Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Recap: How Is Lady Pole?

“How Is Lady Pole?” is the title of this episode, and it’s a complicated matter. By all accounts, she should be great, because she is alive. Last week, after her untimely demise, Mr. Norrell resurrected her, or more accurately, he unleashed The Gentleman, one of the Fae, to revive the poor woman.
But things are not as they should be. Part of Norrell’s bargain with The Gentleman was that Lady Pole would spend half her life with him. Now, Norrell, who did not know he was living in the rising action of a miniseries, assumed “half her life” meant The Gentleman would cut the lady’s life in half, perhaps around her 40th birthday.
Nuh-uh.
Instead, The Gentleman is taking his half out of the middle, stealing Lady Pole away in her sleep for nonstop Dance Dance Revolution in his gothic Faerie mansion, eerily named Lost-Hope. It’s hard to get much rest when your sleep cycles are consumed by more balls than even Mrs. Bennet could have crammed into a day. The unfortunate lady is feeling the effects, constantly exhausted and under an enchantment that prevents her from telling anyone of her plight, lest she turn into the random article button on Wikipedia.
“I would be better dead than as I am,” she moans. Her husband seems inclined to agree, badgering Norrell for a cure for her dysfunction. Norrell studiously avoids the topic by essentially shrugging and telling Pole, “Sorry, dude, your wife’s cray.” It seems Norrell hasn’t told anyone about The Gentleman, and he’s dead-set on never bringing up the Fae in polite conversation. Clearly, Norrell is the person who just keeps shoving the nuclear leftovers to the back of the fridge, so they’re not ever his problem.
Not exactly thrilled with his resident magician’s hands-off approach to his wife’s care, Pole later asks Strange for a way to reverse the magic (read: kill her).
While the answer to that question remains to be seen, you did read that right: Strange has made his way to London! It would seem that bringing back the dead holds major cachet in jolly old England. Norrell has become known far and wide for his magical exploits, so much so that Strange now has an identity for the man in his enemy-spying mirror.
Thankfully, their meet-cute involves sleuthing by Mssrs. Segundus and Honeyfoot, who totally deserve a spinoff series. They find their way to an abandoned estate, formerly owned by an infamous enchantress. Segundus has it in his mind to start his very own school of magic in the property, but then he gets woozy, then wobbly, then faint-y. Someone’s practicing magic inside this old house, summoning the enchantress.
That somebody is Strange, on a picnic with the new wife. Speaking the common language of Nervous, Twitchy Englishman, Honeyfoot and Segundus persuade Strange to seek out Norrell and serve as his apprentice. Apprentice? The man was just summoning the dead! What’s he need to learn?
That’s a fine question, indeed, which brings us to another complication. Norrell and Strange have opposing approaches to magic (and life, for that matter). They are the thaumaturgical odd couple: Norrell is meticulous, well-read, and book-learned. He views magic through an academic lens. Strange, on the other hand, comes at magic from the same place as the rest of his existence: by the seat of his pants. Partly because Norrell has bought up every last ever-lovin’ book on magic in England, Strange has not studied up on magical theory, besides, of course, the fabled Raven King.
Nevertheless, the guy’s good. He wows Norrell with a new trick he winged in their first meeting. Strange delights our little dour toad so much that he gets the giggles, alarming everyone within earshot. Norrell quickly signs on Strange as an apprentice and gives him a 10-year lesson plan in Magic 101. His pupil’s enthusiasm for the syllabus is less than palpable.
Norrell is going to need the help, because his newfound fame has earned him a place in England’s war strategy against France. The most visible manifestation so far is a mirage of an English blockade along the French coast. It’s finely crafted, meticulous magic, which is Norrell’s style. But you know people. They’re more impressed by something flashy, which is exactly what Strange gives them when he summons giant sand horses from the beach to right a listing English ship. One of the coolest bits from the show’s trailer, finally explained.
With this bit of sorcery, Strange becomes the new wonderboy. Add to this his personal affability, as opposed to Norrell’s resting hermit face, and a clash is brewing. We’ve seen Norrell’s pride already; it’s what drew him out of hiding in the first place. He won’t tolerate this upstart upstaging his publicity campaign. That’s part of the reason he gets so firmly behind the idea of sending Strange to the front lines to coordinate the magical war effort—at least, right up until the younger magician asks to borrow 40 books from Norrell’s library. Then he gets downright surly (highly relatable to anyone who has ever loaned a book to another living soul).
Speaking of surly, The Gentleman is now just using London as his personal 24-hour human supermarket. He takes a shine to Stephen, one of the Poles’s servants, and begins whisking him off to his somnambulant galas as well. So far, Stephen’s handling the ordeal a teensy bit better than Lady Pole, though to be fair, it’s not his finger that The Gentleman keeps in a box. His tolerance may soon change, once the exhaustion sets in—especially since the rest of the Poles’s staff is hitting the road, afeared of their resurrected mistress and spooked by a presence they can’t quite see.
We’re sure to see much more of The Gentleman’s domain. He humblebrags to Stephen that Lost-Hope is the finest of his mansions, which you can tell because to reach it, you must walk through his garden of skulls and blooming despair plants. Seems like a great place to unwind. Maybe we can send Norrell there.