Droughtlander "Get Through It Initiative": Poldark, Part Five, A Recap

We start off tonight's Poldark certainly happy right? There's copper in that there mine! (Try reading that previous sentence with your best old prospector accent) Ross and Demelza confess their love and she's pregnant with his baby! I mean, obviously it's good times right? What could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, as it always is with a great drama, the happy endings are almost always short lived.

As usual with an hour of no commercials, several things of note happen in this episode. It starts off sweet enough with Demelza having a little girl. Watch Ross hold his daughter is one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. He's in awe of his little girl, perfectly happy with her, not disappointed that she isn't a boy. It's truly a fairy tale for him and for Demelza.

This episode really allows for Demelza to grow a bit more. Most of the attention has been on Ross and in this episode we get to see a lot more of Demelza coming into her own. I also love what they have done with her hair, having it flowing and long like that makes her look truly beautiful and she looks like a brand new mother with a certain glow. Job well done make up and hair team. Applause all around.

While Ross is dealing with his investors (who are selling out and dropping like flies), Demelza notes that her cousin in law, sweet Verity, is truly miserable with her situation and obviously lacking in love. At the christening and after, you can see the cogs in her head turning. She's going to do something about it, and that means going to see Captain Blamy.

Obviously it's been quite a long time since Verity and Blamy parted (thanks to Francis, a.k.a. Sir Dickbag), and when Demelza first arrives there, Blamy is very harsh with her and tells her that he's only married to his ship and does not think of Verity. I called bullshit because this is a TV show and there is no way in hell that that man hasn't just stopped thinking of her. My bullshit meter, was of course, right on the spot because later on in the episode Verity and Demelza are shopping for a cloak and he comes up behind them and in the midst of a riot, their true feelings came to be known.

As stated before, Ross is having to deal with his investors dropping and tries to buy them out but to do so is truly to much of a financial risk considering that to do so would be staking his entire property and house on the line and with a wife and child, that can't happen.

The most pivotal part of the entire episode is when Ross and Francis go to one of George's parties. You know, those parties where there are only men and whores, gambling, drinking and of course, talk of business. This is the 18th century after all, and those manly parties are almost always about business in one form or another. While there, Sir Dickbag is gambling and drinking with a friend of George and after a bad hand, he stumbles out, obviously angry. It turns out, that he gambled away his mine and lost. What does this mean exactly? Ross explains the situation to Demelza and therefore to us. By gambling away the mine, he has made himself destitute, losing his only source of income. The people who work for that mine, are now out of a job. It was the equivalent of a modern day corporate take over.

The final scenes of the episode involve Elizabeth, Verity and Sir Dickbag going to the mine to close it but he ends up writing a word in chalk on the mine. I don't know the exact word but it's meaning was clear. "We will rise again."

It is this episode that I finally find some respect for Elizabeth. She's pulled herself up by her bootstraps, not a child any longer. She's really coming to her own. She chose this man, money over love, and now she has no money but it's not bringing her down. She tells Ross that there are less fortunate people than herself and Francis and she'll make it work. She will do what needs to be done because obviously, Francis is not going to do anything except lick his wounds and feel sorry for himself.

What really surprises me, is how little Ross' cynicism has lessened. Here he is, in love with his beautiful wife, a father to a beautiful daughter, and when Demeleza makes that comment, after the christening, about how she believes "love conquers all" he responds that he didn't believe that. That love shouldn't disrupt the lives of others, or something like that. Crazy right? Ross, you can say, is definitely consistent in his behavior, level headed and not above mistakes but he certainly doesn't have a very bright view of the world around him.

It was the best thing, seeing Demelza truly start to shine and I'm hoping that next week, Verity and Blamy damn well run away together, but it looks like Ross is going to be gambling with the same cad that gambled Francis out of his livlihood. Well, here's to hoping anyway. Until next week. :D