'Jamestown' Recap: Season 3, Episode 5

Previously on Jamestown: This season continues to spiral into the absurd, as the entire colony becomes obsessed with a random palomino horse from…somewhere, and then spends the bulk of the episode chasing it through the woods. (I wish I was making this up.) But, thanks to Henry acquiring said magical animal after a complicated series of trades and tricks, he swaps it to Yeardley in exchange for securing his brother Silas’ safe return to Jamestown. I don’t know about y’all, but I’d rather have the horse. Need more details on this madness? Our recap of Episode 4 is here.

Originally, Jamestown was a show about women. Three very different women, brought to a strange and often hostile land, who struggled to build new lives for themselves. And, despite the ridiculous heights of…well, ridiculousness, that this show reached during its first two seasons, that fact is what held it together. What made Jamestown worth watching, even when it pretty much made up its historical facts out of whole cloth.

Unfortunately, that’s not always – or even often – the case in Season 3. With Alice gone home to England, and Verity sidelined in increasingly bizarre plotlines that have little impact on the main story, that leaves just Jocelyn. And, to be fair, she’s doing her best – scheming against Yeardley and Crabtree, flirting with James Read, and trying her darnedest to force the colony to give her the power she believes she deserves. But even Joss can only do so much.