilight. Thomas reads Twilight and so does Ivy. Edith reads it sometimes but she realizes now that it was a lie. I bet that's what Gregson's book was.  It was a German translation of Twilight and that's why she burned it. It just sucked that much.

Maggie Cats: Thomas writes Twilight fanfic. OMG. Thomas writes Twilight fanfic that becomes 50 Shades of Grey, but with two dudes and set in the 1920s. Also: HAHAHAHA

Arsenic Pie: HOLY SHIT YES.

Look out, Evelyn Waugh!

Arsenic Pie: Aaaand we are officially off topic.

Maggie Cats: Perhaps this is a good time for final thoughts.

Arsenic Pie: Overall, better than the second and third seasons. I watched all of last season on Sunday and I liked it. So I think the show has picked up some of the steam it lost. I think Matthew was deadweight. I don't miss him at all.

Maggie Cats: I actually agree, and I remember being really sad when he died. I thought it was a good premiere and did everything a premiere should. And while I enjoyed it, I was disappointed in the plot recycling and the lack of movement in characters and relationships.

Arsenic Pie: Yeah, the season premiere was supposed to pick up two years after last season but nothing had really changed. It's kind of unrealistic for a couple of the plotlines not to have moved along any. I do like Rose and I like her plots. It's fun to watch the whole debutante thing because they never did that with the other girls.

Maggie Cats: Oh, definitely agree. We didn't touch on Rose, but I will say that it's surprising the show was able to add her to the cast and make her actually interesting.

Arsenic Pie: I like her. She's a good replacement for Sybil. I mostly just feel bad for Tom.

Maggie Cats: Yeah, me too. I hope he ends up leaving Downton and being happy somewhere else. You know, because he is a real character.

Arsenic Pie: I think overall the plots need to move. I don't care at all if Bates killed the valet. I think everyone agrees they don't care, so I hope they just let it go. Tom does seem the most real of the upstairs cast. He and Rose are actually the most sympathetic of the upstairs cast.

"These people are just insane."

Maggie Cats: Definitely agree. Well, it sounds like there are both promising and disappointing things about the season premiere. Let's hope the plots get moving in the weeks to come!

Arsenic Pie: Let's hope. I will continue to watch and laugh myself silly.

Maggie Cats: NOT watching Downton would be the hard part. As Violet said, avoiding your friends is the hardest thing. And scene.

Lady Mary's (Second? Third?) Wedding Cake, by Molesley Cakes & Bakery, Ripon, Yorkshire, UK

Death Becomes Pemberley

A murder, a ball, a ghost story, a secret romance, and a possibly rabid woman running amok in the woods. It must be...Jane Austen!

Look at this stuff! Isn't it neat? Don't you think my collection's complete? 

Because OF COURSE Lizzie and Darcy could not just live their 1% lifestyle without being troubled by Lizzie's batshit sister and her good-for-nothing husband, Wickham. Because you know all of what I'm about to tell you more or less happened barely after the last paragraph of P&P was written, Jane Austen put down her quill pen, and the ink dried. Do not front and say this isn't canon. You know everything went immediately to hell after the wedding. JANE AUSTEN IS A LIE. You guys, this is hilarious. Actual real JA fan fiction brought to a teevee or computer screen near you.

The action actually begins a few years into Lizzie and Darcy's marriage. The Darcys have spawned a boy named Fitzwilliam (natch). Lizzie and Darcy are planning a ball, and then Captain Denny is mysteriously (and quite inconveniently, I might add) murdered, which basically strands everyone at Pemberley until the MUHDUH is solved. So, get ready for some Regency Clue realness. 

Fine weather for a MUHDUH.

The plot will be familiar to those who have read the novel of the same name. It begins with two Pemberley servant wenches, straight of out of Downton Abbey central casting, who claim to have seen the "ghost of Mrs. Riley" in the woods. Mrs. Riley is an unfortunate figure whose ghost reportedly haunts the woods around Pemberley after she committed suicide because her young son was hanged for poaching a deer on the Pemberley property. According to the legend, her appearance foretells the onset of tragedy. Wooooooooo. Unfortunately for the veracity of the ghost tale, Lizzie encounters this same woman in the woods, and when Lizzie attempts to restore the lady's lost bonnet, she straight up hisses at her. At which point, Anna Maxwell Martin is Deeply Confused.

Is she Catwoman or WTF? Wait, which Jane Austen fanfiction am I in? Is this the vampire one? Shit.

Georgiana Darcy has grown about ten feet, and she is in the lovez with a socially awkward lawyer, which makes total sense for her, actually. However, Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was such a sweetie in the novel, is hot for Georgiana and has apparently morphed into a real shady character since we last saw him. I blame Lady Catherine. So anyone who has a real stick up their bum about Jane Austen canon should stop watching RIGHT NOW.

