🚨Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1, of “The Buccaneers.”
Leighton Meester laced up her corset to join Season 2 of “The Buccaneers,” bringing to life a character shrouded in mystery after one of Season 1’s major cliffhangers.
In 2023, Apple TV+ released the first season of the romantic historical fiction drama, based on the Edith Wharton novel of the same name. The series follows Nan St. George (Kristine Froseth) and her gregarious group of friends as they leave behind the new money of New York City and venture into the stiff London society across the pond.
Season 1 ended with Nan marrying Theo, the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), even after it was revealed that she is illegitimate and born from one of her father’s affairs.
In the finale’s last scene, Colonel St. George, Nan’s father, told his wife and the woman who raised Nan, Patti (Christina Hendricks), that Nan’s birth mother was at the wedding.
The Season 2 premiere, which hit the streaming platform June 18, picked up right where things left off, with Hendricks’ character storming through the crowd before she encounters Nan’s birth mother: a woman named Nell, played by Meester.
“Nice hat,” Nell tells Patti as they are reunited for the first time in more than a decade.
Over the course of the Season 2 premiere, viewers learn that not only is Nell Nan’s birth mother, she’s also Patti’s younger sister.
It is revealed that after Patti had older daughter Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse), Nell moved in with the St. Georges. While living with the family, Nell had an affair with Colonel St. George, resulting in a pregnancy. After Nan’s birth, Nell absconded, and she didn’t lay eyes on her daughter again until her wedding day.
When Nan interrupts the two sisters, Patti simply introduces her sibling as “Aunt Nell,” keeping her identity as Nan’s mother a secret.
Meester tells TODAY.com in an interview that one of the questions she had to grapple with was why her character would choose to attend the wedding.
“(Nell) probably, in my mind, stayed away as much as possible, but always had her ear pricked to what was going on in Nan’s life, even before she was going to marry a duke,” she says.
So why now?
“I think that once it came out that Nan was illegitimate — the word that they were using — a little valve was released of the shame and the pain of all those years, of holding it in and thinking that it was the absolute worst thing, this mark on her, her family and Nan. And that it could potentially threaten Nan’s future,” Meester explains.
But as the events of Season 1 showed, Nan’s secret being exposed didn’t have the impact she feared.
Nan’s heritage was revealed behind her back, but she later publicly owned it. Theo also stood up for her, strengthening their relationship in the lead up to their eventual marriage.
“(Nan) was able to freely open up about this information. I think that it freed Nell to some extent to go,” Meester says.
In the premiere, Nell’s arrival certainly makes for a dramatic entrance, the “Gossip Girl” actor adds. But for Meester, her character’s goal was simple.
“She knew where (Nan) was going to be at one moment, one place in time. I think she maybe didn’t think, ‘I will go tell Nan.’ But (she went) at least to have some kind of contact, because to be away for so long from your own family is devastating,” Meester says.
As for what her character has been up to for the past 19 years, Meester says she was “focused on forging ahead.”
“I also think that she did, in my mind, spend many years punishing herself. And, I would put this in quotes, but ‘behaving badly,'” Meester adds. “Because I think that’s what she thought she deserved and what was expected of her.”
“So she wasn’t living a, quote, unquote good life,” she continues. “I think she was probably treating herself and others poorly during those years because she felt she was not good enough.”
Episode 1 ends with Nell offering Nan advice as her daughter suffers immediate regret for marrying Theo due to her lingering feelings for Guy (Matthew Broome). Then after a heart-to-heart with Patti, where Nell reminds her older sister that she was younger than Nan is now when she got pregnant, the sisters return to New York together.
To Meester, Nell represents someone who survived the pain of not only giving up her child, but also the turmoil of living with that choice and keeping it a secret.
“I think you get the chance now to say that was the correct choice and the braver choice,” Meester says. “And that still remains today, when people have to make a decision like that. It is almost always the more sound choice if they’ve thought it out, which usually people have.”
Meester meticulously crafting her character’s backstory is one of the many reasons co-stars Kristine Froseth and Christina Hendricks praised her addition to the cast.
“We love her,” Hendricks tells TODAY.com. “I was really, really excited about the casting when I found out about it. I had never met her before, but I was a fan, and so (I) didn’t know what to expect.”
Hendricks notes that Meester was also tasked with joining a large ensemble cast that had already developed chemistry.
“It’s always strange to come in as a newcomer when a show is already established and on its way, but she just fit right in,” she says.
“(Meester) came in with lots of great ideas and great questions and just seamlessly fit in immediately,” she adds.
Froseth reveals it was “nerve-wracking” after Meester’s casting was announced and she learned she would portray her birth mother. The 29-year-old actor is a huge “Gossip Girl” fan, but Froseth’s nerves quickly settled once she met Meester.
“She’s so down to earth, and so down to talk about character, and immediately wanted to do that,” Froseth recalls. “We didn’t have much time beforehand to prep, but right away we started texting.”
She says they created a group chat so they could all be on the same page by the time filming began. For Froseth, the communication established a “support system” she could lean on.
“I’m really glad we had each other, because those dynamics are so nuanced and things move so fast in the show. I think it was important for me, at least, to get to talk to you guys about how you were feeling,” she says, while gesturing to Hendricks.
The “Mad Men” alum agrees, adding that with only eight episodes, there isn’t as much time to explain the history between their characters. So, the three of them worked together to ensure audiences could sense the strained and complicated relationship.
“‘What would have happened the last time they (saw) each other? What has transpired in that amount of time? Who lived where?’ were some of the questions they discussed,” Hendricks shares. “Just technical things that the audience may not see right away, but will definitely enrich the performance and (were) important for us to have the relationships we wanted.”
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