The Buccaneers Recap ‘Ice Cream’: Guy

Matthew Broome’s Guy Thwarte gets some much deserved time to shine in the fourth episode of the second season of Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers Season 2 Episode 4 Recap and Review

For the first three episodes of the second season, Guy Thwarte was at the periphery of The Buccaneers, in Italy pretending to be Jinny’s husband, helping care for her baby Freddie and pining for Nan. Finally, four episodes in, we got to spend significant time with him, and The Buccaneers was all the better for it.

Why? Because Guy as a character has, so far, been written with consistency since the first season. Guy is a character whose north star has always been love, but who was often pulled to the side by his near equal desire to do the right thing. We first met him in New York, a trip he undertook in an effort to find a wealthy American bride to save his family from financial ruin and, in his mind, to save his mother’s life. He reacted believably to Nan’s revelation of her bastard birth to him who was still a relative stranger at the time, but his attraction to her won and he returned to ask for her hand, only to find that his best friend Theo had already proposed. His brief relationship with Jean Hopeleigh happened at a time when Nan had already actively chosen Theo. 

No one is defending Guy sneaking into Nan’s chambers the night before her wedding to Theo, but even that was well within his characterisation. He was a young man who loved love. He had already lost nearly everything that a man in his social position could at that time, including his house, including his beloved mother’s portrait. He was all set to wander the world because remaining in England without the financial ability to live the life he was born into would have been very, very difficult. Nan had the sense of adventure to be able to live that kind of life with him. These two kids thinking they could live their lives as a grand adventure made sense because, after all, they were both still kids who were probably not thinking far enough to the time when what little money Guy had left and Nan’s allowance ran out.

When Guy wrote Nan via Lizzy asking her to come to him, it was an echo of the time in the first season when he cabled her, who was in New York with Theo, a drunken but passionate declaration of his love. That was Guy thinking that with love, they could just figure things out. But months passed without a response from Nan, and he had already settled in a life with Jinny and Freddie – a simple one, not without pain, but with peace, most importantly with peace.

That peace was shattered by Nan’s arrival. Nan being Nan, she could not understand why Guy did not immediately take her into his arms and resumed their interrupted passionate love. When Guy called her out for being ‘spoiled’, that was a dramatic high point, because as frustrated as Guy was, as clearly as he saw Nan, he still loved her. She was still the woman he wanted above all else. It did not take more than a few smiles, some wine and dancing for him to step away from his pain and his fears, and make passionate love to Nan again.   

It also did not take Nan longer than 24 hours to change her mind, again. I’ve already called out the oddity of the passage of time within The Buccaneers world, with Conchita’s baby looking barely older than Jinny’s baby, though there must have been at least a year in between their births. I've also seen the excuse some fellow fans made, that this is simply a matter of writers not being good with maths. The problem with accepting that kind of excuse is that not anchoring a show with time leads to pacing issues, and pacing issues leads to character issues. Was it really the intention of the writers to write their main character as a woman who left her husband in England, fled to Italy alone, met with her lover, had sex with him for one night, then changed her mind and decided to return to her husband in England? I'm not sure, but this was how the story turned out because there was no due care in setting up the passage of time in-story. In this episode, they had time to show Nan and Guy attending a stranger’s wedding. It would not have taken much or taken long to show that Nan had at least been there a few days, or even a few weeks. Passion that burns hot with the setting sun and burns out with the rise of it is not the stuff of legendary love, and the love should be legendary when your main character just threw out her society marriage for it. 

That being said, I still consider the writing of this episode to be a win, because it did not cast Nan as a victim. Nan had to face her own decisions because Guy called her out on them; that was a strong performance by Matthew Broome. Nan’s thoughtlessness and impulsiveness was its own brand of cruelty, and thinking that she was only making these decisions to help her sister did not ease the pain she was causing, especially now that the very person she intended to protect was directly harmed.

Of course Seadown followed Nan directly to Jinny. Nan left Tintagel Castle wearing her fairy gown, she was not exactly hiding. As difficult as it is to watch a storyline about abuse, so far, the show has written Seadown and Jinny’s story well. Having Seadown show up calm and giving Jinny the choice to come see him at his hotel or not showed a deep understanding of abuse, and the abused. A 2005 study showed that the majority (66.3%) of female victims of abuse separated from and returned to their abusive partners at least once. Of these women, 97.1% left and returned multiple times. That is how difficult it is to escape an abuser. 

