25 thoughts on “Outsourced Sanditon (2019) Recaps – Episode 6

  1. Are we watching Dynasty here or Jane Austen? There are no female widow ex-suiters who jilted the Hero by marrying someone elseband return x number of years later unencumbered in Jane Austen.
    The only thing nice here is that Charlotte FINALLY has found Bobby pins and wears her hair up.
    This is getting more ridiculous by episode.

    1. I came here just to read about her hair up. The actress, herself, is so much prettier with her hair up! She’s got that cute round face that is so matched by those little curls and the gold banding.

      Maybe with her hair up, she looks a little too “prim” for modern audiences, but it’s really so much prettier on her.

  2. Surely the name of ‘Lady Susan’ is an in-joke regarding another unfinished Austen story?

  3. The production brilliantly picked a storyline that Austen herself despised and made fun of in Nothanger Abbey, to wit: kidnapping and forced marriage. In fact there are indications that she planned to satirize a similar plotline, girl kidnapped to be raped by villain, in Sanditon.
    So Charlotte runs away to London to rescue her pal without money or a plan. Brilliant. Now if she’d gone up to London specifically to enlist Sidney, that would have made sense. He’s in London. He’s Georgina’s guardian he’s the obvious person to appeal too. But that would make too much sense.
    Mr. Molyneaux isn’t perfect, he’s got a gambling problem. But who cares, he’s still gorgeous.
    Charlotte and Sidney can’t wear proper costumes because they are respectively the hero and heroine. They must be ‘relatable’ and appealing to the modern eye.

  4. An even better question then where did Georgiana get an evening dress is WHY she’s wearing an evening dress for a long coach trip. What The Hell? And still no hat!

    1. I actually came to the comment section to say exactly that lol. Where did that dress come from? The only thing I can think of is perhaps Georgiana had clothing still in London and let her borrow a dress, but even that barely makes sense.

  5. There are no brothels because Jane Austen specifically did not write about things she knew nothing about. She never included scenes where men conversed alone without the presence of women because she did not know what those kinds of conversations would be like. I think we can agree that a brothel would be out of her experience.

    1. There’s also the little matter that no decent man, like our hero is supposed to be, would take a respectable woman with him to a brothel under any circumstances.

    2. And this is exactly why Andrew Davies’s writing is so irksome to me. He obviously has no idea how trauma works psychologically–and more importantly for his job–how trauma can be handled in a way that helps characterization and move the plot forward.

      The parlor-sex-scene: Is Claire supposed to be acting out sexual agency? For someone “ready to do anything to stay [in a stable environment of comfortable wealth]”, her behavior here makes so sense at all, and is really disrespectful.

      Austen did not write what she did not know. And in the 21-century, a man with with no small talent and access to the internet for research, decides to write what he does not know. Inexcusable.

  6. Thanks for the recap–I laughed out loud multiple times!
    The biggest frustration for me about the whole Georgiana plot was how she was simply a plot device. She should have been a much more developed character (since the writers were just spitballing everything, why not go all the way and make her someone with more common sense??), but her character arc just ended when Mr. Cute True Love was abruptly written out of the story because of a sudden gambling indiscretion. And if your attention wanders for a moment (as mine did), it’s hard to catch what happened.
    What a lovely evening gown, but way too expensive for someone like Charlotte! Just give her something more character appropriate–the designers and director were definitely going for a whole Beauty and the Beast thing.

    1. The Georgiana plot device (Georgiana comes with the appropriate name of Lambe) really irked me as well. Georgiana and Charlotte, as female friends, would have been together at the ball. And again later in the story — especially with Charlotte so instrumental in saving Georgiana being kidnapped. But alas not, since Georgiana’s usefulness to the story had ended. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if Georgiana’s character wasn’t Black. Instead it becomes a common trope seen with characters that are BIPOC — removed from the story once they’ve served the story line.

  7. The dance they are dancing is Landler which is a precursor to the Walt and it’s been around since at least the 1600s. My guess is they forced georgeana into that evening gown while she was at the brothel. Sidney did bring Charlotte into the brothel with him. She went in against his wishes that she stay in the carriage. There was sex in Austen, they may not have been explicit scenes but let’s not forget Wickham ran away with Lydia and they were found in a motel or whatever together will it be seduced a 15 year old got her pregnant and abandon her. The dress is borrowed from Lord babington sister.

    1. But why would they force Georgiana into a fancy and expensive evening gown for a long coach journey to Scotland? So weird.

      1. I thought that maybe it was a form of control, to force her to dress nicely for a wedding she has no desire to participate in. Seems like the kind of mind game that could conceivably go with a kidnapping scheme. But I’m also open to the idea that I give them too much credit and they just wanted to put her in a sparkly dress lol

        1. London to Gretna Green was more than a day trip wasn’t it? Is Georgiana supposed to wear the same gown day and night? Or have they brought others?

          1. It’s more than 300 miles from London to Gretna Green. Horse-drawn carriages went maybe 20 miles a day, maximum, and had to be changed out frequently to rest. Jane Austen was actually really accurate about this sort of thing which makes all these anachronisms so frustrating.

  8. Oh, I forgot to mention- the miraculous Chandelier moves up and down in order to be in the scene. Sometimes it is well above the actors, sometimes (I got a screenshot of it) it is way lower. Watching the ball scenes carefully the miracle chandelier placement becomes obvious.

    1. I hope reading about it brings a laugh, and I try to point out the good things as well as the funny things. :-)

      1. One of the problems with the production is the lack of , intentional, humor. Wall to wall angst and melodrama but none of Austen’s wit.

  9. Forgive me for a picky point, but though i am heartily with you on the absence of brothels, handjobs, and incest in Austen there ARE in fact donkey stud ventures. In the Sanditon fragment that exists, Lady Denham is speculating in “milch asses” for health purposes.

  10. Also WTF was up with Charlotte Sue spilling the drama about Georgiana to a total stranger? This is the sort of thing would have been HUSHED UP. No matter how much money Georgiana had, this would have ruined her reputation FOREVER, not to mention Mr. Hero and Charlotte Sue!

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