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The Buccaneers (2023)
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Period dramas are a well-trod setting for TV and film, and more often than not, they’re vehicles for exploring female independence, sexuality, and resilience in the face of a society that doesn’t (or at least, hasn’t historically) exactly celebrate those things. In many ways, our society as it currently existss has come a long way from those days, but in other ways there’s still so much further we need to go, and shows like Bridgerton, The Gilded Age, and now The Buccaneers provide a canvas upon which to examine these ideas.
Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers melds both Netflix’s Bridgerton and HBO’s The Gilded Age by showing American aristocracy alongside its British counterparts and watching the drama of the culture clash unfold. In the first episode of the series — based on an unfinished novel by Edith Wharton, and adapted for television by Katherine Jakeways — the opposing ideas about a woman’s duty and following her desires are front and center like they have been in many shows before it. Jakeways’s adaptation pulls modern dialogue and accents, as well as contemporary music (Olivia Rodrigo scored the trailer while there’s a Taylor Swift track in the pilot) into its design to ground the series as something that also speaks to today’s climate.
When we meet our main character Nan (Kristine Froseth), she’s fussing over the details of her best friend Conchita’s wedding day—even climbing out of a window to retrieve an earring that Conchita (Alisha Boe) dropped. The dedication is apparent (after a small scare that he’ll be a no-show, she talks Conchita’s fiance Richard (Josh Dylan) into following through with the wedding when he has valid concerns about her American sensibilities—and skin color—fitting in with his uptight family) though she reveals early on that her mentality is fashioned after Jo March. “Girls are taught to believe that if a story isn’t a love story, it’s a tragedy,” Nan declares in a voiceover in the opening sequence of the series. Nan doesn’t care about finding a man or being married, which of course makes her the perfect protagonist for a love story.
While scooping up the dropped earring, Nan meets a handsome British gentleman with whom she has immediate chemistry but is distracted when she sees Richard’s carriage finally arrive. Richard comes bearing a letter of the breakup variety, worried that Conchita’s headstrong personality will clash with the chaste and proper vibes of his aristocratic family (and he’ll soon be proven right). But Nan reminds him that he loves Conchita without revealing that she is pregnant with his child, and they blissfully marry. Nan later sees the man from the earring incident and they have an adorable flirtatious staircase moment that ends with him telling her that his mother is dying and he must get back to England and crucially not telling her his name.
Nan and her sister Jinny’s family have recently become part of New York’s upper crust, but that doesn’t mean that everyone sees them as equals. Another wedding guest Mrs. Paramore pointedly doesn’t invite the St. George family to the city’s balls, upsetting their mother Patricia (a welcome return to TV for Christina Hendricks). Richard overhears the slight and one-ups Mrs. Paramore by inviting the whole lot of Conchita’s friends—including Nan, Jinny, and their friends Mabel and Lizzy—to London’s ball a few months from now.
When they turn up in England, Conchita is ready to pop. Physically, she’s already at the waddle phase of her pregnancy, but emotionally she’s reaching her limit with slights and asides from her in-laws, just as Richard feared. But her friends from across the pond arriving gives her a needed pep in her step, though she confides in Nan that she’s nervous about motherhood and whether Richard’s family will treat the baby the same way they’ve treated her. There’s even an awkward dinner where Conchita fails to hold her tongue and the girls attempt to fit into the proper confines of the home; of course, the only one who receives any semblance of acceptance is Nan, who shows off her brains when observing the paintings in the dining hall.
But the main reason they’ve arrived in England is the ball, which Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse) and Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) will partake in to find a suitor. Lizzy doesn’t speak much during this first episode, but I’m sensing major tension between her and Jinny, the latter of whom comes off as entitled in the early goings. Add to it the fact that Richard’s brother seems to take an early interest in Jinny, even visiting her surreptitiously in her room, and there is definitely a conflict brewing.
Right now, what’s happening in Jinny’s room is the least of anyone’s concerns: Nan’s disdain for the proceedings are only heightened when she overhears guests disparaging Americans for being too outspoken. Luckily, she runs into the man from Conchita’s wedding and the two of them steal away upstairs. The two lean over the balcony, dissecting the stiff ballroom etiquette, and Nan learns that his mother has passed away. As she reaches over to console him, she accidentally (and predictably) drops one of her shoes directly into the cake below, effectively ruining the evening.
No one is more bothered by this than Jinny, who takes it upon herself to not only get Nan banished to the countryside for the remainder of the debutante ball proceedings (inadvertently also causing her to miss the birth of Conchita’s baby), but also hatefully spits out the truth of her parentage: Nan is the result of their father’s affair, and their mom Patricia dutifully raised her so as not to create a scene. Though Jinny apologizes immediately and begs her not to say anything to her mother, you don’t really come back from dropping a bomb like that out of spite.
The Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers) makes a surprise appearance at the ball, but is uninterested in the woman that his mother has set up for him. He’s just a misunderstood dude who wants to marry someone that isn’t only marrying him for his title…which of course is exactly the type of person that Nan is. The two meet on the beach when she’s banished from the ball proceedings after she and her shoe make a scene, and he’s immediately taken with her primarily due to the fact that she has no idea who he is. He’s drawn to her free spirit but is deflated when she suggests they’ll never see each other again because her family is going back to New York, but being the smart TV viewers we are, we’ll absolutely be seeing the two of them interact again shortly.
The third tip of the brewing love triangle is slightly more complicated: at the end of the episode, we find out that the attractive man that Nan has shared more than one flirtatious moment with may not be in it for the right reasons, to borrow a phrase from The Bachelor. He is prompted by his father to court “the American,” and is even handed his mother’s wedding ring to seal the deal. As Nan’s family has just recently come into money, it’s likely that she (or Jinny) will be the target, running contrary to everything he’s portrayed thus far.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.
