BBC Episode 3 Description: “The farm and its future are under threat. Can Nathan and Charlotte save their crops and expose the dark secrets of a disturbed young man before he does any more damage?”
Credits
Nathan Appleby: Colin Morgan
Charlotte Appleby: Charlotte Spencer
Matthew Denning: Nicholas Woodeson
Gwen Pearce: Kerrie Hayes
Peter Hare: Robert Emms
Maud Hare: Elizabeth Berrington
Gideon Langtree: Malcolm Storry
Agnes Thatcher : Pooky Quesnel
Clarity Winlove:Katy Michael
Jack Langtree: Joel Gilman
Bathsheba Thatcher: Amber Fernee
Simon Merrifield: Ben Fox
Lizzie Merrifield: Sarah Counsell
John Roebuck: Steve Oram
Martha Enderby: Fiona O’Shaughnessy
Writer: Simon Tyrell
Producer: Eliza Mellor
Director: Alice Troughton
Victim(s) of the Episode: Peter Hare, due to persecution, and by extension his mother Maud. Clarity Winlove in the past due to similar persecution.
Synopsis
Nathan’s walking through the hay fields. The boys from last episode fade into the field, the modern-day red coat woman is flashed on-screen. Charlotte catches up to him and talks of the harvest. Banter. Backlit by the sunrise and kissing. Trailer shot accomplished.
Peter Hare dreams of being told he must make the sacrifice before waking. The voice tells him to ‘do it’ as he looms over his mother, Maud Hare, who awakes.
The workers are stood in a row awaiting Charlotte’s tasting of a single a grain and if she will declare if they’re to start the harvest today. She says tomorrow so the foreman, Gideon, tells them to all go. So she has gone from an urban house wife to knowing the intricacies of harvesting techniques which would take others a lifetime to develop? By this point she is a mary sue or as its more commonly called the protagonist of a romance novel. Or a pale shadow of Bathsheba Everdene. Your choice.
Charlie’s mother has packed up and is leaving after his death. Her three daughters sit silently on the cart. She says that he, the smart doctor, obviously knows their minds better than they do after he says it would be better for them if they stayed. She leaves in tears and the littlest girl has her doll wave and says ‘bye bye’. At least they are not ignoring that character’s have their own will but I feel there was more of a story that could have been told with them only for them to be gone now they’ve served their purpose.
The disturbed young man Peter goes for a swim. He sees a corpse and so goes and tells Nathan the ord of the manor authority figure. Nathan then himself goes for a swim to investigate. He doesn’t see the ghost/delusion. Peter, in front of Nathan, tells the voices in his head to shut up. Nathan notes maybe he needs help. Peter excuses himself and leaves as Nathan looks, bare-chested, into the distance. For the ladies. We get it – you’re marketing this towards a female audience you don’t need to be so heavy-handed about it.
Later all the fish in the lake/pond are dead so Nathan and Charlotte go back inside. She has her photo equipment and they talk of the mill’s history. Then he gets all soppy over a dandelion seed floating on his hand. Then as she sets her equipment up they make out.
The workers are down the pub complaining they’ll not be paid until next week and don’t like it. The reverend Denning sticks up for the Applebys toasting ‘the new and the old’. GET IT NEW AND OLD/LIVING AND DEAD/GABRIEL AND (SPOILER). Nathan visits the Peter’s mother Maude. Maude says the school master said he could go to university on a bursary but she thought it ‘better he learn a trade’. Nathan reckons Peter poisoned the mill pond. Nice leaping to conclusions with no evidence there Mr Protagonist. Then makes comments that he’s sure his, and his wife’s minds are fine… Peter says he’s glad it’s only dead fish and not dead people Nathan sees. FORESHADOWING. Charlotte develops her photos as Nathan bursts into her room. She sees a woman in her photograph but blames the bromide process having inadequacies.
They’re unlikable protagonists really as they seem so apathetic. They boss people around and stick their nose into things that are not their concern. But whatever – they own the land and by extension the people who work it in accord with feudalism traditions it seems. Are they landowners then to the level people pay rent and taxes to them?
Peter is told by the voices in his head to sacrifice his mother’s blood or else the harvest will fail. Very old school pagan view there. Wonder if they’ll indicate where he got these beliefs from as either way he had to have learnt it from somewhere as it is quite an old testament kind of idea.
Nathan is in his study at night and sees bugs on his copy book thus foreshadowing the next day’s events.
Next morning and Peter crosses paths with the Gideon, the foreman, who is suspicious of what he is doing up at that time of day.
