Poldark review: Passionate times, passionate crimes

With an episode that mostly strips away slow-moving plotlines (and adds in a duel instead), Poldark is moving into its season 4 finale with momentum.

This week’s episode of Poldark starts with all romance all the time for the Poldarks, the Enyses, and the Warleggans in London. Though, as usual, it’s more of a matter of scale: George gets a huge, grand house and plans a charity masked ball; Caroline gets a tailor for Dwight; Ross and Demelza go on swan boats and basically act like they’re on honeymoon.

The masked ball, however, is a great excuse for all of our characters to get dressed up, from Monk Adderley to Caroline to Ross himself, who looks like he actually did something with his hair. We bring Monk up because he pulls Demelza aside. This is where he really starts to show his true colors aside from his ability to just sneer; although he seems to act charming, he’s also determined to start an affair with Demelza.

The problem, of course: Demelza might be still out of sorts, but she’s still sharp and gets an assist from Caroline, which results in the setup of a gaming night. It only gives Monk more time to try and court Demelza, though, which makes Ross upset. (He still doesn’t do feelings too well.) It even requires some reassurance from Caroline and Dwight.

Monk even lies his way into Demelza and Ross’ rooms, and there are some decidedly gross overtones to it. Even though she gets him out, she gets no help from her husband afterwards. On top of that, Ross and Monk clash in the House, leading to a challenge of a duel … with the episode spending a lot of time establishing that Monk is a good duelist (perhaps too much).

It’s surprising that there really haven’t been that many duels on Poldark, and it’s quite the turn for this episode to go from romance all the time to a flat-out duel, although one could say that passion plays a part in both. It does also play into the ongoing issues with trust and jealousy that Ross has regarding Demelza. However, this may be the most ridiculous thing he’s done, and that’s saying something. (Dwight’s face during all of this, since he’s Ross’ second, is perfect.)

Both miss with their first shots, but when Monk goes for the second shot, Ross pulls his pistol up, suffers an arm wound … and gets a solid hit, which does end up killing Monk. That’s how we go from passion to violence to a legitimately gross scene where Dwight takes the bullet out of Ross’ arm.

Even though George tries to get Ross investigated for murder, he fails with the Attorney General, despite Elizabeth’s best warnings. However, he does succeed in getting a meeting with the Prime Minister, only to have his old suspicions about Valentine raised by none other than Geoffrey Charles, who remains the very best at causing trouble.

Since Ross then tries to pay George back on a bet that Monk and he had made about Demelza, George’s only response is to throw the coins in his face (in public). Jack Farthing doesn’t have many lines here, so he has to do quite a bit of acting with his face and body language, capturing George’s mix of rage and suspicion.

But while George doesn’t suffer consequences (aside from being turned down), Ross does, because Demelza goes home with Dwight. Ross spends most of this episode acting extremely poorly, and it’s gratifying to see that she can make him suffer for it.

There are brief stops in Cornwall throughout the episode, as Drake is working to build a new smithy in Sawle, while Mrs. Whitworth is trying to get Morwenna committed after she gives birth. However, Morwenna actually miscarries … and she finds Drake in his new smithy. For all Poldark has had some weird morality in other episodes, Morwenna’s legitimate trauma as she explains that right now, she can’t bear the touch of any man because of what Whitworth did to her stands out.

We’re going into next week’s finale on something of a dark note, but for all that this episode plays up a lot of negative traits in its characters, it also flows together in ways that seem natural. Here’s hoping that the tone of the finale can match it in consistency, whatever that tone may be.

Additional thoughts:

• Demelza gets a lovely green dress for the masked ball, along with some other new costumes and a long coat.
• The Enyses are still the healthiest couple on this show, even if Caroline occasionally communicates through talking about what Horace wants instead of what she wants. Instead of Dwight dismissing it or refusing to talk to her, he goes along with it, because he’s understanding.