Watching My Lady Jane: Episode 1 recap

In which our heroine discovers the realities of the Tudor era and we discover the existence of human-animal shapeshifters.

Years ago, I wrote a blog called The Armchair Anglophile, where I'd recap various costume dramas past and present. It was fun, but life marched on and I didn't have time for it, so I let it go. Every once in a while, though, I watch something that makes me think, 'Oh, it'd be fun to recap/comment on this one.' So, here we are.

I know I'm a year late on this one. TBH, when it first came out, I wasn't interested. I had some vague understanding of it being a YA feminist take on Jane Grey's story that had a happy ending and some kind of fantasy element, which is lovely and all (poor Jane deserved nicer treatment) but didn't do much for me. Fantasy's not really my genre and my attempts to get into Bridgerton had soured me a bit on sexed-up costume dramas featuring anachronistic feminists. (Not to say that what we might consider feminists or feminism didn't exist in history, just that I grow weary of female characters who don't seem to understand how the actual world they live in works and whine about not being able to go to university or vote at a time at a time when even most men couldn't do those things.)

I found this delightful in an extremely bonkers sort of way

So, what changed? Who knows? Maybe it's because I've come around on fantasy so hard I actually started writing one (first draft almost done!). Maybe I just needed some escapism. Whatever it was, I found myself letting the trailer for this play out while searching for something to watch, and it made me laugh and I recalled hearing that this was actually good, so I figured, 'eh, why not?' And you know what? I'm glad I did, because I found this delightful in an extremely bonkers sort of way. It's funny, it's not taking itself too seriously, it's great if you're into that Blackadder sort of irreverent, sarcastic take on history, and I love Blackadder, so I'm here for it. And you know what? Maybe what Tudor history really needed was more shapeshifters.

Maybe what Tudor history really needed was more shapeshifters.

We begin with our soon-to-be dear friend, the Snarky Narrator, giving an abbreviated version of:

• The Divine Right of Kings

• Henry VIII (and his wives)

• The Tudor succession

• The very short life and reign of Jane Grey (described as a bit of a pain in the ass and a pawn for her ambitious noble family

SN claims that Jane could have been the leader England needed (based on no evidence whatsoever, if I'm being very honest) but history remembers her as the ultimate damsel in distress. But f-that, what if history were different?

Now we get to meet our heroine, who's something of an herbalist and very clever, which we know because the servant she's currently treating for thrush, I think, makes sure to tell us that a few times. (Can all the ladies out there take a moment to collectively wince at the thought of how horrible it must have been to have thrush in the time before antibiotics? Whenever someone asks me which historical period I'd like to live in, my answer is always 'none of them' because I like being able to vote and hold proprerty and not die of papercuts.)

Jane tells the servant she'll have to abstain from sex for a few weeks, which horrifies the woman and her fellow servant, Susannah, so now we know that these are ladies who have sex, lots of it, and enjoy it. Not Jane, though. She's 'saving herself for herself'. Cool. Understandable in a time before reliable birth control, but also, Jane? You can have sex for yourself too.

I like being able to vote and hold property and not die of papercuts

As a quick aside here: obviously we know (all of two minutes in) that unlike the books, this is not appropriate for 13-year-olds. It'll get even less appropriate later, and given all the swearing, sex, and cultural references that'd only land for people who grew up in the '80's and '90's, I'm thinking the target audience here was Gen X and Millennials. Being a Millennial myself, I don't mind that, but I do find it curious that the creators of this show adapted a book meant for one audience in such a way that it basically shut that audience out of the show. Maybe that's why this struggled for viewers (sadly) and was cancelled (also sadly).

Anyway, Jane's writing a book about medicinal herbs and thinks she'll be able to publish it and live off the proceeds. As someone who's actually published a book, I had to pause this a full five minutes to laugh at that. Oh, Jane, you sweet, summer child.

Jane and Susannah run to the garden to pick flowers while Tiegan and Sarah's cover of 'Rebel Rebel' plays (this show has a cracking soundtrack!). Susannah points out a hot stableboy she's apparently shagging, but Jane's not interested. Because she doesn't want to get married and does not have time for cute boys, thank you very much.

Jane's writing a book about medicinal herbs and thinks she'll be able to publish it and live off the proceeds. As someone who's actually published a book, I had to pause this a full five minutes to laugh at that. Oh, Jane, you sweet, summer child.

