Poldark Season One: How Does It Match Up To The Books?

Episode 7

I haven’t talked at all yet about Jud and Prudie, and now they’re gone and it’s sad. Time-wise, they should have been out last episode or earlier, with new servants to replace them, but somehow the new couple just doesn’t have the spark that Jud and Prudie did. They are our comic relief, and now they are gone because Jud liked Ross’s liquor a bit too much. Does anyone here realize that most of everyone’s problems would be better-solved if they didn’t get smashed every single day?

Verity departs with Captain Blamey early on, and we will not see her for the rest of the season. The novel attempts to mollify its earlier portrayal of Blamey as a rude, loud, scary man with a longer scene of tenderness between the two when they are finally together. My hope is that, going forward, we’ll see more in the series of Verity than we do in the books. We can assume her marriage ends up happy, but we don’t get a lot of supporting evidence. She’s one of Graham’s best characters, and she gets so little spotlight…sadly, reflecting her role in the Poldark family.

Now, holy cow, let’s talk about Keren and Mark because wow is that a change.

Quick recap, Mark knows Keren is sleeping with Dwight Enys, comes home early, catches her walking in, and gets her to admit it. In the series, they struggle, and he ends up snapping her neck while he holds onto her too tight. It’s portrayed as an accident in the series, with emphasis placed on Mark’s great strength and the heat of the moment. Still not excusable, but a damn sight better than what happens in the novel.

He hits her, he wrestles her, and he strangles her. Straight up. No “accidents” here.

Is BBC One’s portrayal somehow more palatable that straight up domestic violence ending in murder? Maybe? It doesn’t change the end result–Mark murders his wife. He gets a lot of room in the episode to apologize, to profusely insist that he did not mean it; it was an accident. Nothing in the novel. Ross spares Mark there because in spite of the awfulness of what he has done, the prisons are too great a punishment for any of that. Conversely, in the series, there is some room for doubt (at least on Ross’s part) that he deserves any form of justice.

In both cases, it all comes back as a reflection on Ross, while the people involved are shuttled off over the sea, or buried. In the final episode, it’ll all finally come back and smack him in the face.

Next: Episode 8