Season 1 of The Buccaneers left us on the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. Having just walked down the aisle with (seemingly) the wrong man, Nan St. George is about to face another challenge: her mother, up until this point anonymous, has come to her wedding. It sets up a delicious season 2 premiere episode that puts viewers right back in the action. Our four buccaneers are up against some of their biggest challenges yet, which makes the season as a whole dramatic, messy, and devastating.
Cosmopolitan hopped on Zoom with Kristine Frøseth and Aubri Ibrag, who play Nan and Lizzy Elmsworth, to break down the premiere episode and the season at large. This is part one of our conversation. We'll be publishing part two when the finale airs in August. You're definitely going to want to come back for that, because having seen the whole season, there are major, major plot points to talk about. No spoilers here, though!
Kristine, what do you think Nan is feeling in the opening moments of the season? She's just made this huge sacrifice for her sister.
Kristine: There's a lot of adrenaline and the cortisol is quite high. She's just said goodbye to her sister and someone she deeply loves, and she's now about to enter the life that she never wanted. I don't think she wanted to get married. I definitely don't think she wanted to be a duchess. She doesn't like the traditions of how society makes women feel. She's in a predicament.
Aubri, what about Lizzy? Where's her head at?
Aubri: At the end of season 1, she was going through a lot with Lord Seadown, feeling quite alone and vulnerable because she was taken advantage of. The shame she felt, she's built up these walls. There is a scene in season 1 where she says, I don't want a husband anymore, I just want to be by myself. That was an empowering statement. But I think it actually came from a place of her being absolutely terrified of something like that ever happening to her again. She's very closed off at the beginning of season 2.
Okay, so our girls are unwell. Where do you think the friendship of the group stands going into this season?
Aubri: Ginny has the baby. Nan is going through this marriage with Theo, and she's got her entanglements with Guy. Mabel's in love with Honoria. Conchita, she's got a child. Lizzy is the only one who hasn't found love.
Due to the circumstances of everything that happened to them when they came to London, the girls have been sort of separated. I think Lizzy, she misses the the sort of the girlhood that was the nature of their relationship in Saratoga. She feels like she's running behind on things. But at heart, all the girls are always going to be there for each other no matter what happens.
Lizzy catches the eye of a new man, Hector, in our premiere episode. I wonder if there's any part of this that's fueled by her thinking, all my friends are moving on, when will it be my?
Aubri: You hit the nail on the head. The first scene that they interact, Hector's playing with the kids, and a dream of Lizzy's is to have a ton of children. She craves that wholesome life. But I also think she's under that time pressure. She's the only one left in London who's like, I don't have a man. It's heartbreaking, because you don't really need a man nowadays to thrive, but back in the day, that was absolutely the case. She yearns for love, she yearns for connection, and she yearns for everything that the other girls are experiencing.
Lizzy obviously experienced something traumatic in season 1. How does that continue to reverberate with her decisions in season 2?
Aubri: It takes a lot for Lizzy to open up. With Hector, even though he's lovely and they have great banter, and he's a very eligible bachelor, she's afraid to trust him. She always keeps him at an arm's length. They never really have very deep conversations.
We need to talk about the Nan, Theo, and Guy of it all. Kristine, what could Nan have done differently going into the wedding with Theo? Mistakes were made!
Kristine: I mean, you know, she cheats with Theo's best friend. No judgement, I love Nan. I'll always protect her, but she definitely could have taken a beat before doing that. I think the stakes with her sister were different, and that required more urgency. There were probably other solutions so she didn't have to send her sister away and have to be stuck in this marriage. But it was a beautiful sacrifice.
We know Nan's love for Guy is stronger, but how is she feeling about Theo in this moment? There is affection there.
Kristine: She still has love for Theo. She always did. The circumstances for everything that went down in season 1 were very rushed. If everyone met under different circumstances, different relationships would thrive and for different reasons. Theo's title is quite limiting. And Guy initially feels more adventurous. But Theo and Nan fall in love because they want freedom. It wasn't Theo's choice to be the Duke. I thought there was beautiful common ground for both relationships. Guy left Nan when Nan told him the truth about her birth. People forget about that.
How do you think Nan going through with the wedding will help her evolve or, alternatively, regress as the season goes on?
Kristine: She does the best with what with what her position is, and she tries to change what she feels is a prison into something empowering. She starts trying to use any agency she has, which she does with, you know, the red dress that's in the trailer at this event, where no one would would ever dare to do such a thing. The power for females was so limiting, so that was a big statement. She's trying to continue to use her title and in a good way, rather than the traditional sense that Theo's mother is advocating for.
