Victoria is super bored of being pregnant, and let me tell you, nothing makes for thrilling TV viewing like a show about how its main character is all YAAAAWN. She also refers to her spawn at one point as "Wrigglepants," which I'm sure is 100% authentic to the 1800s. I can't wait for season two, when she starts using the famously Victorian insult "crazeballs."
The Downstairs crew exists almost exclusively for exposition -- here, for things about how if Victoria dies AND the baby dies, her horrid uncle Cumberland would ascend to the throne, and how he made himself King of Hanover by blitzing their Parliament and rejecting a constitution and such. Will they all be looking for jobs soon? Spoiler: No, and no significantly interesting observations nor character notes come from these scenes. I bet all these actors thought they were signing onto the next Downton and instead they are basically perfunctory.
Cumberland skulks around looking as EVIL as HUMANLY POSSIBLE. His ears might as well be running over with the charred soot of a dead soul.
Poor Lehzen. She has been handling Victoria's personal correspondence, and makes light of weekly notes from an admirer named Captain Childers who means to rescue her from the buns of the German sausage. You can imagine how well her casual dismissal of this will work out for her. I guess Victorian life was short on TV shows about stalkers.
The Duchess of Sutherland's forehead jewelry remains exquisite, as is her shock at seeing Ernst return from Coburg clutching her lace hanky and unfurling his tongue at her feet.
Meanwhile, we see a young goof get a letter saying AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS FROM HANOVER, and the -- as a servant eyes him suspiciously -- he subtly trots outside and blows a hole through a practice Queen. I'm sure the Help was all, "Oh, there's young Ed out there again, always practicing his regicide."
Is Victoria popular? She says so, but it's kinda hard to tell. I have no context for how many people should have been able to come out and stand alongside her route in Olden Times. I'm sure she would be roiling with jealousy over the crowds Kate and William draw.
Anyway, Victoria is bored, so she decides to go for a carriage ride despite the fact that everyone thinks pregnant women should merely lie down and be rolled over every few hours. So she puts on her very favorite paper-covered wastebasket...
... and then the aforementioned Captain Childers is like, "O HELLO, I'm here to rescue you and give you a very safe life away from slobbering German fertilizers," and YOU GUYS THAT IS THE PIG MAN FROM DOWNTON. VICTORIA, DO NOT HAVE THIS MAN TAKE YOUR BABY. Everyone stops and listens to his declarations, letting him get so far as to walk right up and touch her before they intervene. But as is typical of Mr. Drewe, his plan to spirit away a game Victoria and make her his loving wife runs totally afoul of a) her, b) her security, and c) the law. The Pig Man is now the WORST at making plans in TWO centuries.
"Schluck," says Lehzen. And she has her job as Mail Keeper taken away, even though apparently Victoria knew about her admirer. So THAT is anti-climactic because it doesn't even sew discord between the two of THEM. WHY IS THIS IN HERE. I imagine it's meant to help spark Albert's dislike of Lehzen. In real life he apparently was not shy about finding her to be a meddlesome demon.
Mr. Francatelli has been offered his own shop. He'd really like Miss Skerrett to come and open it up with him, and they very nearly make out over the idea, until she decides to float it past her sister. Said sister, bitterly a single mother, informs Skerrett that MEN ARE SCUM and that if she quits the palace she'll end up alone and unloved and up-the-duff. And poor sad Skerrett chooses to believe this, partly because the sister makes it clear that ALL their incomes depend on Skerrett. So she rebuffs Mr. Francatelli, and rather rudely at that. I get it -- she would have a position more or less for life, if she played it right at the Palace, but also: BOO TO YOU, MEAN SISTER, because if you can get it from a formerly creepy but actually very nice baker who works wonders with chocolate then DO IT. Also, girl, he can't dump you. You're the only one with any ideas about what to do with his drizzle.
Mrs. Jenkins is very coolly efficient this week. She tells everyone to shut their yaps about Victoria maybe dying in childbirth, and lets Lehzen lean on her a little when it's clear how afraid she is. Jenkins also has to massage the breasts of expectant mothers to see which ones would be acceptable wet nurses, because Victoria thinks breastfeeding is disgusting. (Her daughters later chose to do it, and hid it from her; Vic was VERY RUDE ABOUT IT when she found out.) Also, apparently in olden times, people believed that the contraceptive effects of breast-feeding prevented the creation of enough heirs, particularly in times of high fetal death rates, so that's one practical (well, "practical") reason why wet nurses were employed. But mostly Victoria thinks it's barbaric and turns a woman into a cow, which evidently is a perfectly fine fate for her subjects, just not for her. Nice.
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This looks like a painting. "Portrait Of A Young Gadabout Tickling The Keys For A Lady."
"The Nymph Plays For Her Suitor 'Concerto in Keep Your D In Your Pants Even Though I'm Intrigued By It.'"
Victoria decides she needs to go out again and prove to everyone that she's not intimidated by a handsy, affectionate Pig Man Ancestor. So she puts on her best rubber gloves and waves to the crowd... and gets shot at by Edward Oxford for her trouble. Sadly, he misses, possibly because he didn't think to build his dummy Queen Vic in a carriage and also make her in motion.
