Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Buccaneers” Season 2, Episode 6.
Jinny St. George learned the hard way that Lord James Seadown has not changed as she might have wished after her time away in “The Buccaneers.”
After fleeing to Italy to hide out from her abusive husband and protect her son, Seadown (Barney Fishwick) found her and attempted to weasel his way back into her good graces. His coaxing could only go so far though, and when Jinny wouldn’t budge, he took what he knew she loved most — their son Freddie.
This is where Episode 6 of the Apple TV+ series took a grim turn. Immy Waterhouse, who plays the exiled Duchess’ sister and wife to Seadown, unpacked how she prepared for her character’s mammoth installment.
“The Buccaneers” actress told TheWrap that for the relationship to dissolve in the way it did it was important for her and Barney to establish that love was once there between their characters.
“Jinny and Seadown both wanted this to work,” she said. “They actually did really love each other at one point. There was something there, so the stakes had to be there that she would go back for, and that he would want her so badly for.”
Guy (Matthew Broome) brought Jinny back to her sister Nan and the rest of the girls in London, and Seadown still refused to tell Jinny where her son was. Nan attempted to save Jinny’s reputation and get Freddie back by planting a story in the papers, saying that Seadown was guilty and not her sister.
All seemed to be looking up until Jinny ran into Seadown at the opera. He laid a hand on her, and she reflexively slapped him on the balcony for all of society to see. With this public evidence, Seadown had the arsenal to send Jinny to a mental institution, hiding her away from Nan, Guy, her friends and of course her baby.
Waterhouse said filming the montage of Jinny breaking down in the solitary confinement suite was cathartic in a way.
“She’s having a nightmare,” Waterhouse said of Jinny’s time away from her son in the mental institution. “I had this huge breakdown scene that we get glimpses of in that montage. That was amazing to shoot, because it was just me and the cameraman, and our director let us put on really crazy rock music, and I just got to treat it like a rage room and scream and cry, which is really cathartic.”
The actress said that some darker elements of her asylum stay and longer scenes did not make the final cut of the episode.
“You see enough. You get the idea that Jenny is not having a good time,” she said. “I think it was a bit disturbing, because it is disturbing the nature of it.”
Seadown told the institution to refuse visitors — even her own sister — making Jinny believe that no one came to see her. All the while Seadown did not tell her where her son was until she apologized to him. Jinny eventually caved and told Seadown she would let the world think she’s crazy to have access to her baby, but asserted that she will never love him.
Once out of the asylum, Jinny’s visits were still limited and controlled by her manipulative husband. Waterhouse said that the tone of this episode not only felt different in content but also in look, sharing that the director of photography played with the sterile, dark feel.
“Our DP Simona [Susnea], who’s amazing and did those episodes, she loved the darkness of it,” she said. “You can see how much the lighting and everything really weaves into the whole mood of it all.”
When Jinny’s friends and family come to realize that Seadown was keeping her hostage, Seadown’s mother stepped in, asking his older brother Richard Marable, Lord Brightlingsea, (Josh Dylan) — who is married to Conchita — to talk some sense into him. Richard and Honoria (Mia Threapleton) visit their brother with a greater plan to steal Freddie out of his control.
Honoria successfully stole the baby, but Richard stayed back to protect Jinny. When Richard freed her from her locked bedroom, Seadown threatened to kill himself because he felt everyone in his life had betrayed him. Jinny escaped the house, leaving the two brothers alone with a loaded gun.
She heard a gunshot and for some reason returns to the door. “She thinks that Seadown has been shot,” Waterhouse said. “That’s what I had to make it because I was like, what? Why?”
Instead, it is Richard in a pool of his own blood, shot by his own brother.
“Obviously he is just this kind of awful guy, but you see glimpses of why, because he’s been brought up like this, and how it’s all just down to feeling very unloved,” Waterhouse said of Seadown’s motivation to kill his brother.
Waterhouse said shooting the montage of when she told Conchita (Alisha Boe) that her husband was dead was an emotional day on set. Jinny returned to town with dirty bare feet. All the women cried as she revealed what happened, but viewers do not hear and just see the emotional responses from each of her friends and Seadown’s family.
“It was really sad, actually shooting that scene. It was a really sad day,” she said. “You’ve got every character reacting to it. You have so many people really just going there and it’s coming from a real place.”
She said much of the scene was improvised, and there was extended discussion about whether or not you would hear what each of them said in the final cut.
As for Jinny’s future, Waterhouse said her reputation is “quite tarnished.”
“I don’t think she’ll be marrying anyone anytime soon. I don’t think she really wants to,” she said. “I think she’ll be quite focused on motherhood and rebuilding friendships.”
“The Buccaneers” releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
