Poldark Series 2, Episode 9: Recap and Review

After last week's disturbing episode it was comforting to see the return of some familiar Poldark tropes, including abundant sea-staring and some top galloping from Ross.

We know things are turbulent when Ross puts his foot down. Demelza, who has stopped making pies, tears a strip off him for his adultery with Elizabeth and makes him sleep on a spare bed in the library. "Please see it from my perspective," Ross says to Demelza.

"Soon you'll be asking me to see it from Elizabeth's!" says she. Which shouldn't be difficult, considering he can't keep it in his trousers.

"Perhaps I might have hoped for a little understanding, knowing you as I do," says Ross. At that moment I too wanted to land him another black eye.

Much as I dislike George, I was with him as he gloated about winning Elizabeth. Even he, however, is now staring at the sea. A brooding soundtrack takes him to Trenwith: he knows Ross is behind Elizabeth's request to postpone their wedding. Pacing up and down and anxiously looking out the window, Elizabeth is desperate for Ross to show up again.

Having got what he wanted, though, Ross doesn't even have the decency to go and see her. "How can he leave things so up in the air?" asks Elizabeth.

She's not the only one left high and dry because – ooh! – there's to be another ball. Anyone who's anyone is invited, including comedy Scotsman Captain McNeil, who turns up in his red military jacket. Lured by the thought of revenge, Demelza too decides to go to the party. Opening the trunk in which she found the blue-green dress in Series 1, this time she pulls out another – and it's a red one.

It's a colour that keeps on coming. Host Sir Hugh Bodrugan puts her in his red room for the night, with red wine – oh! When Demelza emerges a ravishing redhead in her crimson gown, she stands out amid a sea of bland colours.

Heads turn, including scarlet woman Margaret's – she who appears to be only one of her kind in this parish. I was wondering when we'd be seeing her again.

"I believe you two ladies have something in common," says George. Yeah, we know what that is.

But as Demelza says, this is not the night for husbands. George wants his sidekick Tankard to 'debauch' Demelza, but for now she belongs to Captain McNeil. After a hysterically funny bit when he asks her to call him Malcolm (great moment from actor Henry Garrett there), Demelza also reluctantly allows him to visit her in the red room for a night of passion. Is he the best she can do?

Apparently so: the men of Poldarkland are a mostly shabby bunch right now and while McNeil is creepy, at least he stops when Demelza tells him to. On that basis he would appear to be what Aunt Agatha would call "the better man".

Demelza tells Malcolm she can only give herself to her husband, so their dangerous liaison is not to be. Neither is Tankard's, who is reduced to tossing for Demelza with Sir Hugh outside her door. On entering, he finds Demelza is nowhere to be seen: she has fled through the window.

She's had a lucky escape. Heavily-pregnant Verity is the only character enjoying a happy marriage, it seems. "Plainly, a lady may never always have what her heart desires," says Caroline, before we cut to a scene of Enys dissecting an actual heart (a little heavy on the metaphor there).

You don't need Aunt Agatha's tarot cards to see that Elizabeth and George's marriage isn't made in heaven, either (although I'm glad she's not with Ross). Wheal Grace is open again but it's hard to get excited about that. Good news in Poldarkland never lasts long.