Poldark: Thoroughly Rotten George and Season 4 Finale

Over the summer, I binge watched the first 3 seasons of Poldark and then awaited the 4th season anxiously. However, a few episodes in, I got mighty sick of all the misery. Still, I hung in there just to see some of the characters get their comeuppance, a detestable habit that I really must cure myself of.

Certainly, in this saga, it just seemed that nobody was happy. The haves, in most cases, were even more wretched than the have nots, except perhaps for Elizabeth Chynoweth Poldark Warleggan. She seemed to be okay with whatever as long as she felt secure, at least until this final episode. Then there is her husband, George Warleggan, whose sole purpose in life is to gain power and money in order to make other people miserable, particularly Ross Poldark.

There was some satisfaction in Season 4 in the way Ossie met his maker, but it was short-lived when his despicable mother took over and took John Conan, Morwenna’s son, away from her. Then the old battle-ax tried to send Morwenna to an asylum. Morwenna also had to suffer the condolences of her phony cousin, Elizabeth, who knew damned well what Morwenna was going through and never lifted a finger to help her. In the Season 4 finale, Morwenna marries her first love Drake, but she’ll probably always feel guilty about her lost son. The poor kid will likely grow up to be a monster, being raised by the same person who raised Ossie.

In the finale of Season 5, Elizabeth decided to get a potion so her baby would be born one month premature and that would put an end, once and for all, to George’s suspicions that her son Valentine was fathered by Ross Poldark. When Elizabeth visited a doctor under a phony name to get the potion, we found out that she very well knew that Ross was Valentine’s father when she admitted that both of her children were carried full-term. Elizabeth previously swore to George that she had never given herself to any other man but him and her first husband, Francis. That particular choice of words concealed the fact that Ross forced himself on her that one time. The concoction hastened the birth of her daughter, Ursula, but it killed Elizabeth.

Before she got deathly ill, George bought the story that she just has kids at 8 months and swore to make amends for being a meanie. But George would have grown suspicious about Valentine again and again, we’re sure. We also don’t believe that without Elizabeth, everything he has means nothing to him. Even when he had Elizabeth, it wasn’t enough to make him happy. Nope. Nothing will make George happy, not even if he realized his fondest dream, to destroy Ross. He’s just an evil dude, as was amply shown when he sent Tom Harry after Morwenna with those dogs.

I didn’t really have any sympathy for Elizabeth, the almost future Lady Warleggan. To be honest, the only time I almost cried in this whole series was when Francis died. He was also consumed with jealousy about the Elizabeth/Ross connection at one time. He was abominable to his sister, Verity. I was really hoping that if Francis went through with committing suicide, he would kill George first. Ultimately, Francis came to his senses and saw how he was throwing his life away and the relationships that mattered most to him. The way he died was just unbearably sad.

Anyway, I just read an Express article where Jack Farthing says that George will come back worse than ever in Season 5! Ugh! I don’t think I can take another season of rotten George not getting his comeuppance so it might be time to start breaking that bad habit of waiting for it to happen.