'The Essex Serpent' Favors Star Power Over Plot

This one’s for my fellow Hiddlestans! Care of an Apple TV+ free weekend, I spent six episodes of The Essex Serpent (2022) making googly eyes over Tom Hiddleston as Will Ransome, a married pastor trying to resist Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes). Based on Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel of the same name, this is a moody tale exploring the literal and figurative things simmering under the surface in an English country village in the 1890s. The perpetually foggy town of Aldwinter builds an eerie atmosphere, though the story wants you to focus just as much on the sexual tension as the potentially supernatural mystery. The problem is Cora, our main character, can be thoroughly frustrating – especially when wrestling with her desires. The result is a somewhat uneven series, often relying more on star power than chemistry.

Cora is recently widowed and finally free from her wealthy husband’s abuse. She’s an educated Londoner passionate about natural history and an amateur paleontologist, utterly oblivious to her effect on others. She ends up with two competing suitors, Will and Dr. Luke Garrett (Frank Dillane), plus the unrequited love of her long-time lady-in-waiting, Martha (Hayley Squires). Martha delivers this devastating line in the fifth episode: “Do you have any idea how painful it is to love you?”

The series is also partly a story about PTSD and shame, with Cora plagued by nightmares of her husband’s violence. She hides a scar on her neck from when he branded her with a hot poker. Her past hampers her ability to trust, but her lack of skill at reading people means she really steps in it sometimes.