Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Buccaneers” Season 2, Episode 8.
Nan St. George’s duchess happy ending did not go as she planned on “The Buccaneers” Season 2 finale.
When the Duchess of Tintagel (Kristine Froseth) realized that she was pregnant with Theo’s (Guy Remmers) baby, she had a hard choice to make. Though the two had fallen out of love and Theo moved on with one of her best friends, Nan had a plan to keep her newfound power intact by surprising him and the court with the baby news.
But too bad for our duchess, Theo had a scheme of his own. At Nan’s masquerade ball, Theo announced that the couple abdicated their title, leaving Nan pregnant and alone with his heir.
“If they’d only spoken about it before, before this ball, then they could have made some decisions together. But no, they’ve made it feel even more of a mess for the end of Season 2,” executive producer Katherine Jakeways told TheWrap.
Now an expectant single mother, Nan must confront her options, looking toward the two closest women in her life — her mother and sister — who are also without male counterparts.
“Nan is grappling with suddenly finding herself having a voice, and what that kind of power means,” EP Beth Willis told TheWrap, but having it suddenly stripped from under her. “The reality of having a baby — and she’s seen it happen with her sister Jinny — is that, in the end, the power is Tintagel, is the Dowager, is Theo.”
The power dynamics are quickly revealed as Theo’s mother the Dowager assures him she has a plan as well. Once her son abdicated the throne, the Dowager called up her husband’s son from an affair, Theo’s half brother Kitt, who he doesn’t know about, to take over the title of Duke of Tintagel and keep power in the family.
Though Nan is not aware of this yet, she is cognizant that the power relies in Theo’s family line and not hers.
“[Nan] knows that Theo would never do something like Seadown did,” Willis said. “But he and his mother could easily say, ‘We’re in charge of all the decisions of this child’s life, and you can go and stay in a cottage in the country 200 miles away.’”
While the executive producers did not give many teasers for a potential Season 3 — which has yet to be ordered by Apple TV+ — they did note that their minds are already swirling around what’s ahead for the young women at the center of “The Buccaneers.”
“The future’s all to play for,” Jakeways said. “There’s loads more that we’re sort of imagining that could happen with these girls.”
The duo did tell TheWrap that they want to continue to mature and expand the series as the girls’ level up in their status in society.
As for the other buccaneers, their lives have not been without their disappointments, too. Conchita (Alisha Boe) lost her husband and the father of her child, Richard, after he was killed by Jinny’s (Imogen Waterhouse) abusive husband Lord Seadown. Though not always easy, the two friends became closer and more reliant on each other after their losses. The EPs teased that this next chapter for Conchita will see her not just survive but thrive.
When Nan found out that Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag) slept with Theo while they were married, she was extremely upset. The two women confronted one another at the masquerade party and acknowledged that neither of them have been perfect. Rather than strictly painted as the other woman, Lizzy candidly confronts Nan about holding tightly to Theo when she doesn’t even love him.
“We wanted Lizzy to have some comeback,” Jakeways said. “She just fell in love with this man who Nan had decided she didn’t even want, so the kind of hypocrisy of that for her felt really important that she would suddenly find a voice in that scene.”
As for the Guy (Matthew Broome)-Nan-Theo love triangle, Nan leaves it all behind, running for who knows where in the final moments of the season. Her husband has left her for her best friend, her lover has a new wife and now she has a kid on the way. The EPs said they left the ending “intentionally ambiguous” to leave Nan’s future on the table.
“There is a world in which it is the worst thing for her that she’s leaving Tintagel behind,” Jakeways said. “And there’s also a sense, possibly, that maybe this isn’t the worst thing in the world, that actually she’s got a sense of freedom and a sense of relief to be leaving the castle behind, even if it’s not forever.”
All episodes of “The Buccaneers” Season 2 are now streaming on Apple TV+.
