"Bloody Mary" Makes Up for Wet "Gunpowder" in 'Lucy Worsley Investigates' Season 2 Finale

Thanks to the oddities of PBS scheduling, the second season of Lucy Worsley Investigates has aired sporadically throughout the last three months. We reviewed the first two episodes when they aired in January 2025, and with the final episodes now out, we’re back to wrap up the season. 

The concept behind Lucy Worsley Investigates is that historian and author Lucy Worsley sheds new light on some of the most infamous moments in British history. The episodes’ standalone documentary format means the strange airing schedule doesn’t detract from the season’s flow. The first two episodes tackled Jack the Ripper and William the Conqueror but focused more on the victims of their violent acts than the notorious men themselves. Episodes 3 and 4 are about Guy Fawkes’s Gunpowder Plot and Mary Tudor, AKA Bloody Mary.

At first glance, “The Gunpowder Plot” seems like a natural fit for this season, an episode that seeks to understand the background and motivations of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators. However, this episode is a major stumbling block for the season because Worsley doesn’t know exactly what she wants to say about Fawkes and his impact on British history. The episode has its work cut out, covering enormous swaths of political and religious history in Britain and internationally. Worsley does her best to lay out the roadmap for this complex history but, in doing so, loses the thread of the social history that makes her storytelling so compelling. 

One of the strong suits of Lucy Worsley Investigates is the new insight from non-historians who Worsley interviews for the series. In this episode, though, it’s another misstep. Worsley tries to understand Guy Fawkes as a domestic terrorist by speaking to journalist Jason Burke, who has written on terror and specifically al-Qaeda. The comparison of Fawkes to al-Qaeda is complicated because he and his co-conspirators came from wealthy English families who wanted to profit from a regime change. It’s an attempt at relevance that ultimately muddles the narrative about Fawkes’s motivations. The episode’s emphasis on domestic terrorism also likely hits differently in the current US political climate than when it aired in the UK in 2024.

Perhaps most frustratingly, Worsley opens and closes the episode by alluding to how the Guy Fawkes story has been sanitized and (mis)appropriated by present-day Guy Fawkes Night celebrants and political activists. She seems to be setting up a story about how the truth of the Gunpowder Plot was transformed into national mythology, much as she did with Jack the Ripper. However, she never goes there, bogged down as the episode is in explaining the political and religious context. American audiences might be left wondering about Fawkes’s legacy and present-day relevance.

If “The Gunpowder Plot” was a stumbling block, “Bloody Mary” is a return to form for Worsley that makes a strong closer for the season. Worlsey’s primary expertise is royal history, with programs like Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (which PBS renamed Secrets of the Six Wives), Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History, and Elizabeth I's Battle for God's Music. Naturally, an episode on Mary Tudor encapsulates the nuance and expertise gathered from a career in royal history.

Worsley depicts Mary as a politically savvy woman put in an impossible position who struggled with her mental and physical health. She also introduces the victims of Mary’s rule by highlighting Alice Driver, a Protestant farmer who was persecuted and burned at the stake. Worsley emphasizes both women’s humanity in the face of dehumanizing forces of gender inequality, religious intolerance, and political machinations. There is a particularly emotionally wrenching discussion and depiction of Mary’s phantom pregnancy that is a standout moment from the entire season of Lucy Worsley Investigates.

However, if “The Gunpowder Plot” pulled its punches on crafting a clear-cut depiction of Guy Fawkes, “Bloody Mary” goes a little too far in the other direction. Worsley outlines how Mary got her reputation as a bloody tyrant and comes to the conclusion that compared to the equally bloody track records of other monarchs, the “Bloody Mary” moniker is unfair. Worsley gives Mary the full girl boss treatment, dubbing her “a female trailblazer.” Given the strife that so many women went through under Mary’s rule, this distinction feels just as unearned as “Bloody Mary.”

There is no word on whether Lucy Worsley Investigates will continue for a third season, but there are countless more historical moments and figures that could use the Lucy Worsley treatment. Hopefully, Worsley will be back on our screens soon to “uncover forgotten witnesses, reexamine old evidence, and follow new clues.”

Lucy Worsley Investigates Seasons 1 and 2 are available now on most local PBS stations and can be streamed on the PBS app, the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel, and PBS Passport. Season 3 is not yet greenlit.