Bleak House (2005) Episode Recaps 4-6

by The Adaptation Stationmaster

Episode 4

Kenge hands the training of Richard over to Guppy. Burn Gorman does a great job of conveying through his facial expressions that Guppy is suspicious of Richard as of a rival but relaxes once he sees that all he’s going to do is break his head banging it against Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

The Bleak House crew arrives in Lincolnshire. Mr. Boythorn greets them. I’m sorry to say he’s one of the less well adapted characters. None of his funniest lines are included. Warren Clarke is fine in the role but not that memorable. Again, that may just be the writing.

Ada catches Esther pressing Mr. Woodcourt’s flowers in a book. As Mr. Jarndyce walks down the hall by the door, he overhears Esther saying she likes Woodcourt very much though she’s sure nothing will come of it. (Jarndyce actually does a lot of hanging out outside Esther’s bedroom door and eavesdropping in this series. It’d be creepy if he didn’t come across as so harmless.)

Later, Jarndyce tells Esther about how Miss Barbary wrote to him, asking him to take care of Esther if she, her guardian, died. As in the book, Esther makes a comment about him being like a father to her (it’s not quite the same comment), which, to her confusion, pains him.

The miniseries cuts Guppy’s friends, Tony Jobling and Bart Smallweed but it keeps the restaurant they patronize and Polly the waitress (Sally Leonard.) Guppy is so convinced that Richard isn’t a threat to him that he invites him to dine with him there. He rhapsodizes about Esther, to Richard’s amusement, and can’t resist dropping broad hints about his suspicions regarding Esther and Lady Dedlock. (“A beauty without peer. Almost.”)

When the Dedlocks enter the Chesney Wold church, Boythorn is the only member of the congregation who doesn’t rise. He even throws out an insult into the silence. Lady Dedlock glances at his pew and locks eyes with Esther. The episode can’t really communicate all the complex feelings that Esther feels at this moment in the book, but viewers can pick up the gist.

Esther, Ada and Jarndyce get caught in the rain while walking. They take shelter in the same building as Lady Dedlock does. She and Mr. Jarndyce exchange some polite chit chat and we learn he used to know her and her now estranged sister. In response to Lady Dedlock’s request for an attendant, Hortense and Rosa both come with her shawl and umbrella. She says it was the latter that she wanted. Rosa having to apologetically take the shawl from the furious Hortense and put it on Lady Dedlock is hilarious. Unlike in the book, Lady Dedlock specifically says that Hortense can walk back later rather than join them in the carriage. (It’s unclear in the text whether she left her behind on purpose or by accident.) This leads to Hortense having a temper tantrum and Lady Dedlock coldly dismissing her in front of everyone. You could argue this makes Hortense more sympathetic than in the book where it’s arguably ambiguous whether she quit or was fired. (She says she quit. Inspector Bucket says she was fired.) To be sure though, she was being inappropriate, and you could argue Lady Dedlock is more justified for dismissing her than she was in the book if that’s what she did. Hortense takes off her shoes to walk back, deliberately making the experience as unpleasant as possible for herself. The miniseries never explains, as the book does, that she’s making a vow and is “stamping it on her mind” but I’m glad they kept the memorable detail anyway.

Guppy speculates to Richard that the only way to end the Jarndyce case would be if he found a piece of “clear hard evidence,” such as a will with a later date than any of the available ones. Knowing how the story ends, this may seem like needlessly heavy-handed foreshadowing, but it doesn’t feel that way in context, especially if you’re just enjoying the miniseries moment by moment, not thinking about how it’ll end.

Mr. Snagsby is having the pretentious preacher, Mr. Chadband (Robert Pugh), and his wife (Catherine Tate!) over for tea. The character of Snagsby’s shrewish wife has been cut, understandably enough given how many characters the book has, but without her, it’s hard to understand why he would invite the Chadbands. It’s hard to see why anyone would invite the annoying Mr. Chadband over. Of course, he isn’t quite as hilariously annoying as in the book since he and his wife only appear for one episode and Robert Pugh doesn’t necessarily make the most of the role either.

Speaking of characters who have had their parts severely reduced, Snagsby’s maid, Guster (Michelle Tate), fulfills her only role in this adaptation and tells Snagsby there’s a police officer in the shop wishing to speak to him. Said officer (Dominic Coleman) has Jo in hand with his half crown and his crazy story about the mysterious lady who paid him to show her Nemo’s grave. Guppy is on hand to hear this. Snagsby vouches for Jo’s character to the police and invites Guppy in for tea. Mrs. Chadband mentions to Guppy that she used to work for Miss Barbary and that Esther’s father was surnamed Hawdon. In the book, we’re only present when she tells him the first fact. We only hear about her confiding the last part when Guppy tells Lady Dedlock. The book mostly just shows us that its detective characters are investigating something and has them summarize the process later. The miniseries tends to follow them every step of the way.

