Watching My Lady Jane: Episode 2 recap

In which our heroine explores the 'for better or for worse' part of the marriage vows and Edward discovers rude hand gestures.

Cake or death?

We start almost where we left off: Guildford and the wedding guests are cooling their heels while Jane's strapped to a table in a chapel with Edward's kitten-boiling quack doctor hovering over her, trying to figure out which of his instruments of torture he should start dissecting her with. Faced with a choice between bleeding to death or reluctantly marrying a n'er-do-well who gives her the quivers, Jane finally makes a sensible decision and announces that she's fine, she's cured, the doctor healed her. Frances sails in and says: 'I thought he would.' She knew the deal. The wedding can go ahead.

It does, and the not-so-happy couple go to their reception, where Dudley's talking up the swan dish ('They mate for life! It's symbolic!') and giving terrible toasts and equally terrible sex advice to his son, while Jane's trying to keep her psycho youngest sister from adding alcoholism to her list of issues ('You're ten! Beer only!'). Oh, it can be so fun when period pieces lean into the values dissonance.

Faced with a choice between bleeding to death or reluctantly marrying a n'er-do-well who gives her the quivers, Jane finally makes a sensible decision and announces that she's cured

Jane catches an Ethian trying to steal some of her wedding gifts and asks him if he knows Susannah. He tells her that all Ethians don't actually know each other, then skedaddles.

Guildford comes upon Jane scooping up the coins the Ethian dropped and after a round of the teasing/negging/flirting/sniping that's defined their communication so far, she informs him that she intends to leave him ASAP.

Jane's other sister, Katherine, (maybe a little drunk herself) is getting way too giddy about the bedding ceremony, which makes me think there's something really off about her too, because those were hella weird. At the mention of it, both Jane and Guildford look like they've swallowed porcupines.

But the consummation show must go on, so the pair are bundled off to the bedroom and stripped down to their shifts. Frances realises she might want to actually provide her daughter with some very last-minute sex ed, which is usefully succint and even comes with illustrative hand gestures ('Hold anything firm firmly, and anything soft softly.') Jane looks horrified, and Katherine pops up to gleefully say that she heard it hurts a lot. What the hell is wrong with Katherine? Why is she so excited about her sister's impending pain, fear, and humiliation? This family is a mess.

What the hell is wrong with Katherine? Why is she so excited about her sister's impending pain, fear, and humiliation? This family is a mess.

The two reluctantly climb into bed (while the soundtrack kicks off Tainted Love, LOL) and duck under the covers. Jane looks panicked but Guildford tells her they just need to poke their feet out and rub them together as a sort of symbolic consummation, and then everyone will get the hell out. They do, everyone cheers and leaves.

Once they're alone, Guildford tells her that he's not going to apologise for his past (which she keeps throwing in his face). He gets a little vulnerable for a second and asks her if she's ever been in a situation where she had to do a thing, but then when it came down to it, she wasn't sure she could really see it through? It seems for a second like they might move to first base, at least, but then Guildford jumps out of bed with the mood-killing line: 'Not without a drink first.' Yikes, Guil.

Jane bursts out of bed as well, and the two start yelling at each other about how awful the other is and how her mother gave her away and his father had to buy him a wife. It ends with her throwing wine in his face and when he tries to do the same to her, she dodges, mocks him for missing her, and storms through the nearest door, accidentally locking herself in a closet. And she was doing so well.

No money, mo' problems

Things go a little better for Frances and Guildford's younger brother, the foppish Stan, who for all his faults, apparently takes direction well in the bedroom. Frances is certainly pleased. But then she notices a damp patch on the ceiling and gets Stan to admit to her that their family's kind of broke, actually. Whoops! The mercenary bitch messed up.

The best ideas are my ideas

Edward didn't make the reception from hell, because he was bundled back to the palace so Mary and Seymour can continue to poison him. Edward pretends to be super ill, and as soon as they're gone Petunia turns back into a human and gives him non-poisonous food. Petunia suggests they look for the source of the poison to track the poisoner, an idea Edward likes so much he pretends he came up with it.

