The Essex Serpent Review: Surfacing (Season 1 Episode 6)
The Essex Serpent Season 1 Episode 6, “Surfacing,” ties up the series’ story in a neat bow, but its ending feels more than a bit unearned.
Furthermore, those who have read Sarah Perry’s novel may find themselves taken a bit aback by the Apple TV+ series’ overt happy ending, which shows us Cora and Will reuniting after Stella’s death, kissing and seemingly poised to live happily ever after with one another. (The book, for those that don’t know, essentially ends with Cora sending letters into the void, and you can decide for yourself whether or not Will ever answers them.)
The question, however, is—do either of these characters deserve a happy ending? And, if so, will they actually find it with one another?
It’s true that The Essex Serpent is much more Cora’s story than it is Will but it’s never really stopped bothering me that he (a man of the God!) generally seems so unrepentant about his affair with her. I thought the show’s decision to definitively place their sex scene before Will discovers his wife is dying was a deliberate choice meant to force Will to truly confront the wrong he has done, but…it essentially doesn’t make any difference?
To Will’s credit, he does ultimately ends up doing the right thing and staying by the side of the dying woman he claims to love. But there are moments where he seems just as upset that he can’t (or, at least, shouldn’t) be with Cora again while Stella’s still alive, and that’s a hard thing for a supposed ‘hero” to overcome.
The show’s treatment of Stella is, at points, equally baffling. Given that The Essex Serpent essentially ignores her existence until it is time to reveal she’s conveniently terminally ill, I’m not sure why it seems to think that anyone will believe she and Cora had any sort of legitimate, sincere, and/or deep friendship. (Cora being largely unbothered by the fact that she slept with the woman’s husband isn’t exactly BFF material is all I’m saying.)
Instead, her illness essentially serves as a convenient narrative excuse for Cora to return to Aldwinter, and her behavior is whatever the story needs it to be at any moment.
How, exactly, did she so quickly come to terms with her own illness and looming death? At what point did she decide she was ready to die? (She hasn’t even told her kids she’s sick yet!) And when, precisely, did she start believing in the serpent at all, let alone enough to basically build herself a Lady of Shalott-style funeral boat to go meet it?
None of Stella’s actions make any sense, because she has had no role in this story beyond her status as Will’s wife. We don’t know who she is or what she values, or how she feels about anything beyond her care for her family. And that’s really unfortunate because I’d like to be moved by her death in some way.
(No shade directed at Clemence Poesy, who truly does her best. But she’s given so little to work with.)
Narrative pacing has never been The Essex’s Serpent’s strong suit, but this episode condenses a number of plots to a truly ridiculous degree. If we’re meant to assume that Naomi’s been living in the cabin that used to belong to village pariah and token atheist Cracknell—i.e. the guy whose death kicked off the literal witch hunt about Cora—how much time can reasonably be assumed to have passed before she turns up again? Three days? Four?
I’m saying this: There’s literally no way that more than a week has passed between this series’ fourth and sixth episodes, yet we’re meant to believe that roughly a season’s worth of story has happened. Cora has gone back to London, and had a massive fight with Luke after he proposed to her. She’s run into Will at the Natural History Museum while he was there entertaining his children so his wife could be diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Martha’s moved out after her own massive row with her friend/boss/crush and found new lodgings of her own, while her manfriend Spencer has bought the building her poor new immigrant friends live in as part of some attempt at creating socialist housing. Luke was robbed and stabbed on the way home from a party and is so badly injured he’ll never operate again, and Stella suddenly is not only dying with an almost hilarious quickness, she’s a full-on Serpent Truther.
How in the world can all this have happened in such a limited amount of time?
In the end, as I suspect most of us could have initially guessed: There’s no serpent. Or at least, not one beyond the creature that has taken up free residence in peoples’ heads. Naomi reappears just as a dead whale washes up on the shore of the marshes and people rejoice, thinking that the monster that’s been stalking them all is dead.
No one apologizes for their behavior, reevaluates any of their actions, or attempts to explain why the large dead beast lacks the teeth and claws necessary to do all the crimes the monster was accused of. The people
When asked by her son, Cora simply says that people fear what they don’t understand, and somehow that’s…it. Everything’s back to normal again, huzzah! Honestly, at this point, maybe Aldwinter deserves what it gets.
Stray Thoughts and Observations:
- I think I would like Cora more if she displayed anything that felt like self-awareness. Everyone’s in love with her and she’s willfully oblivious, forever putting her needs first. And you know what? There’s a version of this story that’s more clear about the fact that this behavior is a direct result of her treatment at the hands of an abusive husband, and that Cora is simply reveling in getting to be openly and unapologetically selfish for once. That version of this story, I’d find sympathetic.
- RIP, Stella, thanks for dying so fast, I guess?
- So many things about this series feel superfluous or unnecessary. Like, to what end did Spencer and Martha’s friendship serve? Was her entire socialism subplot worth the time we could have possibly spent with the series’ major figures?
What did you think of the finale of The Essex Serpent? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Essex Serpent is now streaming on Apple TV+.
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.