Case in point, the next scene where Guppy goes to Krook’s shop and bribes him with alcohol for information. In the book, Guppy manipulates Tony Jobling into manipulating Krook for him. This was overcomplicated IMO and best simplified though the character of Jobling did have his fun moments.

A concerned Snagsby tells Tulkinghorn about Jo’s strange story. Tulkinghorn tells him to bring Jo to his offices that night and then tells Clamb to bring someone called Inspector Bucket.

Hortense asks Esther for a job, presumably because she suspects Esther’s parentage and wants to expose it. (“I will serve you well. You don’t know how well.”) Esther turns her down. This is one of the few scenes of Hortense being able to control her anger. Lilo Baur does a good job showing that she still has that anger, she’s just keeping it down.

At night, Inspector Bucket (Alun Armstrong who has played several Dickens characters, good and bad, over the course of his career) and Tulkinghorn assure the nervous Snagsby that they only want Jo brought to Tulkinghorn’s office for questioning. They don’t intend to hurt him. The reveal of Bucket’s presence early in the scene is a great eerie moment. He eventually turns out to be a good character, but I feel like he’s ambiguous enough at this point that the misdirection is justified and well done. Alun Armstrong is great in the role.

Inspector Bucket conducts Mr. Snagsby through the poor neighborhood of Tom-All-Alone’s where people are coming down with smallpox “like sheep with the rocks.” We see that Jenny and her husband have come up here from Hertfordshire, looking for work to no avail. Jo is found and brought to Tulkinghorn’s. Bucket asks him to tell them what he sees. Tulkinghorn opens the door and a woman dressed like Lady Dedlock in her disguise walks in, making for one of the best cliffhangers in the series. Maybe the best.

Episode 5

The woman turns out to be Hortense. A baffled Jo recognizes the clothes but not the person. Inspector Bucket gives him some money and sends him away. Hortense semi-flirtatiously asks Tulkinghorn to give her a recommendation in return for her help. As they depart the office, Bucket warns Snagsby, just as baffled as Jo, to be discreet. He also mentions the warrant he has for Mr. Gridley’s arrest, which ends up being a major part of this episode.

At Bleak House, we get a brief scene of Richard and Ada alone together. He tells her they have to let Jarndyce know how they feel. The book actually never depicts Richard and Ada by themselves, but such scenes are fairly common in this adaptation.

Richard announces to Jarndyce that he’s leaving Kenge and plans to join the army and save enough money to marry Ada in five years. He asks him to officially acknowledge their engagement. By now though, Jarndyce is even less convinced that Richard would be a good provider. When Richard alludes to the money he might win in court, Jarndyce explodes with fear (“For the love of God, Rick, don’t found your hopes on that wretched court case! Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die!”), fear for Richard that Richard will tragically misinterpret as fear for himself and his own claims to the Jarndyce fortune. “Why don’t you come straight out and tell me you have no confidence in me, and you advise Ada not to have any either?” Richard demands. If I were Mr. Jarndyce, I would probably say, “OK. I have no confidence in you, and I advise Ada not to have any confidence in you either.” LOL. It’d have been nice if the miniseries could have included the scene prior to this of Richard confiding in Esther that he often has no confidence in himself, making his resentment of Jarndyce strange (to her anyway.) But that kind of complex characterization, I think, works better in literature than in other mediums. It might have just been confusing and distracting here. The scene ends with Richard shaking hands with Jarndyce but it’s obvious he’s mainly doing it for Ada’s sake.

A weary and beaten looking Mr. Gridley asks his friend, Miss Flite, for shelter from the police. She advises him to go to Sgt. George’s shooting gallery. In the book, the progression of relationships is sort of the opposite. Gridley knows George because he goes to George’s shooting gallery to relieve his anger and George comes to know Miss Flite through Gridley. I think that would have made more logical sense. (Miss Flite and Sgt. George don’t seem like people who would hang out together socially. She even says later in the episode that his neighborhood isn’t one she likes to go to alone.) But since the series has, reasonably enough, focused more on Miss Flite than on Gridley, it also makes sense to have her be the one to introduce a new character.

