Poldark season 5 episode 5 review: How do you solve a problem like Ned Despard?

Episode 5 of Poldark’s final season begins at Christmas, which does nothing more than remind us that it’s a crime this show never gave us a Christmas special. But the Christmas cheer doesn’t last long in this installment.

There are so many plot strands in this season of Poldark, it’s almost hard to keep track, but for the overriding sense (or faith) that this must be going somewhere. Exactly where is still yet to be determined, with just three episodes left to sort it all out.

Let’s start with Cornwall. Change is afoot in this stoic mining community as gold is replaced by paper notes for currency. There’s some minor hesitation at first (as there always is when someone replaces your gold for literal paper), but this is stoked by the most powerful woman in Cornwall if her level of influence this series is to believed. Yes, we’re talking about Tess Tregidden.

Determined to get one back on Demelza for firing her last episode, she decides to plant more seeds of distrust among the her employees by counterfeiting money. But it doesn’t take Demelza and her mystery gang long to work out what’s happened, and all Tess earns is a hard stare. As Demelza says, she’s lucky not to have been punished with much worse by this point.

Meanwhile, Ross is back off to London to sort out his Ned problem. Not trusting his best pal to act with caution (sensible when said best pal is Ross Poldark), Dwight follows him, alongside Caroline, and gives him some stark words of warning about Ned’s lack of discretion and Ross’ wilfully ignorant loyalty. Dwight reminds Ross exactly who saved his life back in the war and it wasn’t the man who brought him to the surgeon’s table. Eighteenth Century mic drop.

Dwight is clearly the most dedicated wingman of all, even if he’s not the most dedicated husband currently (Caroline is still yet to be his priority, and we’re five episodes in). That title perhaps goes to Drake Carne instead, who has yet again abandoned his smithying duties to do something drastic in the name of love — this time, kidnapping.

Having discovered Morwenna’s secret visits to her son, he decides to confront the child’s grandmother, Lady Whitworth, and ask her to reunite mother with child. She disrespectfully declines. So he steals John Conan anyway. Thank goodness for Demelza, who urged him to take the wee one back. He would have experienced far worse than Morwenna’s fury had he not returned the toddler home.

Despite trying to arrest Drake for trespassing on her land, however, we got not one, but two, moments of rare compassion from Lady Whitworth this week. Firstly, when she feared John Conan was lost (there was very real panic in her eyes), and secondly when she overheard Morwenna saying her heartfelt goodbye to her son.

It’s this goodbye, apparently, that allows Morwenna to let go of her past and reconnect with Drake, putting the Carne in carnally if we are to believe the kisses went further (it’s Poldark; they always go further).

But it’s all a bit too simplistic, really. Morwenna’s storyline is perhaps the most perplexing here, because up until now, we were quite impressed with the way the show has addressed her trauma (i.e. that it was doing so at all). We have no doubt that she repressed the grief over having to give her son up, but for it all to be over in a single episode, and that she’s now OK, is a little frustrating to say the least. Especially since losing her son was the tip of the iceberg when it came to her marriage with Ossie.

We’re obviously delighted to see her and Drake approach a happy ending (they had us at the toads in season 3), and Ellise Chappell and Harry Richardson have been brilliant throughout, but it does feel rushed in comparison to other storylines.

Which brings us neatly onto Ned. Rush this one a bit more, would you please?

Ned Despard simply has never had an opinion he wouldn’t voice loudly and to people who presumably didn’t even ask. He says he has little to lose (his wife Kitty would disagree and not just because she’s pregnant) but it gets him thrown in prison again by the end of the episode. Dwight would surely be incredibly smug about his foretelling of this incident, were it not for actually agreeing with Ned and liking Ross.

He is framed, but it is too easily done given his aforementioned loudness and only Dwight and Caroline’s intervention stops him taking Ross down with him (Caroline once again proving that spymaster Wickham should perhaps give her a call, instead of Ross).

Ned now finds himself frightfully short of allies. The Prime Minister who might have heard his pleas of innocence has resigned. Even Joseph Merceron, the magistrate who appeared to aid Ned’s cause earlier in the series, has proven to be a turncoat, and is in fact Ralph Hanson’s mysterious falcon-owning benefactor — and, of course, because he’s a villain, extremely pro-slavery. Yikes.

It’s all very busy overall. In just one episode, we’ve seen Ross make an impassioned argument against slavery to Parliament, destroy George’s when the latter does the opposite (a real low point, even for George), and now we see him on the precipice of having to do another jailbreak. How he has anytime to sleep or eat is anyone’s business.

Join us again next week for Prison Break: Cornwall edition.

The (cliff) peaks

Drake and Ross being the first to join in Ned’s Christmas song: Given the way the episode goes, this is an absolutely iconic representation of their characters. Pure of heart, dumb of ass, the lot of them.

Zacky Martin: He tells Demelza that she’s the most capable woman he’s ever met. He’s right, and he should say it.

George Warleggan’s lip curl: We’ve talked extensively about George’s indignant chin this series, now get ready for us to wax lyrical about his lip curl. Caused by the irrational anger he feels at being given the news that Geoffrey Charles wants to marry a woman that until this point George had no interest in, we’re obsessed with it. Petty isn’t even the word.

Geoffrey Charles: If ever Francis was worried that the GC wasn’t a Poldark, he only need watch his son ask for Ralph Hanson’s blessing to marry his daughter and it would be as sure as any DNA test. Ralph Hanson openly hates him and yet, he stands there earnestly asking for Cecily’s hand in marriage. Is Ralph Hanson right to call him an idiot for it? Yes. But he’s our idiot.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Poldark? Share your thoughts in the comments!