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Harlots (Season 2 and 3)
Nov. 19th, 2020 04:48 pmSeasons 2 and 3 (the last and final one as far as I know) continue to be both entertaining tv, delivering drama, tropes, and having lots of complicated female characters who have intense relationships with each other. It also has fantastic costuming, making the most of Georgian fashion, and having already started out as diverse only becomes more so each season. This is a Georgian London where people of color exist, and not just as bystanders in the crowd scenes but in leading roles.
I also was amused that it finds a way to cover all the era tropes while giving each of them a twist. Come s3, no sooner had I muttered "we haven't had debtor's prison yet" that this became a big plot point.
Is it perfect? No. For example, I thought the storyline Margaret Wells had through most of s2 put her on the wrong side of unsympathetic in the shades of grey game, and also in that season there were bits of weird discontinuity, as with ( something spoilery ). But honestly, none of these nits to pick seriously endangered my enjoyment of the show.
I also am amazed how well it did with Lydia Quigley, and I stand by my Empress Livia from I, Claudius comparison from my s1 review. By which I mean: what Lydia does is more often enough monstrous and even within the shady world the characters move in hands down evil. She also, in each season, causes pain to several other characters. And yet, without ever downplaying the evilness of Lydia Quigley's deeds, the show also provides us some background as to why she became who she became in s2. The relationships with Charlotte in s2 and with Kate in s3 further complicate her. Her fate at the end of s2 is such a great case of "on the one hand, yes, because given all she did, she really deserves something, but on the other, argh, not this" in the way yours truly felt when first watching young Caligula telling old Livia he won't make her a goddess and creeping on her while she's helpless and dying. I was a bit uncertain as to where the show could still go after s2 but my being torn about Lydia Quigley was a main reason why I was relieved there was a third season. And as with Livia, on those rare occasions when Lydia turns her villainous skills against a deserving subject instead of one of our heroes, you want to cheer. And of course she's the Queen of verbal Put-Downs. But on yet another hand, you also don't want her redeemed in the sense of having what she did handwaved away and everyone embracing her - this would have been horribly wrong. So the balance the show struck in how it dealt with Lydia for me was sublime.
If William North and Harriet were the most prominent poc characters in s1, in s2 they were joined by Noah Webster, and Violet gained a far more prominent place in the narrative. S3 introduced Elizabeth Harvey and her son Fredo. And while each of them is shown to be affected (in different degrees) by the way society treats people of their color, in no case is that the beginning and end of their characterisation, or their main storyline. Mind you, I suspect that one reason why William North becomes more and more involved with other pocs as the show continues is to prevent him being the black character who's only there to support the white characters in their various turnmoils, which given that he's Margaret's common law husband and her daughters' father figure would have otherwise been a danger. But one successfully avoided. As is Harriet ( acting spoilery )
And while we're talking about traps avoided: in s2 I kept waiting for a reveal that Charlotte ( was someone other than she was, which wasn't the case ) So much better! Thank you, show.
Rasselas the molly-boy got a more prominent role in s2, and s3 not only added a molly house but several male gay characters, after s1 and s2 already had given us both female bisexuals and lesbians. At first I wondered whether this would shift the female to male ratio of the show, but no, it didn't, not least because a part of the cast each season was in flux, and s1 and s2 had both killed off male villains.
Lastly, as with s1: most of the cast is in the sex trade, but the two extremes of prostitution depiction (especially in historicals) - either a prettified non-stop glorious romp or unending exploitative misery with everyone hating every second of it - are avoided. The reasons for prostitution are economical for most characters; some enjoy sex, some don't, and being bored by your john (though not letting him see it) is more common than being brutalized by him. Aristocrats tend to let you down (if they're not outright evil), though not all of them, and it's worth paying attention to your regular customer's wives, for they might surprise you (and not in a bad way).
Warnings: in every season, someone dies, and I don't just mean among the villains. The last major non-villainous death was a true shock for me, and I was very surprised that the show afterwards continued to work as well as it did, and that my attachment to the remaining cast was, if anything, heightened.