Lady Dedlock asks Mrs. Rouncewell what she knows about Esther. (The answer is no one knows much.) This scene isn’t from the book, but it feels in character. Charles Dickens arguably does imply that Lady Dedlock is intrigued by Esther before she learns her relation to herself.

Training to be a soldier, Richard learns fencing at the shabby gallery of shabby army veteran Sgt. George (Hugo Speer.) (George tells him to “watch the eyes, not the blade,” which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of what you should do when fencing.) Richard abruptly leaves to attend court (of course) and George’s sidekick, Phil Squod (Michael Smiley) says dismissively that he’s not “a stayer.” George opines that he could be if he were in less of a hurry. Then we see that Gridley is at the gallery, taking out his anger at all the chancery lawyers on a shooting target. He almost collapses and Phil helps him to a place where he can lie down.

Meanwhile, Clamb informs Tulkinghorn that before Nemo died, he pawned a medal inscribed with the name Capt. Hawdon. Tulkinghorn is writing something as Clamb speaks but his hand stops once he hears Nemo’s mentioned. A moneylender named Smallweed has been looking for a Capt. Hawdon after he defaulted on his debts. “Perhaps we should have a word with Mr. Smallweed,” says Tulkinghorn.

Esther comes from a walk to find that Jarndyce has hired Charley Neckett to be her personal attendant. She objects to him that it’s cruel to separate Charley from her siblings and that she (Esther) isn’t the type of person to have a ladies’ maid. Mr. Jarndyce assures her that in his eyes, she’s just as much a lady as Lady Dedlock and she should start thinking of herself that way too. In the book, Esther is completely happy to have Charley, though with a sense of responsibility to her, and it feels to me like the miniseries is trying to force a conflict between her and Jarndyce just for the sake of it. (Maybe they just felt that it would be inconsistent for Esther to refuse Hortense and welcome Charley. In the book, she does both in the same chapter.) Still, the scene isn’t badly written, and the episode gets it out of its system quickly enough. And, as I wrote before, I approve of how this adaptation doesn’t completely remove Esther’s personal insecurities.

The crippled, ratlike Mr. Smallweed (Phil Davis) is carried by hirelings to Tulkinghorn’s office. Davis is as nasty as you could wish in the role. Actually, maybe a little too nasty for the good of the series. His senile wife, at whom he’s always throwing cushions, is cut from this adaptation which makes his scenes less funny and more simply unpleasant. He’s not exactly unfunny though. He still constantly asks people to shake up his old bones for him. The moment when Tulkinghorn makes a resentful Clamb do this is great. And the character of Smallweed’s granddaughter, Judy (Louise Brealey), is retained. Brealey looks like she’d love to throw her grandfather down a flight of stairs. By the time this series is over, you can relate to her.

Tulkinghorn learns from Smallweed that Sgt. George was a close friend of Capt. Hawdon’s and that he also owes Smallweed money. Smallweed goes, or rather is carried, to George’s shooting gallery where he tells George that he might let him off his debt if he gives Tulkinghorn a sample of Hawdon’s handwriting. In the book, Smallweed only expresses nervousness about Phil Squod and George’s weapons in one scene and it seems to reflect his own paranoia more than anything. Here, it’s amusingly clear that they’re freaking him out on purpose. (If anyone’s doing so in the book, it’s Phil but not George.) This is in keeping with how the miniseries makes George a darker, less amiable character than in the book, the better to make the viewer suspect him in the climactic murder mystery. I don’t necessarily mean that as a criticism. I find the book’s version of Sgt. George very endearing, and I find the one in the series very endearing too. Hugo Speer provides a welcome fatherly presence as the character. It seems weird to describe him as “fatherly,” which sounds more like how Jarndyce should be described but I can’t think of a better term. Of all the good guys in this miniseries, George feels like the only one who could do some physical damage to the bad guys.

Richard fumes to see another chancery session end with lots of applications for costs but no verdict. He actually confronts Kenge about all the delay. “You forget that I have studied law, sir,” he says. “Ah, yes,” says Kenge cuttingly, “for several weeks.” Both characters have points. Richard goes to meet Jarndyce, Esther and Ada at George’s and Miss Flite tags along to visit Gridley.

Before going to George’s, Esther gives Prince Turveydrop moral support as he and Caddy explain about their engagement to his father. While the miniseries being faster paced than the book is a good thing in general, even a relief, this is one of the plot points where it makes less sense. Prince barely interacted with Esther prior to this. Why would he want her there specifically to support him? Ignoring that, this is a great scene, very close to the book with Bryan Dick and Matthew Kelly perfectly embodying their characters.

