Warning: Major spoilers ahead for “The Buccaneers” Season 2, Episode 6, “Every Single Piece of My Heart.”
“The Buccaneers” โ a historical fiction drama following a rambunctious group of American girls taking on London’s high society in the 1870s โ just introduced a dark twist.
So far, Season 2 has stayed true to form in chronicling the dramatics of the core group, made up of Nan (Kristine Froseth), Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse), Conchita (Alisha Boe), Mabel (Josie Totah) and Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag).
Mabel has been living with Conchita and her husband, Lord Richard Marable (Josh Dylan). Nan has been struggling to enjoy her marriage with Theo, the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), due to her lingering feelings for Guy Thwarte (Matthew Broome). And Lizzy has been conducting a secret affair with Theo amid her own engagement to Hector Robinson (Jacob Ifan).
Meanwhile, Jinny, after escaping from her abusive husband, Lord James Seadown (Barney Fishwick), at the end of Season 1, has been hiding in Italy with her newborn son under Guy’s protection.
“I think she feels really lonely and isolated,” Waterhouse tells TODAY.com about her character’s storyline this season. “And even though she’s with Guy, who’s amazing, they kind of don’t really know each other. They’re, like, thrown into the situation, and suddenly there’s a baby, and they’re living in quite intense circumstances.”
Things only get more intense in Episode 6 after James tracks down his estranged wife and newborn son, Freddy, in Italy. He kidnaps the baby, forcing Jinny to go back to London where she’s wanted for kidnapping Freddy after leaving James while pregnant. As the group plots to get Freddy back, James orchestrates a public confrontation with Jinny at an opera, where she appears violent and hysterical to onlookers, resulting in her being committed to an asylum.
After a significant stay, she agrees to go back to James’ estate in order to be reunited with Freddy, but she never gives up in her fight against James.
“I think she kind of allowed a lot of James’ behavior when it was just her, because she was fighting for their marriage and all these other expectations that she had on her,” Waterhouse says. “But now she has a baby. I think that pushes her to realize that it’s bigger than just her now, and she’s got to protect her baby from him as well.”
In the end, James’ siblings, Richard and Honoria (Mia Threapleton) come to Jinny’s aid. They hatch a plan to distract their brother and smuggle Jinny and Freddy out of the home.
While James and Richard talk downstairs, Honoria finds Freddy and escapes in a carriage with the infant. But once James realizes Freddy is gone, a fight ensues. Richard briefly knocks out James and runs upstairs to free Jinny from a locked room. But as they try to escape, they encounter James holding a gun.
Richard, again, distracts James so Jinny can run away. After she flees, James points the gun at his head while Richard tries to talk him down, telling his younger brother they can fix things together.
The scene then cuts to Jinny hiding behind a tree on the property as a gunshot goes off. As she rushes back to the home, she finds James catatonic over Richard’s lifeless body.
Why Does Lord Seadown Kill His Brother, Richard?
In the lead up to Richard’s shocking death, his family’s dynamic is explored more in depth after his mother, Lady Brightlingsea (Fenella Woolgar), helps James pull off framing Jinny at the opera. But once Jinny is removed from the asylum and back at his estate, Lady Brightlingsea admits that her middle child may have taken the situation with Jinny too far. Speaking to Richard, the matriarch recalls how James was always a “funny fish,” struggling to socialize with other children but desperate to please his older brother. She suggests that James wanted to marry an American woman, Jinny, because Richard did.
Richard uses this knowledge to distract James in his rescue of Jinny and Freddy.
Fishwick says in an interview with TODAY.com that the murder was a “vindictive” act on James’ part and compares his character’s dynamic with Richard to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel.
“You don’t necessarily see a lot of it in Season 1 or 2, but it’s kind of interesting looking back and thinking that there’s probably some kind of status dynamic going on between Richard, who’s the charming, easygoing, firstborn son, and James, who doesn’t inherit a title. I think he finds people a lot more difficult. There’s this kind of brotherly tension,” Fishwick explains.
Dylan tells TODAY.com that while the death may come as a surprise to audiences, he understands it. “I think it makes a lot of sense,” he says.
He says his character’s death made his scenes with Boe’s Conchita, whom he married at the very start of the showย โ Season 1, Episode 1ย โย all the more special.
“We just tried to be really present with each other and have a lot of fun,” Dylan says. “Our relationship is in a really lovely place when that happens.”
Boe chimes in and adds, “It makes it more heartbreaking and gut-wrenching.”
While Conchita was introduced in the series premiere as a free spirit, wild child American who clashes with her new husband’s strict family, Boe says her character’s grief will put her in survival mode.
“Now sheโs a single mother, and on top of that, she has to worry about taking care of her household because they are in financial distress,” Boe says. “I think the grief of losing her Dickie, it made her have to realign her priorities and … she just had to really hunker down and be like, ‘You know what? This is what I have to do to survive.'”
