As 'Belgravia: The Next Chapter' Continues, James Trenchard Is the Elephant In the Room

There's a reason period dramas usually end with a wedding rather than start with one. Marriage isn't easy, nor do the adjustments required to build a life with someone else always make for compelling television. As Belgravia: The Next Chapter continues, Frederick and Clara's life settles into something more everyday and more challenging than either had expected. (And that's without the whole "she fell down the stairs trying to run away from him in her anger over the way he treated her" thing from last week.)

Much of the season's second episode feels like table setting, in ways the series' pilot managed to avoid. But neither Frederick's obsession with going into business with the Marquise D'Étagnac nor the Rochesters' continued debate about whether their epileptic son can be allowed to visit with his other siblings occasionally are plots that are as interesting as the show seems to think they are, and while Emily Dunn's increasingly obvious (and desperate) attempts to make herself more attractive to local vicar James Trenchard are incredibly over the top, her behavior is as sad as it is entertaining. There's a weird power struggle going on between Clara and the new lady of the house and some of the downstairs servants, particularly Mr. and Mrs. Enright, who both seem reluctant to allow her to rock the comfortable boat of "the way things have always been" but so much.

The show remains at its best when it focuses on the various tensions between the newlywed Trenchards, who collectively brush off Clara's fall with the sort of mutual groveling that means this definitely isn't going to be the last time Frederick's boorish behavior is the cause of some pain (physical or otherwise) for his wife. Everyone is sorry and feels bad! Everyone is willing to forgive everyone else, without really doing any sort of genuine self-reflection! But, hey, Clara, sent Doctor Ellerby away when he showed up for his follow-up visit, so everything's fine again.