Blood and marriage

Elsewhere in the palace, Mary and Seymour are discussing their future plans, which don't 100% align. They both want Mary to be queen, but then he wants to marry her while she just wants to start eliminating Ethians, 'as daddy would have wanted.' Daddy who married an Ethian, that daddy? Ok, Mary.

Also: it makes no sense, really, for Seymour to want to get rid of Edward in favour of Mary. Seymour (well, one of the Seymours) was Lord Protector during Edward's reign, which meant he was functionally running things. He had a huge amount of power, which he would have lost immediately when Mary came to the throne. But maybe, because this is an alternate history, this Seymour isn't related to Edward at all? I don't know, this whole thing is odd.

Anyway: it's a bit of fun gender flip here to have the man being the one who's marriage-crazy while the woman's mostly after power and slaking bloodlust.

Seymour offers Mary a ring, but she wants a different one--one that her father gifted to him. She wrenches it off his finger and tongues it pretty grossly. This is mostly so we can get a good look at said ring and the eye-like design on it.

My noble steed

Jane's finally released from her closet the next morning by one of the servants, who tells her that Guildford's room is by the stables, so he can have easy access to transportation into the city first thing. For all those dissolute purposes, you know.

Jane marches herself down there and arrives just in time to watch him slo-mo upend a bucket of water over himself, olde-tyme shower style. This is a feminist show, so it's full-on female gaze as Jane, our audience stand-in, ogles him while the soundtrack wails Wild Thing.

By day he's a handsome stallion, and by night he's the human version of that.

This goes on for... quite a while until she remembers herself and yells at him for leaving her locked in a closet all night. He sneers that she locked herself in the closet, but then notes that the sun's coming up and tells her desperately that he needs to be alone right now. She twigs to his seriousness and asks what's going on. His response is to transform into a horse.

Yes, that's right, Jane's married an Ethian! And here comes Dudley the father-in-law to introduce Rupert, Guildford's groom, and to explain that Guildford's got something wrong with him, because unlike other Ethians, he can't control his change. By day he's a handsome stallion, and by night he's the human version of that. At least there's a predictable schedule.

Jane's not down with being married to a horse, but Dudley reminds her that if she tells anyone about this, the Greys and the Dudleys will all be executed. Harsh.

The Prince and the pupper

Edward dresses up as a commoner and heads to the market with Petunia (who follows him there as a dog and then apparently transforms into a human right there in public, which seems pretty stupid, and yet, nobody notices in this rather crowded market).

They find the herbalist who's been selling Seymour the poison, although the woman doesn't know who he is. All she knows is that he wore a creepy ring that looked like an eyeball.

As a bonus: Edward learns what a double bird means. See what happens when you get out amongst the common people?

Cloak and dagger

Jane is pissed about this whole horse-husband situation and decides to go grab some of those wedding gifts and run. Unfortunately, they've all been packed away. But here's Stan (whom she refers to as 'urchin kicker,' heh) to mock her and hand over Edward's gift: a large bejewelled dagger the two of them used to play with as children. There's a hiding place in it with a note from Edward asking her to meet him.

She goes to the palace gardens and he asks her about the poison he's been ingesting (using the 'asking for a friend' excuse). She tells him that taking even small doses of the poison is fatal, it just takes time to build up in the system before it kills you. Edward is doooooomed.

She almost tells Edward about Guildford's secret, then misdirects her anger at her husband at Edward, which results in the two of them shouting at each other and her telling him he'll never be his father, and him calling her nothing but a wife. Ouch.

Jane stomps off, and Edward goes to tell the council that someone at court's been poisoning him, which seems like a dumb move. I mean, now he's announced that he's on to them, which isn't the best idea.

Edward tells the council that someone at court's been poisoning him, which seems like a dumb move

Dudley and Seymour fall all over themselves to assure Edward that they'll find out who's behind this. Edward tells them that if they don't figure out who's responsible, he'll consider everyone a traitor. Then he flips that handy double-bird and tells everyone (in impolite terms) to get lost.

