REVIEW: ‘The Buccaneers’ Episode 5 — “Failed Betrayal”

In what is becoming something of a standard move, The Buccaneers Episode 5 flirts with fun ideas before instantly wilting underneath the sodden writing and less-than-stellar chemistry between actors. The series has so many things it wants to say and the writing desperately engineers ways to make those things come to be to prove its innate feminism but by forcing itself into a corner by being unable to live up to its own ideas. The Apple TV series is at its best when recognized as the high-budgeted soap opera that it is and at its worst when it aims for something more. 

From the usage of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl,” to three scenes that grind the episode to a halt, The Buccaneers Episode 5, “Failed Betrayal” wants to mean something. The problem is that while the series is aiming for a feminist slant on period costume dramas, it’s missing the mark by sliding more firmly into pseudo, “girl power” narratives that come across as more corporate and less organic. All of this could be helped with any level of restraint in the dialogue but instead, characters pour all of their feelings out onto one another so that there’s no questioning of who stands where. 

If there’s a moment that works it’s the one between Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) and Guy (Matthew Broome), two characters who haven’t spent much time together. Lizzy is still dealing with the fallout of her traumatic humiliation at the hands of the vicious James and laments to Guy that being full is the best feeling in the world, something he, a man, wouldn’t understand. She goes on to tell him that women are taught to be hungry in order to be small enough for a man to see them. It’s a thought process she vehemently resents, calling to question the logic of the need to disappear in order to be seen. 

It’s one of the very few moments in the series so far where the heavy-handed nature of the moment works, to a degree. Yes, we didn’t need it spelled out for us in such detail, but it speaks to a universal truth that isn’t as widely spoken about. Less effective is later, when Conchita (Alisha Boe) talks to Nan (Kristine Froseth) about how sometimes love is hating someone, an idea that is dated and yet still somehow weasels itself into most romance narratives. It’s one thing to be a part of an enemies-to-lovers storyline — eventually, we get to the love bit. It’s another to peddle the idea that loving someone means that sometimes we hate them too. This idea might work better too if the couples at the center of the romance possessed a spark of chemistry. 

But this belief wraps itself in the episode which largely deals with the fallout of the telegram Guy had sent Nan to confess his love to her. She finds out about it and quickly tells him she never saw it, demanding he tell her the contents. Up until this point they’ve had a friendly, mildly flirtatious relationship aside from one or two speed bumps but now she’s calling him “intolerable” as if we’re meant to believe their courtship has been akin to Pride & Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett’s rather than Jo and Laurie of Little Women. It’s a complete rewriting of their dynamic in order to justify their impassioned kiss when he declares all that he loves about them together and instead, it’s clumsy. 

It grows clumsier when we’re steered down the misunderstanding route where, once again, no one listens to one another and characters adopt the worst versions of themselves because of it. Theo is unnecessarily cruel to Guy despite them being best friends, while Nan believes Theo’s revelation that Guy was only interested in her to find a rich wife to help with his debt. It’s a frustrating, predictable spot for the characters to be in.

There’s a version of this show that is enjoyable if not boundary-breaking. The Buccaneers Episode 5 finds tucked-away moments of small delights, such as Guy and Lizzy’s scene and the sequence where Lizzy and Ginny languish in a boat instead of hanging out with their male counterparts. But the overall effect remains the same. It’s a forgettable series, with no defining qualities other than the continued, remarkable work of the costuming and set design. 

The Buccaneers Season 1 is streaming now on Apple TV+