In conclusion: if you're in the market for a historical show of three seasons, with each season having only eight episodes, which has all the above named qualities, go for it! It's really worth your while.
I also was amused that it finds a way to cover all the era tropes while giving each of them a twist. Come s3, no sooner had I muttered "we haven't had debtor's prison yet" that this became a big plot point.
Is it perfect? No. For example, I thought the storyline Margaret Wells had through most of s2 put her on the wrong side of unsympathetic in the shades of grey game, and also in that season there were bits of weird discontinuity, as with ( something spoilery ). But honestly, none of these nits to pick seriously endangered my enjoyment of the show.
I also am amazed how well it did with Lydia Quigley, and I stand by my Empress Livia from I, Claudius comparison from my s1 review. By which I mean: what Lydia does is more often enough monstrous and even within the shady world the characters move in hands down evil. She also, in each season, causes pain to several other characters. And yet, without ever downplaying the evilness of Lydia Quigley's deeds, the show also provides us some background as to why she became who she became in s2. The relationships with Charlotte in s2 and with Kate in s3 further complicate her. Her fate at the end of s2 is such a great case of "on the one hand, yes, because given all she did, she really deserves something, but on the other, argh, not this" in the way yours truly felt when first watching young Caligula telling old Livia he won't make her a goddess and creeping on her while she's helpless and dying. I was a bit uncertain as to where the show could still go after s2 but my being torn about Lydia Quigley was a main reason why I was relieved there was a third season. And as with Livia, on those rare occasions when Lydia turns her villainous skills against a deserving subject instead of one of our heroes, you want to cheer. And of course she's the Queen of verbal Put-Downs. But on yet another hand, you also don't want her redeemed in the sense of having what she did handwaved away and everyone embracing her - this would have been horribly wrong. So the balance the show struck in how it dealt with Lydia for me was sublime.
If William North and Harriet were the most prominent poc characters in s1, in s2 they were joined by Noah Webster, and Violet gained a far more prominent place in the narrative. S3 introduced Elizabeth Harvey and her son Fredo. And while each of them is shown to be affected (in different degrees) by the way society treats people of their color, in no case is that the beginning and end of their characterisation, or their main storyline. Mind you, I suspect that one reason why William North becomes more and more involved with other pocs as the show continues is to prevent him being the black character who's only there to support the white characters in their various turnmoils, which given that he's Margaret's common law husband and her daughters' father figure would have otherwise been a danger. But one successfully avoided. As is Harriet ( acting spoilery )
And while we're talking about traps avoided: in s2 I kept waiting for a reveal that Charlotte ( was someone other than she was, which wasn't the case ) So much better! Thank you, show.
Rasselas the molly-boy got a more prominent role in s2, and s3 not only added a molly house but several male gay characters, after s1 and s2 already had given us both female bisexuals and lesbians. At first I wondered whether this would shift the female to male ratio of the show, but no, it didn't, not least because a part of the cast each season was in flux, and s1 and s2 had both killed off male villains.
Lastly, as with s1: most of the cast is in the sex trade, but the two extremes of prostitution depiction (especially in historicals) - either a prettified non-stop glorious romp or unending exploitative misery with everyone hating every second of it - are avoided. The reasons for prostitution are economical for most characters; some enjoy sex, some don't, and being bored by your john (though not letting him see it) is more common than being brutalized by him. Aristocrats tend to let you down (if they're not outright evil), though not all of them, and it's worth paying attention to your regular customer's wives, for they might surprise you (and not in a bad way).
Warnings: in every season, someone dies, and I don't just mean among the villains. The last major non-villainous death was a true shock for me, and I was very surprised that the show afterwards continued to work as well as it did, and that my attachment to the remaining cast was, if anything, heightened.
In conclusion: if you're in the market for a historical show of three seasons, with each season having only eight episodes, which has all the above named qualities, go for it! It's really worth your while.
