Be Good and Rewatch It

​Caution Warnings: ​We talk about assault and sexual violence over the course of this episodeBe not alarmed, listener, that this episode contains any further renewal of the ​Pride and Prejudice ​podcast series. But many different letters were laid to our charge over the course of this re-watch, and now honor demands that Austin, Natalie, and Rob be allowed to respond. We have a very serious conversation about Lydia's storyline and the challenges it poses in any adaptation or in any attempt to modernize it. We also also get some excellent food for thought about neurodivergent characters in Austen's work and in this particular adaptation of ​Pride and Prejudice. ​Speaking of food, we finally learn what that "sausage pastry" was from the first episode. Thanks once again for listening to this absurdly detailed, loving, and ridiculous return to a landmark TV series.

​Here we are, huh? The last episode of the 1995 BBC ​Pride and Prejudice​​, and therefore the very last episode of our Be Good and Rewatch It series, which of course will conclude next week because we ran long and broke the letters section out into its own podcast! God and Waypoint aren't done with you yet, Mr. Darcy and Lizzie Bennett! First, however, we have to get these two problematic faves into a marriage knot... and see Lizzie finally square-up with Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who has condescended to get her ass kicked. We also delve into the mystery of who tipped Lady Catherine about Darcy's attachment to Elizabeth, and consider our final verdicts on Mr. Bennett. We also talk about the more realistic, restrained portrayals of the BBC adaptation with the more tempestuous approach taken by the 2005 film, which tries to render the interior monologues of the novel into action on film.

With their co-hosts out of action this week, Rob and Austin take a break from the team's ongoing deep dive​ into the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice ​in favor of something altogether different... a deep dive into the BBC's 2009 adaptation of Jane Austen's ​Emma​. They dig into the story's class satire, the startling chemistry between leads Romola Garai​ and Jonny Lee Miller, and their own romantic missteps. And they do all that in just ​one​ recording, making this a true Waypoint achievement.

Things are going well, a little too well, for Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Which means it's time for Lydia Bennett to stop being a supporting player in this comedy and become a star in her own romantic drama. Today on the first part of our Pride and Prejudice rewatch finale, we discuss the fatalist snark of Caroline Bingley, Lizzie's growing maturity and awareness, and what Georgiana Darcy reveals about this story. But the biggest topic of discussion is Lydia's disastrous elopement with Mr. Wickham. How do we approach a story that treats as a scandal the sexual agency of a teenage girl, and underplays the predatory aspect of Wickham's conduct? If the entire subplot is built on an outdated, misogynist foundation, is it still fair to find Lydia to be a loathsome heel by the end of it?

For BGRW We might as well face this head-on. There's no hiding from it. We spend an hour of this podcast discussing, in detail, our discomfort and ambivalence about the way our heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, begins to turn all the way around on Fitzwilliam Darcy when she sees his mansion. Is she being influenced by crass material considerations? What do we make of this weird, almost mythologized connection between Darcy and his estate at Pemberley? We discuss Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and Austin's slashfic about Peter Parker and Darcy. We also dig into both the creepiness of Wickham, and the ways he is still misjudged and his dangerousness under-rated even after his character has been revealed, plus Mr. Bennett's maddening complacency. We learn Natalie has trouble with imagery and metaphor, Rob is a bootlicking landlord apologist, and Austin has a worrying thing about wolves.

This continues to get out of hand. Once again we got in too deep, so our second episode of the BBC ​Pride and Prejudice ​only covers the third episode of the miniseries. But who can blame us! As connoisseurs of human folly, we are eager to savor such delights as these: Charlotte Lucas's marriage to Mr. Collins and what it is meant to say in the original novel, versus Lucy Scott's decides to portray in her reading of the character. Mr. Wickham's increasingly oily charm and aggressive self-pity. Lady Catherine, in which we get a taste of what happens if you took Lizzie's and Mrs. Bennett's worst possible traits and poured money over them. Col. Fitzwilliam's catastrophic assistance to Darcy. And finally, Darcy's own attempts at balancing romance with radical honesty.Clips: Darcy's Confession, Rest in Fucking Pieces Mr Darcy, 2005 Darcy Confession