England may have narrowly avoided a war with Spain in last week’s episode of Mary & George. But in Episode 6—the penultimate installment of the deliciously deviant limited series—the country, and all of the self-serving characters who inhabit it, are critically injured and bleeding out regardless. The constant power struggles fought by the malevolent matriarch Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore) and her equally capricious son George (Nicholas Galitzine) have waned now that they have gotten used to their posts inside King James I’s (Tony Curran) court. But the problem with sitting on a hard-won throne is that there’s always someone you stomped on while climbing to it, waiting in the shadows to take your seat.
This week’s episode opens in 1620, two years after the events of Episode 5. We know that time has passed because George’s short hair is now flowing at shoulder-length, and Galitzine should really consider working this lace front as a full-time thing, because George has never looked more dashing. But despite all of the Olaplex George is running through his mane to keep it silky and sexy for his royal lover, the king’s interest in George is declining. James has other things on his mind, namely the protests outside of his door, which haven’t died down since James decided to behead Sir Walter Raleigh for plotting treason and trying to incite that pesky war with Spain.
As chants of “King James: Spain-fucker!” grow louder outside, the inside of the royal palace is eerily quiet, more morose than ever before. Queen Anne (Trine Dyrholm) has succumbed to several illnesses, dying at the age of 44. In the weeks leading up to her death, James could barely bring himself to speak to his wife, and after her passing, hasn’t even been able to see her, lying embalmed in her coffin. But that neglect presents an additional problem: Anne needs a proper funeral, and James and George’s reckless spending has left no more money for state-sponsored service. In turn, James has left Anne to lay lifeless while he putters about, angering their son, Prince Charles (Samuel Blenkin), with his carelessness.
Mary and her lady-in-waiting/lady-for-licking, Sandie (Niamh Algar), make their way to the palace to pay their respects to Anne. When George appears, Sandie leaves the two of them alone to talk. “I am in the king’s court,” George tells his mother. “I can’t have my mother fraternizing with street girls.” Mary, tired of hearing Sandie relegated to her former profession, fires back at her son. She jests that the king will have to open English parliament to raise taxes to pay for his wife’s funeral, further angering the people who have already taken to protesting his rule. “We’ll cope, it’s under control,” George responds. “Whose?” Mary asks in return. “He’s disappeared. Does he know of Anne’s decay, or yours? How easily you’re bought. There are songs in every tavern about the ‘Marquis of Fuckingham,’ his greedy brother, and all they take, take, take.”
George tells his mother to stop picking a fight. “You’re not even on the battlefield anymore.” Mary, an expert in besting people with actions rather than words, takes a bow and leaves. Walking away takes remarkable restraint, since saying Mary is not a formidable opponent is like saying that water is not wet or King James doesn’t take it up the ass: It’s simply not true. George, however, knows his mother is right, and tells James that he needs to open parliament, while Mary and Sandie regroup outside the palace to plot.
“Each time I see George, he sees less of me,” Mary tells her beloved companion. Sandie doesn’t understand why Mary stays in the fight with all of her power and her titles, and wonders why Mary doesn’t just leave so they can be together somewhere else. “What then?” Mary asks. “Wait for some new lover to replace George and take all our family has in spite? What is enough, anyway? Even the king doesn’t have enough. Why should I have less?”
But once those in power reach a certain status, even more authority naturally comes at the suffering of others. While they’re apart, Sandie is attacked and jailed for the murder of Sir David Graham, whom Sandie and Mary killed with poisoned prunes in Episode 2. Mary runs to her aid, promising to free Sandie through more of her maneuvering. “All that got me in here,” Sandie protests. “We tempted them, didn’t we? Me, walking around like you, dressed as one of them.” Mary tells Sandie that, despite her origins as a prostitute and house servant, she was always better than anyone else they mingled with. It’s a heartbreaking moment, a rare bit of tenderness from Mary, who loves Sandie deeply but also sees herself in her companion. The two women did, after all, start in the same profession, with Mary finding her way out sooner.
While Mary looks for a way to free her lover, George tries to renew the bond with his. After Anne’s funeral, George and James meet together to mourn privately. George asks if James loved Anne, to which James replies, “I don’t know, love changes like a liquid in your hands you can never really grip.” Hoping to get some security, George tells James, “My love for you is as firm as the ground we stand on,” but James is hesitant to believe the boy he plucked from obscurity so many years ago, especially now that George has found his own wife, Katherine (Mirren Mack), who is pregnant with their daughter.