Seymour rushes off to tell Mary that Edward's onto them (or someone). Mary freaks out for a bit, then starts to come up with a plan.

Dudley goes to Stan, of all people, to entrust him with a very important task: go to the Chancery and fetch Edward's will. What could go wrong?

The honeymooners

As Jane and horse Guildford head off on honeymoon, Lemony Narrator tells us there are two kinds of people in the world: those who lie down and cry for mummy, and those who know mummy wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire, so they'd jolly well better get up and do things themselves. Well, we know Jane's definitely in the latter camp.

During a pit stop, Jane's threatened by a robber with a stick. While Guildford helplessly whinnies and freaks out, the robber takes Jane to a chest on the carriage that they both think is full of gold and other wedding gifts. Jane opens it to find it full of books. She and the robber are baffled, and then he recovers enough to try and drag her off, which really gets Guildford going. Jane, however, can handle herself and immediately brains the robber with a book, chasing him off. As he flees, he transforms into a goat. Are Ethians just begging to be discovered and hunted down? Geez.

Jane looks at some of the books, then looks at Guildford, puzzled, because, as Lemony Narrator tells us, smuggling esoteric books about beasts on honeymoon is an odd thing for a renowned rake to do. And now Jane is intrigued.

Where there's a will, there's a... oh, dear

Stan runs to Frances and tells her he went to the Chancery, but Edward's will is missing. He's too scared to tell his father, although his father, though smarmy, doesn't seem like the violent type. He asks Frances what this means, and she tells him it means they're all screwed. Do they know that, though? They didn't even know who the will named as the successor, right?

Lord Dudley in the palace with the poison

Seymour (accompanied by Mary and Dudley) goes to Edward and dramatically announces he's figured out who the poisoner is. And it is: Lord Dudley!

Dudley, being an idiot, did not see this coming at all. He tries to defend himself, but then Seymour pretends to find the box of poison on Dudley, Mary starts beating him up, and Edward orders Dudley arrested. Petunia starts barking like mad and Mary orders Elizabeth to remove the dog, then tells Edward he needs to be moved to the north turret, where he'll be safer.

Edward sees Seymour's eye-ring on a chain around Mary's neck, realising where the real danger is, but it's too late. Mary shakes some kind of powder in his face and Edward presumably passes out.

He wakes later in the north turret, alone, and hears Mary and Seymour coming to, presumably, finish the job. He barricades the door, and by the time the two get inside, he's gone. It looks like he's gone out the window, which is quite a drop, so they're sure he's dead. Mary cackles with joy.

Let's make a deal

Jane and Guildford arrive at their honeymoon destination--a manor house out in the countryside where Guildford was sent by his father after they discovered he was Ethian. Once Guildford's back in his human form, Jane asks why he's packed a ton of books, in all different languages, about curing Ethianism. Why do you think, Jane? Isn't she meant to be clever?

So, here's what's really going on: Guildford and his family decided to marry him to Jane because they knew she was:

• clever

• a polyglot

• a healer who could design her own cures

And they're all hoping she can find a cure for Guildford.

Understandable and all, but when you consider that Verities who marry Ethians can be punished with death, this kind of makes Guildford and Dudley seem monstrous. They could've, maybe, asked her for help, instead of going with the nuclear option of marriage, which endangers not only her, but her whole family.

Jane does not point any of this out. Instead, she seems rather pleased to realise that he married her for her brain. She's excited by the challenge but worried she might not succeed. He's only asking her to try. To sweeten the deal, he says if she finds a cure, he'll give her a divorce, and she'll have the freedom she wants so much. (Well, not really, because she'll have no money of her own, so she'll have to go back to her mother, and you can imagine how fun that would be, but apparently neither of them have thought that far ahead.)

The two seem to have reached a rapproachment. Guildford walks her to her room and tells her he has no expectations around consummating the marriage, so they'll just be friends. Neither of them seem to love that idea, to be honest, but they pretend they do and say goodnight (and the sountrack plays Trick Pony, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).