Other Doctor Lives: Gentleman Jack: Season 1, Episode 3 – “Oh is that what you call it?” (2019)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

Gentleman Jack can be a slow-moving show, and I’ll admit that my attention can wander a little at times when I watch, but this is a good episode. While we barely get more than a glimpse of Peter Davison, things are heating up onscreen.

Anne is keeping herself busy with all manner of things. She’s making plans to sink her own pit even as she baits condescending local businessman with the prospect of selling her coal land to them. She’s poking into who caused the carriage crash in the pilot, which disabled the young son of one of her tenants. But of all the balls she has in the air, the most important is continuing to charm Miss Walker, who’s come to understand that Anne’s interest in her isn’t entirely platonic, but who finds she’s rather taken with that idea herself.

The business stuff is where the show can lose me a bit. I get what Anne is doing with her various plans for Shibden and her intentions of getting one over on the men who sneer at her, but it’s less interesting to watch. I far prefer the romantic and family scenes. Here, as Anne spends more and more time gently courting Miss Walker, she throws her sister Marian into a tizzy over her being out “all hours” without telling them. Since Anne has only recently returned home to Shibden for an extended period after long bouts of travel, she and Marian butt heads in most things, but their fighting gets personal in this episode. Marian lays on the guilt trips like nobody’s business, while Anne is needlessly mean to her younger sister in response.

When it comes to Miss Walker, I really like the careful balance the show strikes with Anne’s intentions. It’s hard not to see the puppy love in her eyes when she looks at Miss Walker, but at the same time, it’s no coincidence that she’s coming into this after an ex-lover got married. Anne is at the point where she longs to have someone to settle down with, and Miss Walker just happened to be the beautiful, impressionable young woman that she encountered upon reaching that point. Furthermore, Anne approaches a potential relationship with Miss Walker rather like a man in her day would, noting Miss Walker’s £2,500 a year and calling it “a prudent match.”

As such, you can see Anne pulling the strings a little in their scenes together, but you also see how much Miss Walker genuinely regards her. When she breathlessly asks, “Would you like to come for dinner, and then… stay all night?””, it’s clear that Anne is a bit bowled over by how well things are proceeding. Outside the cocoon of their growing relationship, there are concerns—Anne’s aunt warns, “You know I want you to be happy above all things, but her tribe will have things to say”—but within it, there’s a lot of warmth and affection, even as Miss Walker is still getting her footing.

As I said, we only get a couple quick scenes with Peter Davison today. The Priestleys looked very favorably toward Anne in the pilot, appreciating her independence rather than condemning her “strangeness.” But as Anne and Miss Walker have gotten better acquainted, that good will is on shakier ground.