You mean this didn't really happen in the book? You mean they made it up? Wait...

Things are going along swimmingly in Lizzie's tricked out life, until she is unfortunately reminded of her genetic and marital ties in the form of her sister Lydia and her dastardly rake husband, Wickham. WICKHAM. MISTAH WICKHAM. 

We see Wickham arguing with Captain Denny over Something, and Denny appears to be trying to talk Wickham out of some sort of deceitful behavior (because he is the most appalling rake), and Wickham is insisting that whatever it is that he has done or wants to do is no big deal. They are interrupted by the appearance of Lydia and HOLY SHIT IT'S CLARA!

You think you've got problems? Girl, please. I have, like, no idea where I parked my Tardis.

Lydia and Wickham's story, as it is revealed, is that they were planning to crash the ball at Pemberley, since they weren't invited because awkward. They are not received at Pemberley. They're just classy like that. Denny accompanies them, and midway on their journey, the coach stops and Denny gets out and goes into the Pemberley woods. Wickham, angry, gets out of the carriage too, and follows him. What happens after that remains the mystery that we must unravel.

Lydia's story is that she heard gun shots, immediately freaked out, and ordered her coachman to complete the journey to Pemberley, leaving Wickham and Denny behind. 

She bursts into Pemberley, creating all the drama that she so dearly loves, and announces that Wickham is dead dead dead alack alack he's dead. Mrs. Bennet helpfully suggests that it might be fine because Wickham might have died in a duel, and that sends Lydia into a fresh round of hysterics.

No, no. Tell the nice man from the newspaper I'm your momager, honey. 

Darcy and the other menfolk launch an expeditionary force to find Wickham and Denny, and they find Wickham sobbing over a super dead Denny. The game is then afoot! Wickham is, of course, the main suspect.  This is where things get mysteriously mysterious because everyone agrees that Wickham -- cad, reprobate, dipsomaniac that he is -- is not a murderer. Everyone also agrees that Lydia and Wickham probably know a lot more than they are telling.

Wickham: He's literally wearing a red, shirt.

Lydia: I know, right.

Darcy is forced to set off for the magistrate, an aging hippie named Mr. Hardcastle. Hardcastle and the Darcys have bad feelings between their families, because Hardcastle's father was responsible for prosecuting Mrs. Riley's son, and who had pushed for the boy's hanging. This was against the older Mr. Darcy's wishes. Hardcastle requests to see the sleeping Wickham, and then goes to meet the local barber veterinarian butcher doctor, to inspect the dead Denny. They determine that Denny died not from a gunshot wound, but someone gave him a jolly good whack on the back of the head. Ouchie. If it hadn't happened in the woods, I would have guessed it was the professor in the wine cellar with a candlestick.

Cause of death: Being an ancillary.

Wickham is later arrested for the murder, sending Clara, I mean Lydia, into further hysterics. The trouble is, no one really believes that Wickham committed the murder, and it may be up to Lizzie and Darcy to solve the murder, probably primarily Lizzie since she was on Bletchley Circle and so she has practice with that sort of thing. So now Lizzie is going to have to Do The Right Thing and clear the name of a man she hates. Is this going to be the redeeming of Wickham? Does he really need to be redeemed? Can't he just be a giant asshat? I haven't read the book, so I have no idea how it ends. I may or may not be hoping that the twist will turn out that Mr. Darcy killed Denny because he's a robot alien sent to destroy us all (much like Tom Hiddleston).

You think he's real, ladies? Come. On. Clearly aliens sent him to take us down.

In that case, I'm hoping that it's revealed that The Doctor sent Clara into Pride & Prejudice to pretend to be Lydia in order to catch the Darcybot before he can destroy Pretend Regency England. And Fantasia as well.

Exteerminate! Exteerminate!

But the real enemy, as it turns out, is not the Darcybot, but Lady Catherine, who is, of course, the Giant Cockroach Queen.

A girl can hope.

My overall reaction is that I thought this was really fun. If you really take Jane Austen seriously, then perhaps this isn't the movie for you, but if you are all about murder mysteries, costumed aggression, and people sobbing in corsets while flailing around big, fancy houses

#Swag

then this is right up your alley. Maggie Cats says she has actually been to the P&P house, which makes me jelly. I kid about Jenna Coleman as Lydia, but I really think she is a brilliant choice for that part. She is not a person I would have thought of immediately to play Lydia, but seeing her in the part makes total sense. I also enjoy the casting of Rebecca Front as Mrs. Bennet. She is the no-nonsense Chief Supt. Jean Innocent on Inspector Lewis and it's fun to see her take on a role as removed from her Lewis character as the flighty and clueless Mrs. Bennet.

The next installment of Death Comes to Pemberley airs on PBS during Masterpiece Mystery. In my area that means Sunday at 9 p.m. EST. Check local listings for dates and times.