Nathan has been up all night and written nothing. Black devil insects destroyed the harvest just as they did back in ’62. Foreman Gideon says Peter cursed the harvest. Again blaming him without proof. Wife declares they have an infestation and it’s not a curse nor are they devils. I’m quite sure the workers didn’t literally think they were devils. (Again it makes me less sympathetic to the character before the big conflict later in the series… ) So she says they’ll harvest the insects one by one then harvest the wheat. No magical answers here, just hard graft.
Peter says he hears voices. The woman under the water. What she told him about the sacrifice. Nathan says he doesn’t have to do that but doesn’t stop him either when he runs off and gets a sickle!?
Charlotte reads her farming books, instead of consult with at least Gideon about what to do, to see if there isn’t an answer and gets frustrated.
Nathan asks boy’s mother and she doesn’t remember it as she’s too young. She refutes it when Nathan said her son will become aggressive. He tells her to lock her bedroom door. He knows what will happen but lets her walk off!?
Charlotte creates a wonder solution ‘with science’! She is going to set some flammable incense off and needlessly tells the workers to ‘beware the crops catching fire’. You mean the workers who are not setting something on fire in the middle of the field and have been toiling away? She tells the workers to plant the others. I get the impression this stuff is actually similar to DDT and more hazardous than just accepting the crop failed.
Peter meets that actor Jack Langtree who reminds me of that actor who always plays west country rural workers. Clearly Peter has been like this before. The foreman Gideon, who it also passes is Jack’s uncle, says ‘the mistress has broken the spell so lets not have anymore of this okay’ to Peter still apparently believing he had a hand in the failed crops. Then Jack doused Peter in water ‘like a drowned rat’. So Peter is persecuted then by the others still.
The harvest is finished and Nathan asks Peter how he is then talks of insects ‘crawling into our minds’. Nice. Subtle. Not likely to spark him off whatsoever. Psychology 101 qualification don’t forget. Invites Peter to the Appleby house and hows him a photo of his mother as a child and Peter notices the lake woman in the photo. She was a healer who disappeared in the village. Charlotte asks if he is concerned about Peter but Nathan says ‘you can never be sure of what people are capable of’. Nice bit of prejudice there then, Peter is a worker with capabilities above his station being born intelligent and needs to be put back in his place and made to conform via persecution. No wonder he is so screwed up from living in this community. The writers might have had a point but by allowing Nathan to make such comments it makes him complicit and a far less sympathetic figure. (Again in the lead up to the part of the series where we are expected to be sympathetic to him).
Then at night Nathan sees the ghost woman as Charlotte lying next to him awakes and realises the harvest will be ruined by the sudden storm. He seems rattled by his experience just now. People toil in the field under the heavy rainfall. There’s some ominous Enya style music. ‘the devil wants to drown us all’. Peter has the voice tell him to do the sacrifice so they don’t blame him for the rain. His mother, Maude, had locked her door heeding Nathan’s advice from earlier. They discuss Clarity Winlove a.k.a. the drowned ghost woman. Maude denies knowing her. She adds terrified that though he might not love her she loves him. Peter calls her a liar and walks away.
Charlotte tells everyone to go home to rest and pray for better weather. Bossy boots Bathesheba wannabe. Jack and Gideon talk. Jack wants to end it ‘the old way’ but the Gideon is unsure. IS IT A DROWNING? IT’S A DROWNING ISN’T IT?
Nathan considers the events just a case of bad luck. They saved a quarter of the harvest. Nathan says maybe he brought the curse with him. Maybe its her Charlotte adds. YES LETS HAVE A PITY PARTY THAT’LL MAKE US GOOD PROTAGONISTS. She lists how she wasn’t born there, brought the machine and judged the reaping wrong. He says its lunatic talk, monomaniacal, the devil. The misfortunes nothing to do with her, there is no curse. She goes to change her wet cloths. He stares at the photo of Peter’s mother as a child and the healer woman.
He asks, the following day, if Maude knows Clarity Winlove. She denies it but then says Clarity went to America to see a distant cousin. Apparently that’s the ‘official’ story. Jack came looking for Peter and Nathan realises that Jack is going to attack Peter.
Jack find Peter in the old mill. He thinks that’s where Peter does his spells and such. Peter tries to run but he captures him easily.
Peter’s mother bangs on the Applebys’ door saying its her fault not her sons.
Jack ties Peter up to drown him as the ghost tells Peter that’s what was done to her. ‘You’ll reap what you sow’ and claims Peter is a witch as he floats in the pond so weighs him down before running off. Peter’s mother finds him face down. Nathan and his wife arrive and try to pump his lungs which works. His mother immediately goes to cut her wrist as payment for what she did years ago. She drowned Clarity due to the poor harvest just as Jack was going to drown Peter. She saw a potion Clarity had given her mother to put in her father’s meal to aid fertility. She knew what Clarity was but claimed she was a witch and had the others tie her in chains and drown her. Again she goes to cut herself but Peter runs up and tells her she must forgive herself.
