‘Poldark’ Season 5, Episode 4 Recap: So You Want to Start a Revolution?

Poldark Season 5, Episode 4 is full of random encounters and false starts. Ralph Hanson (Peter Sullivan) is still lurking about Cornwall, trying to get into business with the Warleggans while ruining Ned Despard (Vincent Regan) at the same time. If Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) is too tight with his bro to rat Ned’s firebrand tendencies to the authorities, then Hanson decides he’s going to work with the Poldarks’ disaffected maid Tess (Sofia Oxenham) to coax Ned into starting a rebellion. It’s a wild strategy, but since Ned likes punching aristocrats and knocking down doors, it might just work.

Does anyone else think it’s wild that this season of Poldark isn’t just off book, but is relying on two outside characters for most of the A plot drama? Just me? Okay.

Going back to the original Poldark cast, Dr. Dwight Enys (Luke Norris) has become the leading mental health expert in Cornwall. He is literally centuries ahead in terms of his knowledge and treatment, which is great news for Sir George Warleggan (Jack Farthing), who is in a grief tailspin. Dwight is visiting Sir George in secret, and he’s doing some pretty straightforward therapy stuff. You know, he’s like talking gently to Sir George and taking him to see Elizabeth’s grave, and asking him to relive her dying moments. Sir George still has a long path to tread to wellness, but he’s doing way better now that a man isn’t waterboarding him and covering him in leeches. He’s also getting a good man cry out.

However, Caroline Enys (Gabriella Wilde) is not content with her husband’s “secret” sad patient. She wanders the gardens aimlessly, speaking to Horace the Pug of her ennui, bitterness, and resentment. I guess Caroline is going to get depressed next, all to make Dwight appreciate her again. You know, since the writers can’t find anything else for Caroline to do.

Morwenna (Ellise Chappell) is also struggling with her sorrow over her separation from son John Conan. Drake (Harry Richardson) suspects that Morwenna isn’t just suffering from PTSD, but doesn’t want to have another child just to lose them (or forget about John Conan). However, Morwenna catches a rare glimpse of the boy while she’s out on a walk. She then straight up starts stalking him, hiding in thorny bushes and watching him play ball. She keeps doing this, and one day, Drake follows her, only to witness the day that John Conan makes contact. The kid doesn’t remember her, but seems eager to get to know the strange pretty lady crying in the bushes. Drake sees this and cries. The men on Poldark, they cry.

Morwenna might miss her son terribly, but Sir George and company are straight up letting Valentine run around down like a vagrant. Ross runs into the kid not once, but twice, and eventually decides that Valentine should maybe hang around with other kids. So lil’ V spends a day at the Truro school, where he tyrannically bullies the poor children trying to read. Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) is not happy about this, and it’s only after Ross explains he thought it would be better for Valentine to not develop an attachment to Nampara (on the grounds that it would cause friction with George), that she accedes. Ross also admits that he feels guilt over suggesting to Elizabeth that she bear George another child. Demelza says it wasn’t Ross’s fault, and yet the elephant is still in the room: Valentine is Ross’s illicit love child. 

But that’s not what’s rankling Demelza this week. Behind her back, Ross has been trying to secure a mortgage on Nampara and the rest of their assets just so he can purchase Wheal Leisure back from the Warleggans to reopen it. It’s all very Poldark Season 1. So much so that his old bank boy is back. Old bank boy repeatedly cautions Ross that Demelza’s not going to like him sacrificing everything they own for a mine, but Ross Poldark must do the right thing at all cost.

So when Demelza sees that Hanson and Tess’s plan to provoke Ned Despard going into motion, she knows that she has to find Ross. (Hilariously, she just tells Caroline to go home.) Demelza and Ross ride at once to Trenwith, where Ned is leading a “peaceful” march on the manor house. Only, it’s all too easy for Tess and her boys to egg the rebel on to bust down the door. While Ned really does seem to want to just talk, the rabble don’t. They want blood. Sensing danger, the mentally off-kilter Sir George attempts to shoot Ned, but he botches it and winds up falling down a flight of stairs, breaking his arm like a loser.

Ross and Demelza choose this perfect time to arrive and they save the day by convincing George to re-open Wheal Plenty, thus taking the rabble’s problem away from them. It’s perfect, really, because it means that Hanson loses, Ned doesn’t become a mob leader, Tess loses, and Ross doesn’t have to bother with mortgaging Nampara. When all is said and done, Demelza finally, politely, tells Ross she would have backed him but the mortgage was a dumb idea. Instead of arguing with her, Ross shows great character growth, saying something like, “WOW YOU ARE MY ANGEL. AND YOU ARE ALWAYS RIGHT.”

Elsewhere, young Geoffrey Charles (Freddie Wise) and Cecily Hanson’s (Lily Dodsworth-Evans) courtship hits a major snag. Cecily’s father arranges her engagement to Sir George. It is to be a business relationship, and neither party is thrilled. Young GC is so upset he admits to Cecily that he loves her. Cecily chills at this, saying he’s ruined their friendship. But by episode’s end, the two meet at the wishing well, and Cecily reveals that she loves him, too, and they should elope. Let’s see how many ways this plan can go wrong…

Finally, Tess gets her comeuppance. Just as the maid is stealing wine from her bosses, Demelza catches her and fires her. Tess leaves, but promises vengeance upon her masters. There’s no stopping a girl with revolution on the brain.

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