The year is 1893, and Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes), a Londoner exploring her newfound freedom after the death of her abusive husband, hears about a sea monster terrorizing a village on the Essex coast. Cora is an avid naturalist and fossil hunter, so she decides to go investigate with her housekeeper and companion Martha (Hayley Squires) and her son Frankie (Caspar Griffiths) in tow. When she gets there, she befriends the Reverend Will Ransome (Tom Hiddleston) and his family. As the two begin to develop feelings for each other, though, the panicked villagers find an easy scapegoat in Cora, accusing her of bringing God’s wrath to the village. Meanwhile, Martha, Dr. Luke Garrett (Frank Dillane), and other characters in Cora’s orbit ride the wave of change in England, exploring questions of science, progress, and human rights in a rapidly changing world. The Essex Serpent is adapted from the 2016 novel by Sarah Perry of the same name.
You might have already heard that the landscape in The Essex Serpent, a new prestige drama premiering on Apple TV+ on May 13, 2022, is as much of a character as any of the humans, and that’s no exaggeration. The Essex coast, with its salt marshes and earthquake-torn beaches, is both breathtaking and sinister. Lingering aerial shots take us through the vast marshes, which coil along the coast like snakes. Sea cliffs hide the fossils of ammonites and plesiosaurs. A mysterious atmospheric phenomenon—an eruption from far-off Mount Krakatoa, one character speculates—turns the night sky a shimmering, eldritch blue, and calls the villagers out of their homes to roam the land like ghosts. The series sets up a startling contrast between the otherworldly seaside and cosmopolitan London, with its stately museums and cutting-edge medicine.
At the heart of The Essex Serpent is the question of how faith and enchantment can coexist with science and rationality, and Cora and Will are thrust into the middle of that debate. Cora struggles to explain to superstitious villagers and skeptical London friends that she thinks the serpent is real, but not magical. Will, who walked away from a prestigious career to become a country vicar, finds himself pulled between two extremes: the folk religion of his parishioners, who believe that the serpent is punishing them for their sins, and the atheism of Cora and her friends, some of whom see him as a joke. England is tipping into modernity, with doctors in London performing heart surgery while villagers cast spells to ward off evil, and at its best, the series beautifully conveys the tension between those two worlds.
Hiddleston and Danes’s performances are layered, complex, and expertly executed. Will’s personality alternates between that of a gruff, hostile villager and a compassionate shepherd to his family and flock. Cora can be socially clueless sometimes, bumbling into spaces where she’s not welcome and accidentally stirring up hornets’ nests, but her simmering rage at her husband’s abuse gives her a compelling intensity. Clémence Poésy also shines as Will’s wife Stella. For much of the series, she haunts the edges of the narrative, but she’s harboring a secret that eventually leads to heartbreaking catharsis. The casting is also diverse in a natural, realistic way, which will challenge many viewers’ preconceived and false notions about the demographics of Victorian England.
Of course, the series isn’t without its faults. Martha, Luke, and other characters fight for better living conditions in London, and although it’s an interesting storyline, it feels divorced enough from Cora’s exploits that perhaps it should have just been its own series. Dialogue that’s meant to be thought-provoking sometimes just drags, and more than once, the beauty of the show’s lingering establishing shots wears off before the shot is actually over.
The series also suffers from some cliches. What better way to show two characters falling in love than to have them gaze into each other’s eyes while dancing a waltz? Or get them into a screaming match before they fall, helpless with passion, into each other’s arms? If the villagers are working themselves into a lather about woman and sin, why not put the woman in question in a bright red dress to hammer the point home?
Those flaws aside, though, The Essex Serpent succeeds as a gothic meditation on the magic and wonder of the natural world, whether it’s seen through the lens of science or the supernatural. But it’s also a moving story about human connection. “Love is not finite,” Cora muses at one point. “It’s not confined to marriage. There are so many ways to love.” Cora, Will, and everyone else caught up in the serpent’s wake feel their way through all those different kinds of love, sometimes stumbling, sometimes finding each other in moments of tenderness and awe.
The Essex Serpent premieres on Apple TV Plus on Friday, May 13.
(image: See-Saw Films)