I wish we could have gotten the scene of Caddy explaining about the engagement to her mother rather than a single dismissive comment. I don’t blame anyone for being offended by Dickens’s message in the book that wives and mothers should be devoted to their families, no to social causes, but I feel like that painful scene between Caddy and her mother could help viewers understand from where he was coming even if they couldn’t agree on the whole. And Caddy, for all her bitterness toward her mother, still wanting a good relationship with her on some level made her a much more interesting character in the book. Still, I should be grateful that we get as much of the Jellybys and the Turveydrops as we do in this adaptation, considering how superfluous they are to the story.

Mr. Jarndyce is not happy to hear from George that Richard is at court. I believe this scene has the last instance in the miniseries of him saying that the wind is in the east as a safety valve when he’s thinking something bad about anyone. (In the book, he does this throughout.) Richard arrives and explains that his regiment is leaving for Ireland soon. He speaks with troubling coldness even to Ada. Phil announces that a doctor has come to see Gridley, but it turns out to have been a ruse. The doctor is really Inspector Bucket come to arrest Gridley. To his credit, when he sees how close he is to death, Bucket tries to bolster Gridley’s spirit. But sadly, all the tenacity has finally been drained from the man. Remember how I wrote that the ending of Episode 3 was unusually optimistic for this miniseries? Well, the ending to this one with Gridley dying is more characteristic.

Episode 6

At his office, Tulkinghorn offers Sgt. George payment for letters in Capt. Hawdon’s hand. When George, smelling a rat, refuses, Tulkinghorn threatens to get him in trouble for harboring Gridley and to have Smallweed call in his debt. Still George refuses. Once he’s gone, Smallweed, true to his character from the book, fumes and rants about wanting to tear George to pieces. “He owes me money! And I’d like to squeeze it out of him like blood from an orange and I would if I had the strength.” But Tulkinghorn urges his own sphinxlike patience.

A fancy carriage pulls up outside the manor at Chesney Wold. Sir Leicester doesn’t recognize it. Rosa, looking awkward, says she believes it belongs to Mrs. Rouncewell’s son, a successful factory owner who has been invited to go into parliament. Sir Leicester disapproves of his housekeeper’s son having that kind of power. “She had another son, I understand, who turned out rather badly if that is any consolation to you,” says his wife dryly, “ran away to the wars and so forth.” Sir Leicester is genuinely sorry to hear this. He wonders why the more well-to-do Mr. Rouncewell has requested a meeting with him. Rosa’s face suggest that she has a solid theory and is nervous about it.

Mr. Rouncewell (excellent Tim Dantay) tells the Dedlocks that his son is in love with Rosa and would like to marry her. Mr. Rouncewell is willing to agree if he can take Rosa from Chesney Wold and educate her for her new station in life. In the book, we actually meet young Watt Rouncewell early on, visiting his grandmother, and pick up on the chemistry between him and Rosa. I would have liked that to have been included since it’s not clear here how Rosa and Watt could have ever met, but I understand that the fewer people you have to cast for an ambitious miniseries like this, the better. The subplot still basically works. Anyway, Sir Leicester is offended by the idea his wife’s favorite attendant isn’t good enough for a Rouncewell. He says she may go if she chooses, but he won’t urge her to do so.

As he and Phil clean their weapons, George worries over whether to give Tulkinghorn what he wants. Phil encourages him not to do so, but George knows if they lose the shooting gallery, they’ll both be out on the streets, something he promised Phil wouldn’t happen again. In the book, George’s motivation was more about his old friends, the Bagnet family who have been cut from this adaptation. If I had to choose between cutting Phil Squod and cutting the Bagnets, I would choose to cut Phil in a heartbeat. But that would have meant a higher number of characters to write and to cast and, as I wrote above, that’s impractical. And I don’t dislike Phil or anything.

In exchange for the alcohol he wants, Krook shows Guppy one of the old documents from his huge stash. (That’s the kind of thing people had to do for research before the internet.) It reveals that Lady Dedlock’s maiden name was Barbary like that of Esther’s old guardian. Guppy asks about the name Hawdon and Krook tauntingly shows him the bundle of old letters he found in Nemo’s apartment addressed to a Capt. Hawdon, but he won’t let him touch them. Not yet anyway. Do you see what I mean about the adaptation showing us more of the specific steps taken by the various detective characters in their courses?