Even before Nan arrived, Jinny was already struggling with life abroad. Jinny was used to a soft life, with a huge house, servants, gorgeous clothes, everything she financially wanted. Life in Italy meant having to do chores on top of taking care of her newborn child. That would have been a lot for anyone, it was almost too much for Jinny. But, with Guy’s help, she adjusted, and the two of them created a life of support that was centred on baby Freddie. Nan, fresh from her husband’s castle, saw all that and envied it. She saw Jinny as living what should have been her life with Guy. And, despite all the hardships she had endured, being away from everything and everyone she knew save for Guy, Jinny responded to Nan's mild resentment with love. 

Jinny sent Nan and Guy out to talk and reconnect, but the two of them reconnecting also meant that she was truly alone for the first time since she fled England. Seadown found her at a vulnerable point and slithered his way back into her life. Jinny took baby Freddie to Seadown’s hotel, whilst Nan was letting Guy know of her latest decision, to return to England and her husband and her Duchess title, to continue her fight for women’s rights with Hector. 

Because the show was now full speed ahead with the Lizzy and Theo pairing, Hector suddenly showed signs of not being the perfect guy by resenting Theo’s massive donation to his charity event. I was fine with the Lizzy Theo pairing back in episode two when I still thought the writers would handle it with care, especially given Lizzy’s history of abuse. Now, I have to wonder why the writers chose to go by this route of Lizzy sleeping with Theo before her wedding to Hector. Because Nan was heavily criticised by fans for doing the same with Guy back in season one, and the main character could not be left hanging like that? So a slowly deepening friendship between Theo and Lizzy as Lizzy helped her husband Hector with his political work which necessitated frequent contact with an influential duke who just happened to be mourning the death of his marriage to a woman he loved was out of the question? I get that viewing a show via the lens of its potential rather than what it actually is, is a problematic exercise. It is also hard not to do that in a show like The Buccaneers when certain aspects of it are very well done.

At the end of the day, and despite what criticisms we may have, the success of an episode still depends on whether it could entertain, thrill, frighten, make one feel the joys and pains of love or gift one the poignancy of longing. Viewed from that perspective, ‘Ice Cream’ is mostly a success. I was tempted to give up on The Buccaneers after last week’s episode. This week’s episode brought me back. There is hope. 

Rating: B+

Strays

🌸Conchita has now confessed to Mabel that Mrs. Elmsworth paid her to try and set up Mabel with a potential husband. This felt like a betrayal to Mabel because she was not like the other girls Conchita was helping, they were old friends. 

🌸The Dowager Duchess was now living in her charming retreat and gardening to soothe her spirit. Dr. Robinson asked her to come with him to his house in Paris, to see where they could take their relationship now that their children had grown, and she refused. Will The Buccaneers go there? I have a horrible feeling it will, indeed, go there. No spoiler for future episodes, I don’t have any, just this feeling of where this story is going since the Dowager’s ex love was introduced. I will take any scene with Greg Wise and Amelia Bullmore, however, even if that included food wastage. 

🌸Theo having the castle to himself without his mother and his wife led to some Love, Actually-esque dancing.

🌸So, Cora has already married? 

🌸Hmm Paloma saw Guy, whom she thought was married to Jinny, with Nan.

🌸Guy and Nan did not even get to eat ice cream, right?  

🌸Guy looked so impressed that Nan spoke Italian. We have been told since season one that Nan was the ‘perfect Duchess’, but outside of Kristine Froseth being lovely, and early indications of Nan’s interest in the arts, we haven’t really been shown why she was the perfect Duchess. A small thing like her skill with languages went a long way toward a fuller portrayal of Nan. We were also told this episode of Nan’s political work with Hector, it would be nice to actually see some of this in the next episodes. 

🌸Nan slept with Guy, she has been sleeping with Theo these last few months. Are we getting a who’s the daddy plot? 

🌸Guy: ‘You’re so… spoiled. Infuriating. Entitled.’ Oof. Someone needed to say that. Now let’s see Nan use her spoiled, entitled, infuriating heiress energy in her political work. Clearly this is far from a perfect comparison, but I’ve been thinking Nan becoming slightly more like Alva Belmont (previously, Alva Vanderbilt) in her political work would be cool to see. Alva took on the cause of women’s suffrage in 1908, so this was much later than The Buccaneers’ timeline. My guess is, Nan would be involved with the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878, which I briefly discussed in my recap of the first episode of the second season.

🌸Nan: ‘You know I’m terrified.’ Guy: ‘Of what? Having to make a choice and stick with it?’ Guy ate this episode.

🌸Guy: ‘Nan, I don’t resent you for leaving. I resent you for coming.’ They gave Guy the best lines this episode, and Matthew Broome delivered. 

You can access Recap Lab's full coverage of The Buccaneers via this link.

Episode Title: Ice Cream

Episode Writer: Katherine Jakeways, Georgia Christou

Episode Director: William McGregor

Original Air Date: July 9, 2025

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