GENTLEMAN JACK Season 1: A Cozy Romance Worth Falling For

To say British history has been well-explored by film and television would be a bit of an understatement; we’ve all seen our fair share of courtly romances, back room social maneuvering, and reverent portraits of kings and queens. The staid British period piece is basically a genre unto itself, and unless you have an indefatigable appetite for this sort of programming, you probably skip a fair amount of it.

Gentleman Jack is here to spite your weariness and show there’s still corners of history that haven’t been explored, or at least haven’t been pulled from hidden bookshelves and decoded. The latter, you see, is how the source material for this series about the first modern lesbian, Anne Lister (Suranne Jones), was brought to light.

First modern lesbian is a rather grand moniker, but it simply means that she clearly identified as a woman who only loved women, and the reason we know this is because her extensive (and deliciously candid) diaries survived. Millions of words in length with the juicy bits written in code, it was hidden in her family’s estate for decades because the idea of women in the early 1800s wearing lockets containing each other’s pubic hair was a tad scandalous (sadly this is not covered in season 1 of Gentleman Jack, but hey, gotta leave stuff for season 2).

Instead, we get the tale of Lister revitalizing her family estate and searching for the period equivalent of a wife. Her target quickly lands on her wealthy neighbor Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle) and off goes an eight episode season of courting and scheming brought to you by the BBC and HBO.

Establishing, Breaking, And Fumbling With Genre

If you read anything about Gentleman Jack, you’ll probably see Downton Abbey and Fleabag getting name-dropped, and for good reason. Their influence is undeniable, both in the upstairs/downstairs drama of Downton (and subplots involving pigs) and in the cheeky fourth wall breaks of Fleabag. It’s an odd mix, to be sure, but it’s the way series creator Sally Wainwright decided to handle the blend of period and modern flair.

There’s no way around the fact that Lister was a woman out of her time, so doing any sort of straightforward period piece would’ve felt wrong. And yet the story is stuck in 1830s Halifax, and Wainwright made the firm decision to mix British TV standards in a way that highlights her main character’s incongruous surroundings. It’s a testament to her experience and skill that this works at all, and that it makes Lister pop so vivaciously is one of the great joys of season 1.

However, it does mean there’s a lot going on throughout the season. Too much, in fact, with subplots about a lady-maid’s pregnancy, a mysterious carriage accident, and the possible marriage of Lister’s sister not really having time to go anywhere. The series would feel less meandering if it had stuck to its two main plots: the courtship of Anne and Ann (no need for a ‘call me by your name’ request with that pairing) and Lister muscling her way into the coal business in order to rejuvenate her estate.

Now I know that meandering is part of the charm with Downton-esque shows. They lean on a certain coziness that means nothing gets too dire, but the situations Lister encounters are a bit dire. The need to show the very serious repression of women in 1800s England is unavoidable, and having Anne brush these obstacles off with ease and bound to the next thing does undercut some of the narrative drive. It’s a sign that the influences for Gentleman Jack never quite blended evenly, but that’s hardly an unusual problem for a show’s first season.

Cozy Is As Cozy Does

Period pieces get a certain audience drooling for exquisite sitting rooms, sweeping countrysides, and outfits, outfits, outfits. If the meandering in Gentleman Jack leaves you a bit underwhelmed, at least these production elements never let you down.

Shibden Hall, Lister’s estate, still stands, and it was used as a shooting location for the series. Furniture, tea sets, and all other accouterments are just so, but the true delight comes from wallowing in the costumes designed by Tom Pye.

There’s the usual puffy sleeves and big skirts on the ladies while the men trounce around in bright colors that were apparently befitting the time. Lister, though, defied all convention of dress, and it’s with her getups that Pye’s work really shines.

From the few descriptions and portraits we have, Pye came up with a man on top, woman on bottom look for our protagonist. Her everyday outfit is a skirt, collared jacket, and top hat, all black, giving off a period butch vibe that for the first time doesn’t make me feel depressed to consider time travel. The variations we see throughout season 1 all feel very Anne, as if they’ve been refined to her exact specifications over decades. The reality is that Pye invented a look we’ve never really seen before and can’t be found in any reference book. They are, in no uncertain term, masterpieces.

Can You Feel The Love

No matter how the rest of the show went, if the central romance between Anne and Ann had floundered, the show would’ve gone nowhere fast. It all really hinged on Jones capturing Lister’s irresistible swagger and Rundle showing Walker’s hard fall, and the two found a perfect balance that kept the romance strong yet tenuous.

Jones will get the vast majority of the praise since she carries the series squarely on her back. The singularity of Lister is the reason we’re all here, and while Jones nails the blustery confidence that makes her so magnetic (the walk alone shows that Jones is one of the rare actors to master changing body language), she and Wainwright don’t shy away from her prickly sides. It took a strong will to live as she did, and that means she could be demanding, brusque, and occasionally downright cruel. She’s often the smartest person in the room and knows it, and her manipulations sometimes make her true motivations with Ann difficult to suss out.

Just when you think the series is making Anne a bit too harsh to latch on to, Jones flashes a side-eye to the camera, occasionally a monologue, and that roguish charm pulls you right back in. These moments feel almost directly lifted from Fleabag, and it’s those literal inside jokes between the audience and the protagonist that make you connect so strongly with Lister and Jones’ performance.

In comparison, it’s easy to overlook the more traditional role Rundle is playing. Her character is not the iconoclast, but she’s being asked to defy convention, her family, and her whole world to follow Lister. And make no mistake, the power dynamic in this relationship is tipped very strongly to one side, but Rundle manages to take her character through an awakening, an embrace of joy, and a pressure-fueled breakdown without making her feel like a mismatch to the ever-sturdy Lister. Both characters fall for each other, and it takes both performers to make that delicate dance seem beautiful.

A Strong End Lifts An Adequate Season

The first season of Gentleman Jack is a largely amiable watch, putting a character we’ve not seen before in a series that feels quaintly familiar. It subverts without feeling subversive, meaning that it can play to a wide audience without getting pigeonholed as a show for queers and allies.

People up on gender politics will note how carefully the story is being played. Yes, Anne Lister behaves in a very masculine way and speaks some plain truths about what Cameron Esposito refers to as “gender f*ckage”, but the way the relationship between Anne and Ann plays out is rooted in this heteronormative idea of the masculine one being steady and strong while the feminine one is damaged and flighty (an idea that, while a familiar trope, isn’t true of any relationship). It’s not until the last episode of the season (150+ year historical spoiler coming) that we see the series finally, and affectingly, become subversive.

Lister and Walker are pulled away from each other late in the season, and Lister’s plans to get into the coal business have put her family on the brink of financial ruin. She breaks down in the last episode, with heartbreak and fear finally cracking her protective shell. Cue Walker’s entrance, as if she’s a knight in shining armor arriving to right everything.

Anyone who’s heard of Anne Lister will know that the two eventually settle down together, and at the tail end of the first season we get to see them tenderly commit to each other and begin life as a healthy couple on relatively equal footing. These moments feel painfully honest about romantic relationships between women (particularly if the relationship includes a rather masculine-leaning woman) because it finally feels like we’re seeing it from the inside. Here’s the vulnerable, private moments, and with a second season already ordered, hopefully the series can continue in this more rewarding vein.

Did you get hooked on Gentleman Jack? What do you think were its strongest elements? Let us know in the comments!

Gentleman Jack season 1 is currently airing on BBC One and has aired in full on HBO.