The Duke of Leicester arrives for a visit and we learn that Jane and her two sisters and widowed mother are dependant on him. He's gross. He's also played by Jim Broadbent, because when you have Amazon money, you can pull together a great cast for your bananas period piece. Jane's mother, Frances, is played by Anna Chancellor, which is even better, because no one serves up smirking distain and side-eye quite like OG Caroline Bingley (and yes, I will always remember her first as Caroline Bingley, and not Duckface, getting dumped by Hugh Grant in the wet sock stage of his career).

Over lunch, Leicester talks about division laws and how all Ethians (more on them later) should be hanged. Margaret, Jane's youngest sister, who's maybe all of 10 years old, casually says she thinks they should all be burned, and nobody finds that horrifying at all. Leicester tells Jane she should smile more and then tells her she's going to be married. She proceeds to freak the heck out at Leicester, so her mother bundles her away and tells her this is happening whether she wants it or not. Jane's being handed over to Guildford Dudley, which, if anything, makes her angrier, because he has a heck of a reputation, and it's all bad.

Frances tells Jane that they need this marriage to ensure their whole family doesn't fall into poverty. All they have to trade is the fact that Jane is 'pure Verity' and cousin to the King. The Dudleys have money, so it's a fair trade. Jane calmly calls her mother a mercenary bitch, and when Frances goes to slap her, Jane (also calmly) deflects and tells her 'we do not do that anymore.' Woah. (And yes, Jane's parents were quite abusive, even by the standards of the day.)

Jane has three days to try and get out of this marriage. But she'll have to do it without the book she put so much faith in, because Frances burned it. Mercenary bitch indeed. She can't slap her kid around anymore, but she sure can still hurt her.

Jane decides to run away, and she interrupts Susannah's tryst with the cute stableboy and gets her to come along. I don't know why Susannah agrees to this, because, as she correctly points out, Jane has no survival skills whatsoever and will surely die in a week. All Jane has is a ring she's stolen off her sleeping mother, like she'd have any idea how to sell that without drawing any attention to herself.

The two young women head off but don't get far before Frances and a search party intercept them. Frances accuses Susannah of stealing her ring and kidnapping her daughter, and despite Jane's protestations, it looks like this could be it for her loyal companion...

...until Susannah turns into a hawk and flies away.

Yes, that's right: those Ethians we heard about? They're people who can transform at will into animals, which is pretty cool, actually, but the people who can't do that (Verities) are not ok with this at all and have outlawed the Ethians and enacted punishments for Verities hiding, knowing, or marrying Ethians. Ethians are said to be dangerous and desperate to destroy the Verity way of life, which Jane thinks is absurd. Snarky Narrator (can I call him Lemony Snicket Narrator? LSN? I'm gonna do that) tells us that Ethians usually start to change in puberty, in a moment of high emotion, they can't choose their animal form, and it's genetic, though it skips generations here and there.

LSN tells us that Henry VIII, renowned sh*thead that he was (we can all agree there) exiled the Ethians to the wilderness where they've had to become outlaws, although, if they can change at will, couldn't they just hide in plain sight? Not that they should have to, but if it's a choice between not publicly changing into a squirrel and starving to death or being hunted down and killed, I think I'd just choose to keep my squirrel-ing to my private time.

Jane's sisters play at swordfighting and little Margaret suggests they dunk all the servants to see if any others are Ethian. Margaret's a little psycho. I also can't help but note she's the only member of her family that doesn't appear to wear blue, and I'm going to put a pin in that.

Worth noting: one of Margaret's specialties is fake blood.

Frances heads off to London to see Lord Dudley and get the wedding planning underway. Jane follows her and gets to meet her future father-in-law (also wearing blue. Hmmm.) He's played quite delightfully by Rob Brydon, who proudly shows off all the elaborate preparations for the wedding (roast dolphin! Yum!) and asks Frances for her opinions on musicians.

Jane asks to meet her future husband and is told Guildford's out. Jane assumes he's out doing bad things, because that's all she's heard about this guy. Dudley pivots to telling Frances that his other son, Stan, is engaged as well, but alas, his fiancee is detained by the plague.

Jane announces that she doesn't want to marry Guildford and Dudley, smiling, tells her that nobody cares what she thinks. Well, then. Should've kinda seen that coming, Jane.

