Poldark review: Other characters deserve love, too

In an episode that really ends up not being about Ross and Demelza, Poldark delivers a better hour of television than last week’s episode.

For all that there’s an actual mine flood in this episode, after watching, it’s likely that you’ll remember other things more when it comes to Poldark this week. It’s a shame that all of the episodes can’t be like this in reaching depths of tone. Even though it still feels a bit scattered, there’s a more thorough cohesiveness basically on the strength of two actors in particular, neither of whom are Aidan Turner or Eleanor Tomlinson.

There’s a certain irony about the class issues at play here, one that George is able to sniff out. As Elizabeth says that it’s Demelza’s work that basically put George in the position he’s in now, George reminds viewers that Demelza has an even lower pedigree than his — because she brought nothing to her marriage in terms of wealth or connections. (Her value is much more … understated.)

But even then, she’s able to ask about whether or not everything is alright with her marriage to Ross. It might seem slightly out of character — or, more accurately, out of tone with the episode, because it comes very early and ends on a fade to black. It seems like the episode is trying to establish that things are slow to mend, but they’re always slow to mend between the Poldarks.

That is, when there’s not something that happens to bring them together. In this case, it’s the mine flooding due to trying to break through to older workings, and someone almost dying. Dwight, Sam, and Ross do save him, but it leaves Ross quite upset with himself.

It’s Dwight who gets to have the first and most dramatic cliff shot of the episode as he holds his daughter, even as he asks her to “stay a little while longer.” He knows, and he tells Ross, that baby Sarah is going to die due to a congenital heart defect.

Of course, in the same episode, she gets a cough. I know I talk a lot about how well-cast Ross and Demelza are, but Luke Norris and Gabriella Wilde have also settled really well into Dwight and Caroline, respectively. In this episode, they particularly shine. Dwight’s melancholy as he confronts what’s happening, and it’s easy to read in his expressions and intonation, even when he’s making sure that Morwenna doesn’t get put away for insanity at the behest of Reverend Whitworth. Seriously, Norris alone elevates this episode. Meanwhile, Wilde has subtle smiles even as she complains about “Madam Mischief,” and when Caroline learns what’s going on, that melancholy spreads to her.

This episode belongs to the two of them even more than it belongs to the primary protagonists, and in that way, it’s quite refreshing even as it’s somber. We even see the funeral, with Dwight carrying the tiny coffin and Caroline holding it together as she walks behind him. When she chooses to tell Dwight that she’s going to London for a bit of time to process, even in her own strange way of communicating, there’s a lot of pain under her stiff upper lip.

Even when Ross acts the supreme jerk by asking if Demelza’s reminded of losing Hugh — not just baby Julia — this episode is more about Caroline and Dwight, and it works better even despite the other missteps because of it.

Additional thoughts:

• Geoffrey Charles still ships Morwenna and Drake; Demelza is still trying to ship Rosina and Drake; we all know that Drake still has feelings for Morwenna, even if he says it’s “dead.”
• The conversation between Dwight and Ross in which they discuss their grieving processes might actually be one of the deepest conversations this show has ever done.