The Other Bennet Sister, Episode 4 — Recap: How to Feel a Poem

Opens on: “If London was to be a new start for me, I would push all thoughts of poetry…and love aside.”

What happened

The below summary might be viewed as spoilery

The episode starts with her walking through the city and thinking about what London might offer. Mother warned her about dirt, disease and despair. She did not mention the freedom of being unknown.

Then the show runs back one of its favorite cruel tricks. Mary overhears people talking about her.

This time it is the Gardiners, the nice ones, worrying over her awkwardness and her future. It is not said with Mrs Bennet’s sharpness, but it still lands. They call her awkward and not a natural governess, but they also see more in her than Longbourn ever did. Mr Gardiner says she has an “interesting and enquiring mind.”

Mary then runs out and into Tom Hayward in fact. He’s gentle and asks after her poetry reading and she admits she is struggling with Coleridge and Wordsworth. Very Mary. She wants the poets to explain themselves and say what they really mean.

This is also where Mary blurts out that it is a relief to be away from her mother and, in fact, from all of them.

Then Mrs Bennet’s letter arrives. Even through writing she manages to be overbearing and mean. Requesting she comes attend her and her new dog.

But Mary decides that she came to London to see the world outside her family, and that is what she is going to do.

Then comes the poetry.

Tom admits that he gave Mary an impossible task: understanding poetry without any real sense of how to feel it. Such a Tom plan. Grand, theatrical, slightly maddening, and unfortunately quite effective.

He brings the Gardiners and Mary to a hidden garden and recites Wordsworth. The lovely part is not just that Mary is moved. It is that she is moved and cannot immediately turn it into an argument. When Tom asks how she feels, Mary answers: “For once, I have nothing to say.”

Of course, feelings are terrifying. Mary does not know what to do with them, and the moment becomes too intimate. A petal falls, Tom reaches toward her, and Mary decides she must leave London.

Are we witnessing Tom realising that Mary it the one for him?

Back with the children, Mary starts to let poetry into her teaching. We see her becoming a little more playful, a little more herself. She even admits in narration that London is the first time she has “felt a sense of belonging.”

Mrs Gardiner tries her best to tell Mary that there are more Toms in the sea. Naturally, Mary hears her story and thinks: blue is not your colour?

The episode ends with game night, and this is where Mary really starts to shine. She meets William Ryder at the punch bowl, wins the riddles, and the final answer is “Heartache!” Subtle, the show is not.

Ryder is very different from Tom. Tom is poetry and feeling. Ryder is ease, jokes, crime pamphlets and confidence. He makes Mary laugh in public without making her feel like the joke.

By the end, Mary decides to stay in London a little longer. The episode has done a lot of work to get her there: the Gardiners’ care, Tom’s poetry, the children’s affection, Mrs Gardiner’s bonnets, and a room full of people cheering for her mind.

“Living in London was helping me to see that there could be more to life than just marriage or misery.

Perhaps my aunt was right. Even the most hopeless of situations… the most hopeless of people can, with kindness, change, little by little, over time.

I was excited to discover who Mary Bennet might be.”

Overall, this is a lovely turning point. The episode does well to restore our hopes for Mary Bennet.