She stomps out just in time to see a snivelly blonde fop in pastels get out of a barge and tease some young beggar children. She yells at him to knock it off and give the kids the coins he was teasing them with. He sneers, the kids curse at him, he stomps off, poncily. Someone tells Jane that the man is Lord Dudley's son. And he's a prat, in case we hadn't figured that out.

Jane can't imagine being married to this horrorshow, so she takes herself off to Hampton Court to throw herself on her cousin, King Edward's, mercy.

Edward's not well, and not really in charge. He's got a Cough of Doom and is riding out to read a message about the evils of Ethians to his guards. Except he goes off script and instead gives them a motivational speech about how great he thinks they are. His chief advisor, Lord Seymour, is not happy and has someone fetch a padded wheelchair for Edward to ride back to his rooms in. Edward is not happy.

Jane's too wrapped up in her own drama to bother herself with her youngest sister's budding sociopathy.

Seymour's played by Dominic Cooper, an actor I, for some reason, cannot seem to warm to, so just as well he's playing the villain, and he does it well. He, too, smirks and side-eyes at Chancellor-levels.

The guards are Seymour's force: Kingsland guards, designed to protect Edward from the Ethian menace. The Ethian resistance, known as The Pack, has been sneaking into Grimsby, which is against the division laws, so Seymour wants them killed. Edward's not keen on the idea.

Jane arrives and gives Edward an excuse to dismiss the council. He introduces her to his new dog, Petunia and asks if Margaret is still pulling wings off butterflies. Yikes! Edward seems to be the only person who's concerned about this child (not concerned for, concerned about.)

Jane's too wrapped up in her own drama to bother herself with her youngest sister's budding sociopathy. She takes Edward out to the garden, tells him she's being forced to marry, and asks him to intervene. He tells her he's already agreed to it. She's shocked that he would do such a thing without her consent (there's that anachronistic feminism!) and Edward's like, 'Did you just arrive in this era, or what?' He points out that he didn't choose to be King, but that's just how things work. Welcome to the real world, Jane.

Edward starts coughing and Jane finally gets concerned about someone other than herself. He tells her that he has 'the affliction' and the kingdom's in chaos and they need some stability. He tells Jane he's sure she'll improve Guildford the way she improved Edward, and that marriage always sounded nice to him: a partner to keep you company and make you laugh. (Is he not aware of his own father's track record here?) Jane pouts that she always thought she'd only marry if she could choose the man herself, and Edward tells her that's just silly. It's nice that other characters are calling her out on how ridiculous she sounds. The show is, at least, quite self-aware.

It's nice that other characters are calling Jane out on how ridiculous she sounds. The show is, at least, quite self-aware.

Mary and Elizabeth (or 'Bess' as LSN informs us) practice some crossbow shooting at a target in the garden that's about three feet away. Jane and Edward come upon them and Mary immediately hands him a blackberry pie to eat. He starts coughing and choking, and Seymour calls for the doctor. Jane, however, sends Elizabeth (I'm not calling her Bess, for heaven's sake) to fetch a nearby plant and uses it to make him breathe again. Because Jane is clever, as we're told again and again. Mary doesn't seem all that happy Edward's been spared death this time.

Seymour bundles Jane into a carriage, ignoring her instructions on how to treat Edward. Edward has his own ideas on how to treat his affliction and turns down the physician's offer of kitten tea and old man's urine. I think I'd choose death over that cure too.

Dudley rocks up and he and Seymour start working on Edward, urging him to decide on the succession. Seymour (who is, presumably, a mashup of the two real-life Seymour brothers and it's a little odd that it's never mentioned that he'd be Edward's uncle) urges him to name Mary heir, while Dudley thinks the crown should go to Jane because, as she's soon to be married, presumably she'll be able to secure the succession soon. Edward writes down a name, seals the will, and sends it off to the Chancery for safekeeping.

We also learn that Elizabeth's mother was an Ethian, so according to Seymour, the people would never accept her as queen.

Seymour and Dudley snipe at each other a bit, then Seymour takes some food to Edward, who's already in bed. Edward's dog, Petunia, lunges and knocks the food out of Seymour's hand. Seymour orders a guard to take the dog away and kill it (something the actual Thomas Seymour really did) but Edward intervenes. Petunia is safe, for now.

