'Belgravia's Penultimate Episode is Just a Red Herring

The penultimate episode of Belgravia is an overstuffed hour of circuitous fake-outs, secrets, and surprise revelations that ultimately feel like they go nowhere, pushing the ultimate pay-off of the truth about Charles Pope's identity to the finale. In all honesty, it's so unnecessary. Would it have been the worst thing in the world to publicly reveal Charles' true parentage this week so that viewers might have some hope of watching any of these characters react to the fallout? Apparently so. Instead, the series' fifth episode is stuffed with many of the show's worst elements, all thrown together in a blender.

There's blackmail drama involving the Trenchards' dour and greedy servants, as John Bellasis tries to get them to steal the letters that not only prove Charles' status as the Brockenhurst heir but his legitimacy to boot, as it appears the dirtbag friend who "married" Edmund and Sophia was a clergyman after all. (Surprise!) There's a bizarre side plot where we learn that Charles built his business by shaking down a grieving widow to buy a mill and cheating on his taxes. It's a tremendously ham-fisted effort to throw some dirt on Belgravia's golden boy without harming his character. Charles tells Maria he's decided not to dispute the story to avoid inserting himself between James and his son Oliver. (A hero.)

Elsewhere, Maria's mother spends time posturing about how her precious daughter can't marry so far below her station because it'll ruin her life. This is all sly and entertaining the first time because we know that Maria will be marrying a future Earl and not a cotton mill owner, but by the fifth, it's nothing fun so much as tiresome. (Also, I remain baffled how Maria turned out so charming, intelligent, and capable when her mother is a monster.)