Victoria is unsettled, and everyone agrees that Cumberland probably arranged it, especially after the WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS FROM HANOVER note is located. Her mother is all, "I knew Cumberland would try to off you because he once killed his valet,"and no one replies, "O RLY THANKS FOR THE WARNING ON THAT ONE DUCHESS."
Portrait of a Young Queen Who Was Recently Very Scared But Also SUPER HATES Having Something In Her Uterus.
Naturally Cumberland is wounded WOUNDED I SAY that anyone would think he had a hand in this -- and he turns out to be right; Edward Oxford apparently made up a nefarious Young England Society, sent HIMSELF ominous letters about Hanover, and possibly never loaded the guns. Edward Oxford is, I must say, way better at plotting things than the Pig Man.
The Artist Captures a Lonely Buffoon Trying To Pretend He Hasn't Actually Been Very Murdery At All Really.
Albert's office is EXTREMELY picturesque. GFY HQ looks exactly like this... in my head.
Young Edward Oxford -- he's 18 or 19 -- is supposed to be hanged for treason even if the guns weren't actually loaded. A jury finds him not guilty via temporary insanity and sends him to Bedlam instead, and Victoria decides NOT to be a douche like Cumberland, King of Hanover, and supports the sentence. (Robert Peele is all WHOA WHAT A GAL.) At first I got the details wrong here, but I think this is now correct. It still doesn't satisfy my yen for ACTUAL FEELINGS from Victoria about her kingdom. She's just sort of acting on influence all the time and then forgetting all about it entirely.
Victoria goes on YET ANOTHER excursion after Oxford's sentence comes down, to prove to the world that she's confident in the justice system. Albert respects this so much that he bows down to her. She then sits on his knee and they mack. There's a more interesting assassination attempt coming, though, which I assume they will cover later; the dude tries to fire but the guns don't work, and escapes, so Victoria rides the same route the next day to draw him out again -- essentially making herself a human target. It works and he's caught, but man, that is some guts. I wonder if they won't cover that, though, because this episode MORE THAN trod on the ground of "Victoria Gets In Her Carriage To Prove A Point."
Meanwhile, Ernst manages to get into Lady Sutherland's chambers, and they make out hard. They edit it to look like he's asked her for a goodbye wanging, and Albert accuses Ernst later of misbehavior after a servant spots Ernst leaving her room. But no: turns out Ernst just wanted to trade the hanky for a lock of her hair, which will be MUCH more useful in potion-making.
Ernst then performs a dizzying aria for Albert all about how not everyone gets lucky in love, so maybe he should shut his judgmental pie hole. There's also a verse all about how nothing happened with Harriet and he wishes Albert could've had faith in his character. I do sort of think that, given Ernst's (earned, per the show) reputation and the fact that he fixed Albert up with a prostitute, it's a BIT rich of him to turn around and be like, "Why don't you BELIEEEEEEVE in MEEEE."
I just love how fabulously petulant and irritated Victoria looks in this shot. I also enjoy her balancing her snack plate on her stomach. I turned mine into a snack table ALSO -- occasionally I also balanced the TV remotes on it -- and had big plans to take photos of ever-larger and ever-more things sitting atop it. But then I went into premature labor. I guess Dylan was not into that plan AT ALL and wanted to get out before I degraded him with my shenanigans.
Leopold does share a nice moment with Victoria, all about how her strength reminds him of Charlotte. He starts to choke up, and she offers him a bon-bon then pats his hand while they snack and smile. It's cute. Alex Jennings is a treasure. He plays awful schemey people and then manages to give them a soul, whether they deserve one or not (AHEM EDWARD VIII).
And then: labor. Victoria lies in bed screaming while her bedchamber doors are open and an ENTIRE CADRE of old white dudes watches her labor. Uh. She quite rightly tells them to GET OUUUUUT in tones that evoke Maya Rudolph's imitation of Donatella Versace.
The poor wet nurse says goodbye to her baby. Apparently wet nurses were often single mothers -- which explains why Mr. Penge was such a judgmental jackhole about them being in the palace at all -- and I guess occasionally this practice led to problems with their ACTUAL babies, who weren't often properly fed. I guess that makes sense, if this woman was forced to live in the palace and give away her milk. They probably didn't LET her keep the child. Do we think that baby went to her family, or an orphanage? Poor Wet Nurse. She seems so sad.
Also sad: Skerrett. I believe it's here implied that she may have had second thoughts about spurning Mr. Francatelli, so she scampers up to him in the kitchen... and whoops, it's not him. He's already left in a broken-hearted stupor. Skerrett scurries off into a corner and sobs, and I actually feel sorry and sad for her because the corner she felt backed into was fairly well-drawn in the end. I mean, as this show goes. Who could've imagined that by the end of the show, the loathed Downstairs storyline would be the one that gave me portions of feelings?
Lo! The babe is born, and it is a girl, and everything is idyllic. Or, it will be, until Victoria starts to hate sharing Albert's attention and her continual habit of getting pregnant. So I give it about five minutes. Not a very interesting ending, and not a lot of intrigue.