Jane's carriage has broken down, so she takes one of the horses to ride home on her own. But then she realises this could be an opportunity to escape, so she does, winding up at an inn while hiding from a search party. It's a hell of a party in this inn, and Jane very quickly lays eyes on a hot bad boy who breaks up a fight, disarms someone who threatens to gut him, and hits the bullseye on ye olde dartboard with the knives he just took off the threatener. He's a badass, in case you can't tell, and we know he's a bad boy because he's wearing all black leather with his doublet undone and Jane is SO HOT for him right now. He, a little drunkenly, recites some latin poetry and LSN tells us that, while love at first sight doesn't exist, lust at first sight sure as hell does.

Jane and Bad Boy begin verbally sparring in an I-hate-you-but-not-really-you're-hot kind of way

Jane approaches him and does the, 'Do you come here often?' line. LSN tells us she's the first person in history to use that line, and regret it. Heh. She and Bad Boy begin verbally sparring in an I-hate-you-but-not-really-you're-hot kind of way.

Two men come up to the bar and ask for a drink, but the bartender tells them to get lost. Jane asks BB why they're being tossed, but he says nothing. Then, guards burst in and that really puts a dampener on the party. They're looking for Ethians, of course. A specific one named Archer, who's wanted for all sorts of crimes, and of course Archer is one of the guys who just got refused at the bar.

The guards start roughing people up and threatening to dunk them. Archer and his companion decide to throw down and Archer transforms into a grizzly bear. Much chaos ensues, and BB takes the opportunity to hustle Jane toward a back exit. Jane, having no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, wants to watch the bear fight instead and refuses to escape with BB because now she's decided he's insufferable. Jane, right now, you are kind of insufferable.

And then, in swoops Susannah, to warn her Ethian friends that more guards are coming. Jane bursts out of her hiding place to say hi to her friend, like now's really the time, and tells her she's sorry. A guard comes over to menace them both, and Jane shoves Susannah out the door. Susannah transforms and flies away and the guard tells Jane she'll be exiled for that (she's ok with that idea) and then decides on a dunking instead.

Before she can be dunked to death, however, Frances arrives, with supremely good timing, and announces that this is the king's cousin they're to cease drowning her immediately. She takes Jane home in a carriage, telling her that she'll have the men flogged to death for daring to threaten her. LSN tells us this is as close as Frances can come to saying 'I love you.'

Jane begs again not to be forced to marry Guildford, and Frances tells her that if she doesn't marry him, Frances will marry off Jane's sister Katherine to Leicester.

At the palace, Edward's dinner is interrupted by Petunia, who barks a lot and then transforms into a young blonde woman, who tells him she's been sent by his supposedly dead grandmother and that Edward's not afflicted, he's being poisoned. Edward tries to absorb all that, and also the fact that he's just realised he's gay. She wants to get him out of there, but he wants to figure out who's poisoning him. Like Jane, he has no sense of self-preservation. Must be genetic (like Ethianism!). Petunia's more concerned about the fact that 'granny' will be vexed than that Edward is now setting himself up for further poisoning or other methods of death.

Like Jane, Edward has no sense of self-preservation. Must be genetic (like Ethianism!).

Mary goes to see Seymour and immediately starts making out with him. She asks if all the succession planning is done and then basically has an orgasm on the spot when he says it is. He does not mention that Jane was also floated as a possibility. Mary can't wait to be queen and cleanse England of all these 'nasty beasts'.

Jane's wedding day! She soaks in the bath, thinking of BB and ruminating on the fact that she only has marriage, motherhood, and death (quite possibly in quick succession) to look forward to, rather than flirt-fighting with cute boys in taverns.

Everyone gets dressed, Jane drinks, and Margaret slips her something.

Worth noting: the wedding's taking place at night.

Edward escorts Jane down the aisle, towards Dudley and his smirking, poncy son. Then they both step aside to reveal the real groom: the bad boy from the tavern. Yeah, we all saw that coming. He and Jane, however, did not see this coming and stare at each other in shock.

(As an aside, because now I'm keeping track of this: Frances, Katherine, Dudley, and his sons are dressed in blue, Margaret's in pink. Jane's in white, because: bride. Just worth noting that, once again, Margaret is separated out.)

During the vows, Jane starts bleeding from the mouth, then coughs and collapses. Guildford looks down at her and smirks and shakes his head a bit, because he clearly knows this is some sort of trick.