Privately, Lady Dedlock asks Rosa if she’s in love with Mr. Rouncewell’s son. Rosa says she might be, but she doesn’t want to leave her ladyship yet. Lady Dedlock says that’s good because she doesn’t want her to leave either. Then she tells Rosa she’s to accompany her to her London house, which we haven’t seen yet in this miniseries. This scene is the first time we see Lady Dedlock being really warm and friendly. Part of me wishes Gillian Anderson played her as even friendlier to really contrast with her usual chilliness. But maybe that would have just felt out of character. Viewers still get the point as it is.

I guess this is as good a time as any to write about something that annoys me about this series’ stylizations. The creators wanted it to feel like a modern television drama and I approve of that. Too many of the BBC’s miniseries adaptations of classic literature from the 80s and 90s are unwatchable IMO in their staginess. But it annoys me how whenever we get establishing shots of certain locations in each episode, like Krook’s shop or Bleak House, we get the same three shots in a row with a bang! bang! bang! sound effect. I want to yell at the screen, “OK! I know what they look like now!” Of course, this is less annoying if you just watch one episode a day rather than binge watch, but the show is so engaging, why wouldn’t you want to binge watch?

At Bleak House, Ada reads a letter from Richard. He mentions that there is a great deal of gambling going on “in which he does not take part.” In the book, of course, Richard does gamble though I don’t remember if he does so at this point in the narrative. Are we to take his assurances as lies? Ada doesn’t but she’s biased in Richard’s favor.

Allan Woodcourt’s mother (Di Botcher) drops by for a visit. She brags that her family is descended from Morgan ap-Kerrig who was mentioned in that epic of Welsh literature, the Mabinogion. (I wish the miniseries could somehow have included Esther’s malapropism for it, “the Mewlinnwillinwodd.”) She very unsubtly tells Esther that her son could never marry someone without the proper birth. Di Botcher only appears in this episode and in the final one as a wordless cameo, but she really makes the most of her part. This is a great scene that makes you laugh but also makes you feel sorry for Esther. Mr. Jarndyce and Ada certainly do as they give her sympathetic looks.

Back at Tom-All-Alone’s, Jo has a terrible cough. Jenny invites him to come back with her back to Hertfordshire. In the book, Jo actually tramps all the way there by himself because he knows that’s where she lives. That would have probably been too complicated to show though I question if Jenny’s husband would have let her take in another mouth to feed. We get an ominous scene original to this adaptation of Tulkinghorn telling Bucket to keep an eye on Jo who knows too much.

Guppy receives a reply to the letter he sent Lady Dedlock, giving him permission to visit her in London. The footman (Richard Cant) who answers the door tells him coldly that the tradesmen’s entrance is round the back and Guppy has to show him the letter to get inside. I feel like scenes like this have the effect, intentional or not, of making us root for Guppy just a little bit more than in the book since he seems like such an underdog. Richard Cant BTW is one of the examples in this series of how certain actors can make an impression with a very small role.

Guppy tells Lady Dedlock everything he’s learned in his investigation and offers to get her the letters Krook has. I wish this version of the scene could have found time for him to tell her about Jo and the mysterious lady, letting her know he’s figured out that lady’s identity. This would have made it clear he’s guessed everything about Esther’s parentage but can’t say it to her face, rounding out the character by showing his devious side. Still, they didn’t totally cut the last part. Guppy’s smile in the scene when he first reads Lady Dedlock’s reply is quite evil looking. As fun as Burn Gorman is to watch though, the scene belongs to Gillian Anderson. She goes from being hilariously withering in response to Guppy telling her that Esther hasn’t looked favorably on his proposals (To quote the book, “Young man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, when that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute’s purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at this moment”) to conveying that she’s about to vomit and desperately holding on to her composure when she learns that her sister lied to her and the baby she thought long dead still lives.

Charley takes Esther to Jenny, and they offer to take care of the ailing Jo at Bleak House. Jo violently resists at first, reminded by Esther of the strange lady who got him into so much trouble (Again, it would have been really nice if the actresses looked like each other.) Assuming he’s just raving, they managed to calm him down and convince him to come with them. Jarndyce asks the visiting Skimpole what he with his medical background, thinks they should do for Jo. Skimpole bluntly says they should turn him out of the house for fear of infection. I really feel this would play better if Skimpole had some kind of charm or humor to him, not in this scene necessarily but in his previous ones. As it is, all you can do is wonder why exactly he and Mr. Jarndyce are firends.

Esther makes a bed for Jo in the stable loft, and he thanks her for her kindness. (“I’m sorry I thought you were the other lady.”) But the next morning, Charley runs to Esther’s room and wakes her with the news that Jo is gone-not that he’s died but that he’s simply disappeared.