Marriage and pregnancy are of equal concern to Edward Coke (Adrian Rawlins), whose daughter Frances (Amelia Gething) is busy jumping from man to man after Mary’s first-born son John (Tom Victor) had to be shipped off to an asylum to recover from catatonia. Coke sees his daughter’s dalliances as the result of Mary and George’s scheming; they’re the ones who plotted to have Frances married off to John to secure Frances’ dowry. The English privy council, which Coke is a member of, meets to work out government funding, where George and Coke get into it with one another. “We are a family, let us act like one,” George tells Coke. “If I ever act like your family, may god strike me down into a pit of plagues and pestilence,” Coke responds. And with that, Coke resigns, but not before announcing his plans.
“Parliament is voting tomorrow on new committees,” Coke says to the council. “One to deal with the Spanish threat, another to search for corruption at the heart of our own state. I will lead both.” Coke has made his position on the Villiers family clear, which doesn’t bode well for Mary, as Coke is the only one who can secure Sandie’s freedom. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Mary begs for Sandie’s release, but Coke is steadfast. “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do, is there? Well, with me, it all stops. After your girl hangs, or even before, let’s see what we can do about your George too. Maybe his own cell to rot in, as he let our queen rot, for the rest of his sorry life. Mary, the abyss before you? Weep, beg. But it will not change.”
Things are quickly turning to utter shit all around George and Mary, and Francis Bacon (Mark O’Halloran) pleads with George to use his masculine wiles to woo the king into doing something about Coke, lest their entire united front fall. George begs James to imprison Coke for plotting sedition by looking for corruption in the king’s court, but James won’t relent. Closing parliament and stripping Coke of his new power will lead to a civil war.
Coke and his men visit George’s younger brother, Kit (Jacob McCarthy), to raid his home and take anything bought with state funds. Kit narrowly avoids being caught and arrested, and makes his way to George to warn his brother so the two can escape together before Coke comes for George too. In last-ditch desperation, both boys run crying to mommy, who revels in their despondency. “I’m waiting for my apology,” Mary says when both boys ask for her help. But just asking isn’t enough. Mary forces her sons to kneel before her while she explains her plan. She wants George to get a pardon for Sandie, and then to go Coke, telling him that they will testify against Bacon—who has also been spending government funds and secretly providing info to the Spanish—if Coke relents against the Villiers. Given that Coke and Bacon are lifelong rivals, Mary considers Coke’s yielding a sure thing.
George goes to Diego Sarmiento de Acuña (Unax Ugalde), the Spanish ambassador to England, who has been paying Coke to reveal the state secrets. George wants proof that Bacon is in Diego’s pay, and promises Diego whatever he wants in return, which Diego accepts. With all of her pawns in place, Mary goes to Bacon to tell him that he’s lost. “Sacrifice yourself or hang,” she says, before reading one of the letters Bacon wrote to Diego years prior, when the Villiers were just coming up. “‘My dear Diego, this boy the king shines to, he seems a future we might ride. The mother is a foul, wretched cunt, but one I can handle.” Mary smiles while reading the line about herself, knowing she’s won. Bacon agrees to avoid death by hanging by turning himself in on a count of corruption.
“He will suffer lifelong banishment from the royal court or any office of state,” Coke says in a meeting of parliament to determine Bacon’s fate. “We can only hope that his severe punishment serves as a grave warning to the rest of the nation: The days of wine and song at others’ expense are done.”
Sandie is freed from prison, just as Mary planned. But, while riding away from the prison tower with Cassie (Cat Simmons), another inmate being released, things take a turn. Cassie tells Sandie that, before they were released, a man visited Cassie’s cell and told her that, if she delivered a message to Sandie, he would ensure Cassie was released before she could be hung. In the episode’s final moments, it’s clear that Bacon’s promise of a small act of vengeance against Mary has come to fruition. Cassie stabs Sandie in the neck, and lets her bleed out and die.
It’s a characteristically morbid ending for Mary & George’s most death-riddled episode yet. But that gothic nature works in the show’s favor. Episode 6 perfectly tees up a series finale that promises battles so severe that they will change history forevermore. Let’s just hope more than one member of the Villiers family makes it out alive.
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