Kristine Froseth stands by who her “Buccaneers” character, Annabelle “Nan” St. George, chose to marry in the finale of the Apple TV+ drama’s first season.
On the eve of Nan’s wedding to Theo, Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), she has a conversation with her adopted mother (Christina Hendricks) about her decision to divorce Nan’s father. The conversation leaves a bit to be desired in terms of Nan’s conviction and certainty of marrying Theo. The finale also saw Nan learn Guy Thwarte’s (Matthew Broome) true feelings for her, before her sister Jinny St. George (Imogen Waterhouse) comes to Nan’s room to confess that she is pregnant and that she fears for the child she’s conceived with her abusive husband Lord Seadown (Barney Fishwick).
Guy, who has been hiding behind Nan’s bed, reveals himself and immediately offers to take Jinny far away from Seadown. The finale, titled “The Wedding of the Season” ends with Nan choosing to go through with the wedding to Theo to give Jinny time to escape with Guy.
“I’m really proud of the choice she makes. I was quite surprised that she makes that choice after the path she’s been on, and I’m just curious to see how her marriage with Theo is going to go,” Krsitine Froseth told TheWrap. “I’m excited to explore the ugliness in it, and I’m curious if she’s going to go back to Guy [and] curious about Jinny’s baby.”
At the beginning of the series, Nan would not have been able to envision the path she has since followed through the eight episodes. Froseth considered the core of her character forever changed after the big reveal that her father conceived her out of wedlock.
“Beforehand it was quite clear what her path was going to be. She wasn’t going to get married. She was maybe going to become a teacher or do something for the women’s rights movement,” Froseth said. “After the fact, I feel like she’s just kind of reactionary and bouncing off of whatever happens around her. So it changes.”
Nan’s illegitimacy doesn’t bother either of the suitors involved in the show’s big love triangle. Froseth described Nan’s relationship with Guy Thwarte as “best friends and lovers,” while Theo provides a more secure future for Nan financially, and for her mother, as seen in the scene mentioned above.
“I do believe that Guy Thwarte brings out Nan’s old self before the news is dropped. That’s playfulness of curiosity, and I think Theo is more of a safety in the sense that he’s a Duke, and she can become a duchess and just really let go of her past [and] have this totally new identity,” Froseth said. “I think though she brings out the playfulness in both of them and she opens them up.”
Theo’s mother almost gets in the way of their marriage when she discovers Nan’s illegitimacy, but Nan stands up to the soon-to-be Dowager Duchess of Tintagel with a solid monologue in Episode 6.
“Initially I felt like she didn’t owe it to anyone to go and have that speech. Like why would she? It’s not her fault. She’s kind of the victim in the situation. And obviously, people just viewed it in a different way, but she has this courage and she felt the need to and I really respect her for that,” Froseth said. “On the day [of filming] I was really terrified. I don’t like to do big scenes like that. I was scared so I can only imagine being actually Nan doing that. I felt a lot for her, but I was proud of her.”
Guy Thwarte knew Nan’s true identity before Theo did, and if it weren’t for Jinny speaking out, the secret might have stayed hidden from the Duke of Tintagel and his mother as well as even Nan herself. Thus, Nan’s sisterly love for Jinny becomes all the more powerful in the finale when she helps her escape her abuser.
“[We] can totally empathize with Jinny’s character, but throughout the series she doesn’t always put Nan first,” Guy Remmers told TheWrap. “And I think it’s a great metaphor for two wrongs don’t make a right. There is a chance that Nan could have said, ‘Oh, well, you revealed my secret, and you did this and I’m not going to help you,’ but she [drops it all for] family.”
Both Remmers and Matthew Broome are crossing their fingers for another season, and Broome likes that the ending didn’t necessarily come down to solving the love triangle. Remmers described Nan as a “unicorn of life” that attracts both Theo and Guy. Broome connected the “similar values” that the two men, who are childhood best friends, have and how this gets reflected in the fact that they both fall in love with Nan.
Broome and Remmers agreed that, though there was hope after Theo hid Guy’s love letter confession from Nan and the fallout of a poker match in which Theo makes it seem like Guy only wanted to marry Nan for her money in the episodes building up to the finale, Guy may have crossed a line too far to save their characters’ friendship.
“After Episode 7 there’s hope, it’s all out at that point. Until Ep 8, [when] I come back,” Broome said. “I think that’s the line where it maybe could be irreparable.”
All eight episodes of “The Buccaneers” are now streaming on Apple TV+.
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