Gentleman Jack review: Ann Walker finally takes center stage

As HBO’s Gentleman Jack continues, Ann Walker’s past finally comes to light, as Anne Lister realizes her heart may not be so hard, after all.

Anne Lister is such a dominant figure that it’s easy to forget that there are other characters on Gentleman Jack with stories and histories of their own.

In “Most Women Are Dull and Stupid” Lister takes something of a back seat — at least as much as she likely ever can in this tale that’s basically built around her — spending most of the episode wrestling with her discovery of surprisingly genuine feelings for her supposedly convenient love interest. (And planning to open a coal mine.)

This time around, it’s Ann Walker whose story is largely the focus of the episode. Due to the untimely death of a long-time friend, she is suddenly thrust into the difficult position of suddenly having a male suitor when the new widower indicates his intentions to propose.

Ann, of course, just spent a great deal of the previous episode telling Lister – and us – that she had no real interest in men or children, and that she would likely be quite happy in a relationship with Anne that was “like a marriage” instead.

Perhaps that wasn’t quite true, as she spends most of this episode debating whether she – a spinster of 29 – should jump on the only offer of marriage she is ever likely to get. It would, after all, solve a lot of problems for her. Marriage hid a multitude of sins for many women in this era, providing protection and social stability for those deemed problematic or otherwise different.

(Let’s be real, folks: People married for a lot of reasons in this era and very few of them looked anything like love.)

Saying yes to this proposal, however, would also cost her Anne, who is quite insistent that the two women will not be able to remain friends should Ann choose to undertake holy matrimony elsewhere. (An understandable position given that Lister was only just thrown over for the safety of heterosexual married bliss immediately prior to the series’ first episode.)

Suranne Jones, Sophie Rundle. Photo: Matt Squire/HBO

Sophie Rundle is wonderful in all these scenes, portraying a version of Ann Walker that almost always seems to be treading the edge of a nervous breakdown. Her sunny, happy disposition of the episode’s opening moments vanishes almost completely as she weeps over everything from fear of losing Anne, to facing public scorn, to Anne being cross with her, to the prospect being forced to commit her life to a man that pressured her into sex one time while he was still married.

All of this, of course, is our first real indication that Ann Walker had a history or any sort of real life of her own prior to entering Lister’s. All we basically knew about her was that she was shy, lonely, and frequently ill with some sort of “nervous condition”.

In many ways, up until this point the story has generally presented her as an object for Anne Lister to desire, in ways both sexual and financial. Would any of us have guessed that quiet, vaguely mousy Ann would have anything like scandal in her past? Granted, this isn’t the happy or fun kind of scandal and, in fact, seems to toe the line extremely close to something that feels awfully like rape, or at the very least sexual coercion. Lister herself seems to view it as assault, but the show is artfully vague on whether that’s actually the case or not.

Thus, it serves as a reminder that for all that we like Ann, we don’t really know her that well. Even if her wear-her-heart-on-her-sleeve emotional nature does often make it feel like we do.

There are plenty of things we “know” about Ann –she’s kind and warm and braver than we are likely to give her credit for. (See also: Her laughing reaction to being discovered in a compromising position by a nosy neighbor.)

Suranne Jones, Sophie Rundle. Photo: Aimee Spinks/HBO

Even women like Anne and Ann, who had things like status and wealth that could protect them from legal ramifications and much of the worst of social stigma that came with being homosexual, weren’t immune from consequences. Even they still had to face down public scrutiny, crude jokes, arch commentary from neighbors and servants, and accusations of immorality.

If one could, wouldn’t it be easier to take the lifeline offered by at least a semi-respectable marriage? Even if the intended partner is perhaps less than you once desired?

That neither Ann nor Anne go this route is both admirable and very brave. One of the most interesting facets of Lister’s character is her determination to live her life on her own terms. She’s unwilling to be someone she’s not, or to settle for anything less than what she deserves, and she’s so confident that it’s hard not to root for her to get what she wants in the end.

Here, Gentleman Jack shows us a more vulnerable than usual Lister, one whose attempts to continue the ruse that Anne Walker means nothing to her continually fail in the light of her very obvious and clearly genuine emotions. Anne’s tentative confessions to her father and sister that she’d like to bring a companion home to Shibden Hall? Her shaking hands as she tries to lie to herself in her diary? Whew.

Sometimes, Gentleman Jack is so eager to show us the indomitable force of Anne Lister, that it forgets to give us equal measure of the fact that she was also a human being – with hurts and wants and fears like anyone else. This episode 100 percent does that, and her character feels richer and fuller as a result.

(The show should do it more often, actually – surely on some level Anne must feel awkward and anxious about how little she actually knows about coal mining?)

As the episode ends, Lister’s vowing vengeance as Anne sobs in her arms, sad yet strangely romantic sequence that almost makes up for the fact that this episode spends too much time on the twentysomething tenant who fed his abusive father to the family pigs last week. Maybe he can give her some tips on surreptitious murder for next time?

Gentleman Jack continues May 20 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.