Drake Carne is a different flavor of appealing male character than his brother-in-law in Poldark. The world has definitely dealt him some bad cards, but he still manages to smile and be a little innocent about things. It's what makes the end of this week's episode of Poldark hurt, because the show has put him down, let him build a little hope again and then crushes him.
The last time this happened, Drake ended up going to France, so our question for the upcoming episode of Poldark is this: what will this even stronger blow drive him to do?
It's curious that the preview that Masterpiece
has already put out there doesn't even bother to show him:
The show refraining from focusing too much on Drake in next week's episode, though, may be not the greatest decision. "He's a monster," Morwenna says quietly, speaking of her new husband, and it's really not the most comforting idea in the world that Poldark is going back to this well after last season's change to the Ross-Elizabeth scene. That brief shot of Whitworth in his robe had yours truly cringing.
The gender politics in particular are quite interesting. We're here questioning what Drake's pain will lead him to do and surprised that Poldark hasn't chosen to emphasize it -- because we've seen him get reckless in response to similar emotional blows already -- but we're cringing at the show possibly showing on-camera what it's definitely been implying for quite some time will happen to Morwenna because of a marriage she didn't want.
Perhaps it's because of the recent news in Hollywood, from the allegations about Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey, that makes this probable fictional depiction of a similar situation so uncomfortable.
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Drake's emotional pain, for lack of a better word, might be safer, and in a show that has, as we said, already had a misstep once before, we're not looking forward to Morwenna's story on Poldark this week.