'The Essex Serpent' Favors Star Power Over Plot

This one’s for my fellow Hiddlestans! Care of an Apple TV+ free weekend, I spent six episodes of The Essex Serpent (2022) making googly eyes over Tom Hiddleston as Will Ransome, a married pastor trying to resist Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes). Based on Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel of the same name, this is a moody tale exploring the literal and figurative things simmering under the surface in an English country village in the 1890s. The perpetually foggy town of Aldwinter builds an eerie atmosphere, though the story wants you to focus just as much on the sexual tension as the potentially supernatural mystery. The problem is Cora, our main character, can be thoroughly frustrating – especially when wrestling with her desires. The result is a somewhat uneven series, often relying more on star power than chemistry.

Cora is recently widowed and finally free from her wealthy husband’s abuse. She’s an educated Londoner passionate about natural history and an amateur paleontologist, utterly oblivious to her effect on others. She ends up with two competing suitors, Will and Dr. Luke Garrett (Frank Dillane), plus the unrequited love of her long-time lady-in-waiting, Martha (Hayley Squires). Martha delivers this devastating line in the fifth episode: “Do you have any idea how painful it is to love you?”

The series is also partly a story about PTSD and shame, with Cora plagued by nightmares of her husband’s violence. She hides a scar on her neck from when he branded her with a hot poker. Her past hampers her ability to trust, but her lack of skill at reading people means she really steps in it sometimes.

Cora’s scientific interest in sightings of a “mythical” serpent in Essex brings her to Aldwinter, where the villagers believe a creature lives in the marshes. Bringing her son Frankie (Caspar Griffiths) and Martha to town, she sets out to prove it’s a surviving dinosaur. The villagers do not welcome Cora’s presence; a local girl, Gracie (Rebecca Ineson), is missing, and they believe the serpent is a literal manifestation of the devil coming to punish them for their sins.

As their pastor, Will attempts to lead his flock with logic over superstition, but he’s fighting a rising tide of panicked townspeople. Will and his family befriend Cora, enchanted by her knowledge and passion, and they support her efforts to counter the villagers’ fear with facts. Will doesn’t believe the serpent is real, but Cora’s insistence that it could be an animal that “escaped evolution” is somewhat infectious.

At times, it seems Will’s charming wife Stella (Clémence Poésy) is pushing Will and Cora together. However, when the inevitable attraction occurs between the two, it feels uncomfortable, not exciting – if for no other reason than Stella is exceptionally likable. It’s less of a will-they-or-won’t-they and more of a please-don’t. The lack of chemistry between Danes and Hiddleston is a factor.

Her friend Luke, a young doctor on the precipice of performing the first successful open-heart surgery, adds to Cora’s romantic confusion. He pursues Cora well past the good point for him, with even Martha warning him not to waste his love – she wouldn’t know what to do with it. Luke is a fun character, a charismatic, funny prick, but good lord, I want to brush his hair. Danes and Dillane have chemistry, but this is not their story. 

(If you’re struggling to place the actor, Dillane played the teenaged Tom Riddle in Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. While we’re in the neighborhood, Clémence Poésy was Fleur Delacour.)

What at first was a safe way for Cora to test desire becomes an obsession. When she yearns for Will, at one point not leaving her bed or eating, it pushes the limits of the audience’s tolerance. I was annoyed the second time Cora fell into bed sobbing over him. Girl, he is married, and his wife is your friend. Similarly, there is an element of high drama in both Will and Luke’s love for Cora. I like to call it Men Feeling Big Feelings!

Despite the unconvincing central relationship, there is enjoyment to be found in this series. Danes, Hiddleston, and all the cast members give solid performances; the grey color palette and perpetually cloudy days create an ominous setting, and the mix of Victorian and Gothic literature elements is compelling. Many themes are examined: Faith vs. science, fear vs. curiosity, religion vs. secularism, rural vs. urban, and upper vs. lower class. An interesting subplot revolves around Martha, a socialist and activist, fighting to improve living standards for the residents of London’s slums.

If you dig a bit of tortured longing, The Essex Serpent will be for you. All episodes are streaming now on Apple TV+.