Nathan looks pensively at the ghost of Clarity, stood in the doorway of the mill, as the others leave for home. He calls out to her to show herself saying she sat by his wife and touched her womb. ‘Was it a blessing or was it a curse?’ he demands before leaving and going to the pub to confront Jack.
Jack Langtree thought Peter was dead but Nathan assures him he isn’t otherwise he would hang Jack for murder. Jack says there’s something wrong here as he was trying to rid them, the community, of evil. Nathan tells him to go and never return to his land as he is banished. Jack defiantly claims he was going anyway and that the place is damned, calling on the others to deny it, ever since Nathan returned.
Charlotte urinated on some flowers to see if she is pregnant. Gwen says she think she is. Charlotte doesn’t want Nathan to know until she is sure.
The workers are gathered in the field as the last of the grain is gathered and Charlotte recites a rhyme before everyone celebrates in the night. Reverend Denning says it has been a strange summer. Foreman Gideon apologises to Peter for what his nephew Jack did. Nathan intrudes on the conversation and asks what Peter thinks. ‘water under the bridge’ and Nathan tells Gideon to get himself a drink.
Then Nathan and his wife dance as everyone around them sings. Nathan says he feels so alive. SO SO ALIVE. NOTHING WRONG CAN HAPPEN NOW.
Then of course we need a cliffhanger mysterious stinger to keep you watching the rest of the series at this halfway point. Cut to a wet child holding a toy wooden yacht watching them. This won’t be covered in the next episode so it’s a random tease of Gabriel who was stated to have drowned in the lake.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03z7h8b/player
Review
There is a theme of anti-intellectualism by the common folk in today’s episode. Poor, poor, landowners being put upon by their indentured serf workforce. It is a good episode in that capacity but the series long arc regarding the Applebys takes away time from developing what would have been a far more evocative narrative.
Wait Peter didn’t die? But he isn’t seen anywhere in the rest of the series and [spoilers which you would expect his reaction to]. What happened to him? I don’t think it is explained and I spent the rest of the series under the impression he was dead.
The ending part reminds me of ‘How Green Was My Valley’ as it seems the leads have no concept what they perceive is a very rose-tinted view of the community. The workers are not celebrating their own work, not they are celebrating their masters the Applebys.
There is nothing very supernatural here really as they present Peter as delusional throughout never as someone being haunted. It also becomes jarring as we are never shown Peter seeking isolation or other things which would imply secretive behaviour. He is a misfit but otherwise seems to keep in line until the events of this episode which amount to Gideon seeing him out early one day. PErhaps the creators thought what was presented was enough but I feel an extra scene with him talking to himself in front of other village folk, not just Nathan which might have been a one-off event, would make us understand the persecution more. Presenting irrational persecution as purely irrational, giving no reason for people to single Peter out until now, doesn’t make sense in and of itself.
As a counter point we are presented with Gwen’s hedge witch behaviour (which is how she defines herself later in the series).I have to wonder if the village folk know of it or if it is kept secret (aside from Nathan and Charlotte knowing of it). If they killed Clarity for her abilities wouldn’t they also want to kill Gwen? Admittedly maybe Clarity’s ability was miraculous while Gwen’s are herbal, thus traditional and ‘good’ in the minds of the village folk, but still there seems to be double standards. We never really learn much about Gwen during the series either – she just appears in one scene after the Appleby’s arrival and she is already Charlotte’s righthand woman. Do they protect her from persecution? It makes no really sense in the narrative as everything else seems fair game for challenging by the Applebys’ modern perspective in criticising their workforce.
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Has anyone been watching this? It seems to not know which audience it wants to aim for and thus tries to be something to everyone but ends up nothing to anyone.
A delay on uploading as I was busy. The BBC apparently have stopped uploading preview clips to YouTube and their embed function on their own series page just gives the link not an embedded video. They also stopped doing episode specific galleries (correction they are just delayed by a fortnight or so which is fine as the images will be up prior to an international audience seeing the series but for Brits its a disservice). They must already have given up on promoting the series seriously for the British audience a third of the way into it’s run which is a shame as someone probably took promotion photos and everything and now won’t see the fruits of their labour… or maybe there will be a tie-in book with all of it in. Probably not but it used to be a given the BBC would do that with many series. I like the production design I just feel it’s scripts are not focused on depicting things effectively.
Rambling At The Bridge Head 