The Buccaneers Recap 'Homecoming': Release the Doves
- Cherish
- Jun 13
- 6 min read
The Buccaneers Season 1 Episode 4
Summary
Patti St. George prepared a lavish party for her girls in New York. Nan tried to get some information about her birth mother, to no avail. Theo accidentally read the cable Guy had drunkenly written for Nan. When Nan attempted to confess the truth about her parentage, Theo stopped her and only asked if she were happy and that they marry soon. Lizzy had to come face to face with her abuser Seadown. Conchita and Richard were so happy in New York, but Richard refused Conchita’s plea that they move there. Richard and Miss Testvalley had a very disturbing relationship.
Full recap and review
Christina Hendricks’s silent sorrow as a callous rich man’s wife bookended this episode and provided it with some of its strongest scenes. Mrs. St. George humanised the ambitious Mama trope and gave us a look at a woman who has had to absorb not only her husband’s persistent thoughtlessness but both her daughters’ pain. ‘You’d never survive’, her husband told her, when she declared that she was done. Shoulders back, head high. She may have chosen the status quo for now, but I wouldn’t bet against her.
The girls were back in New York for this episode, and as soon as they arrived, there already was a marked difference between the men the St. George girls had found themselves attached to. In keeping with his moves to isolate Jinny from people who cared about her, Seadown decided he and his new wife would stay at the Grand rather than her parents’ home. Theo, of course, was technically not part of the family yet, but he was solicitous to Nan’s parents, the perfect Duke. Even when Nan disappeared for what seemed like hours, refusing to make an appearance at the party her parents threw for her and Jinny, Theo remained with the guests, patient and as low key as possible for an aristocrat who drew the curiosity of New York society.
Nan was angry. The sense of loss she had back in England had deepened into the pain of betrayal, and she lashed out at her mother, who just happened to be the original victim of it all. It was Nan’s father the Colonel who cheated on his dutiful wife. By all accounts, Patti St. George treated Nan as her own daughter, perhaps even favoured her, from Jinny’s perspective. So it was hard to watch Nan speak to her mother like that, laying the blame of the deep lie on her.
Nan accepted Theo’s proposal after Guy gave his word that he would keep her secret from his oldest friend. But back in New York, with her anger bubbling up, she found that she could not enter the marriage with deceit. Her parents agreed that once she told him, she would lose him, but Nan was adamant.
Unknown to her, Theo has had his own shock. Guy had been staying at the Tintagel Castle with the Duchess, who sagely noticed his melancholy, correctly identified it as love, and advised him to pursue it. A drunken Guy wrote Nan a letter and had one of the servants cable it to New York. When he woke up to the sobering reality of what he had done, he tried to get the letter back, but it was too late.
The cable was delivered to the St. George house. Theo, who had been looking for Nan, saw only that it came from Guy and likely assumed it was for him. He opened it and read the words: ‘My dearest Nan. My feelings for you can no longer be kept secret. I am weak, and I am confused. But Nan, my love for you is neither.’ There was more, it was a long cable, but that was all we got for now. It was enough to drive Theo out of the St. George house and onto the street where he saw the newspapers were filled with stories about him and Nan. English duke takes New York bride. Saratoga girl to wed English duke. Duchess St. George.
When Nan finally made her appearance at the party, Theo took her hand and led her to the coat room, his emotions mostly controlled, slipping just a bit through his long strides and firm grip of her hand. He kissed her, told her he loved her, asked her if she wanted him. She said she did. She kissed him, she was the one who pushed him against a coat rack. When she tried to talk to him, all he wanted to know was if she were happy with him. She said she was. He told her not to tell him anything that might spoil it, and asked her if it would be all right if they married soon.
Seadown was still abusive and manipulative. He kept his voice low, but he scolded Jinny for leaving him alone, again, because she dared comfort her sister and spend a minute with her childhood friend Lizzy. Seadown asked her if she only married him because of his title, which was some cheek since he mostly married her for her father’s money (mostly, because I also think he married her because he saw that she was relatively easier to abuse than the others in her wealthy circle – Nan would not put up with it, Mabel was not interested, Lizzy he had already abused). Seadown called the party a vulgar event and declared that Jinny and her mother ought to apologise. Jinny, of course, readily did, but the extent of Seadown’s control over her was disturbing when she walked to the middle of the ballroom and asked her mother to apologise.
Seadown, the slimy villain, asked Jinny what had come over her, and was immediately all gentlemanly solicitousness toward Mrs. St. George. Nan helped diffuse the tension, announced that she would be a Duchess soon, and finally had some kind words for the woman who raised her. For her part, Patti St. George seemed just a smidge more ready to let go of the symbols of new wealth. She walked out of the party arm and arm with her friend Mrs. Elmsworth. Later, the doves that were the centrepiece of the party were released.
The couple who were truly happy, at least at the beginning, during this trip to New York was Conchita and Richard. Conchita was back in her element and her home city. Richard was metaphorically letting his hair down, dancing alone and with his wife. For Conchita, the answer to their marriage woes seemed simple – they needed to get away from his family. In New York, they were happy. But, when she broached the subject to Richard, he immediately said he could not. Conchita may have been willing to dim her own light for the sake of her marriage, but she was not willing to do the same for her daughter Minnie. She declared that she had a choice.
Richard, it seemed, had more problems than his snooty family. He entered whilst Miss Testvalley was naked in the bath, loosened his tie, and sat on the floor with his back resting against the tub. She stroked his head. Remember that Miss Testvalley had previously worked for Richard’s parents. This is so, so wrong.
Lizzy has had to face her abuser when Seadown arrived with Jinny. He pretended he did not know Lizzy, which surprised even the oblivious Jinny. Lizzy played along, and acted like they were meeting for the first time. She initially was adamant against returning to England, which upset Mabel because that meant she would have had to remain in New York as well, but she eventually changed her mind. She told her mother it was to find her a husband if she could, but it looked like it was more because she worried for Jinny.
Patti St. George woke up and opened the episode with wifely devotion, carefully arranging her husband’s medals, his spectacles, and other personal effects on the vanity table in their bedroom. She closed the episode by doing so again, even after his cutting words. Jinny unfortunately learned more from her mother than keeping her shoulders back and her head high. But something woke in Patti during the party, and though her husband went to bed as though nothing had changed, something most definitely had.
Rating: B+
Strays
🌸Mrs. Paramore was now a happy guest to the St. George house.
🌸Dowager Duchess of Tintagel: ‘A life without love is a life half lived.’
🌸Nan’s biological mother was some big secret, her father would not even tell her her name. Colonel St. George also claimed her biological mother passed on not long after she was born.
🌸Mrs. Elmsworth walked in on Mabel and a maid at the St. George house kissing.
🌸Miss Testvalley told Conchita that Richard would not leave his life in England because there, he had power. ‘No Englishman will ever choose freedom over power.’
🌸When they were discussing the Colonel’s infidelity and Nan’s birth, Patti St. George emphasised that she was not happy, which was very important for her daughters to know.
Writer: Catherine Shepherd
Director: Richard Senior
Original Air Date: November 15, 2023