Poldark, series 4 episode 2 review - Ross and George's metaphorical battle for supremacy continues to win us over
So farewell, then, Hugh Armitage. Much of the second episode of the fourth series of Poldark(BBC One) was spent with the handsome Hugh languishing in his sickbed, as doctors covered him in leeches, bled him and trepanned him. Alas, it was all to no avail.
If that was a spoiler, apologies, but think of the upside: no more of Hugh’s snivelling poetry. Even as he carked it, he was churning out doggerel like an 18th-century Dr Seuss. It still beggars belief that Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) would have fallen for such a wuss.
She’ll get over him, I suspect, because moving briskly on is one of Poldark’s strengths. If you don’t like the slow-motion sequences or the silhouettes of puffy-shirted galloping on clifftops – and I don’t – then you won’t have long to wait for something better.
Something like the toe-sucking vicar Osborne Whitworth, for example, played with relish by Christian Brassington. Whitworth’s face when Morwenna (Ellise Chappell) told him that she wasn’t in fact pregnant, meaning he’d paid her off for nothing, was like he’d got wasabi up his nose.
If the vicar is light relief, the series’ motor remains George and Ross’s (Aidan Turner) battle for supremacy. Writer Debbie Horsfield has become adept at stringing this one out – last night it came in the form of a scrap by proxy, with both George and Ross backing their man in a wrestling match.
Ross’s natty brother-in-law Sam (Tom York) took on George’s gamekeeper Tom Harry (Turlough Convery). Everything in Poldark is a metaphor for Ross’s essential decency versus George’s wily manoeuvrings, and the wrestling match was no different: Sam fought fair whereas Tom went straight in with the eye gouge. Tom won the fight but as Ross had insisted that all winnings go to charity, Ross won the day.
Which tends to be what happens in Poldark – later on, there was another Ross/George metaphorical combat, this time for election to parliament. Once again it looked like George would win, until Ross did.
This does leave Poldark at a fork in the road, however. Having been elected, Ross must now go to London, leaving Demelza and Cornwall behind. Can you take the Cornish Show out of Cornwall? I don’t think Ross will be away too long.
