Gentleman Jack Season One Review

Note: This review contains spoilers for the entire first season of Gentleman Jack. If you haven’t watched the entire season, please read the review once you have.

Gentleman Jack is a rarity in the TV world: a regency queer romance that is shored up by several great performances, where the show’s central lesbian couple actually ends up living happily ever after. Okay, sure, you could have used Wikipedia (like I did, as I have been burned a few hundred times by the Bury Your Gays trope) to check and see just what happened to Miss Anne Lister and Ann Walker (and yes, they do live happily ever after, at least until Anne’s death, wherein things get a tad depressing for Ann, but I suspect that’s a plotline for season five of Gentleman Jack), but the novelty of that realization at the end of Monday’s season finale was still pretty wonderful to see. The series, which was originally believed to be a limited closed-ended run but has now been announced as a continuing series, was successful in a number of ways. That being said, I’m still not entirely convinced additional seasons of the show are warranted, as the show’s most interesting element – the relationship between Anne and Ann – has been resolved, and the remaining elements of the series just aren’t nearly as compelling.

First things first, Gentleman Jack works almost entirely due to the wonderful performance of Suranne Jones as Anne Lister. A character this brash could easily turn the audience against her (despite all the strides we’ve made in the time since Lister’s life, strong, ballsy women still tend to get the ire of the audience), but Jones is conscious to make sure we see that this façade comes not from a natural confidence (which Lister certainly had), but from needing to develop a thick skin to survive. Lister manages to get nearly everything she’s ever dreamed of at the close of season one, but that came with a clear cost to her, her family, and the love of her life. Anne Lister didn’t live an easy life – far from it, as the show is clear to explore – but she managed to live the life she wanted to lead, even when it flew in the face of society of the time. Jones’s knowing looks to the camera throughout the series break the fourth wall much in the same manner as Phoebe Waller-Bridges’s Fleabag did, but they achieve a much different purpose. These looks implore us to see just how annoying and difficult the world around Lister is – and, from our 21^st century perch – commiserate how different her life might have been had she lived a century or two later.

The love story between Anne and Ann is also perfectly realized within their time (and, as great as Jones is, the romance wouldn’t work without the equally strong work from Sophie Rundle as Ann Walker). I didn’t quite buy Ann suddenly developing a backbone in the final half hour of the season (although I definitely bought her meltdowns over how society would view her relationship with Anne, as that is still something many LGBT individuals struggle with on a daily basis), but it certainly made for a dramatic moment that allowed Anne to fully reveal her own vulnerabilities (something the series needed to make clear). Nothing felt exploitative about their relationship, and so much of it felt completely natural from the word go (same with Anne’s other dalliances) – all clear hallmarks of a Sally Wainwright production (if you enjoyed Gentleman Jack, might I recommend Wainwright’s other excellent series Happy Valley – a very different story, but the same assured writing, acting, and directing). It was also a delight to see the wider Lister family love and accept Anne and her sexuality, while still not being afraid to criticize or challenge her when she made missteps in other elements of her life (of particular joy was the relationship between Anne and Game of Thrones favorite Gemma Whelan as her sister, Marian – Whelan spent years portraying Yara Greyjoy, a character with several similarities to Anne, so it was wonderful to see her in a completely different role here).

My issues with Gentleman Jack are few, but they are important to touch on. Outside of the goings on in Anne Lister’s immediate life (her family, her relationship with Ann, her travels), the season’s other plot points just didn’t resonate. The show is centered around its title character, so when she isn’t involved in the action, we have too great of a distance from the characters to really care about the goings on. The subplot with the Rawson brothers and the coal pits was perfectly fine, and gave us a bit of insight into how Anne is viewed by those who don’t particularly care for her (something we, as an audience, did need to see), but it was dreadfully dull compared to Anne’s other personal and familial adventures.

The other major subplot, Thomas Sowden killing his abusive father, was far and away the biggest misstep of the series. We didn’t spend nearly enough time with the Sowden family to understand just who they are and why they matter so much to the story as a whole (yes, they are tenants of the Listers, so they matter in that extent, but why them and not another family?). Anne barely spent any time with them throughout the latter episodes of the season, which further pulled this story away from hers, making it feel like we had ventured into a completely different series whenever Thomas would appear.

When a series is open about having its main character knowingly break the fourth wall, and then opts to spend significant time on an arc that only tangentially involves the main character, something isn’t quite working here (again, see Fleabag for how this can be handled correctly, as well as a clear indication of the limitations of having a lead breaking the fourth wall in her scenes). The tone of the show changed whenever it was in the Thomas arc, and that also presented challenges. It’s clear where the story is headed in season two (trouble for the newlywed Thomas, as his father-in-law realizes something is fishy with the missing dad), and that will, presumably, present a challenge for Anne. But, the series dropped the ball in setting this story up from beginning to end.

My hope for Gentleman Jack moving forward is that it continues its focus on the Lister family (and the Walker family, as their dynamic is also particularly intriguing – and I do hope we haven’t seen the last of Ann’s sister, Elizabeth, who I know won’t get out of that awful marriage, but who I hope will at least get some additional time with her family away from him) more so than the mysterious intrigue of town events (the Rawsons) and the murder mystery of the Sowdens – even though I know that won’t be the case. Most of all, I hope we get to spend more time enjoying the joy that Anne and Ann have found. Seeing LGBT characters happy and well-adjusted on television is still a rarity compared to their straight counterparts, and these two deserve to spend their remaining time together as happy as possible.