Warning: this article contains spoilers for the first episode of BBC Two’s The English.

Whoa. This writer freely admits it: the series premiere of The English – an epic tale of love and revenge set in 19th century America – completely took my breath away. No, strike that. It squeezed every last breath out of my body as I sat, phone long forgotten on the sofa, utterly engrossed in the Beeb’s revolutionary twist on the classic western.

At the centre of the story is Emily Blunt’s Lady Cornelia Locke, an aristocratic Englishwoman who really isn’t dressed for life in the rust-coloured dust of big sky country. Her frilly attire, her undeniable beauty and her bag filled to the brim with cash quickly sees her fall afoul of Richard M Watts (Ciarán Hinds).

It is clear from the get-go that this guy embodies one of the classic western’s more morally bankrupt archetypes; that much is clear from the fact he has ex-cavalry sergeant and Pawnee scout Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) strung up outside his property. Cornelia offers to pay a substantial sum to secure Eli’s release – despite him warning her that this isn’t her fight – and, for a moment, it seems Richard might just take her up on it.

Then, without warning, he hits her bodily across the face, sending her tumbling into the dirt. His men rifle through her belongings, pulling out a red satin gown (which he decides to dress her up in for the evening) and pocketing all of her cash for themselves. Then, just like that, Richard sends Eli off for a ride with Toby Jones’ Sebold Cusk – still cuffed, but allegedly on his way to freedom.

Naturally, Eli soon learns that he’s being set up for the murder of Cornelia – who is learning that she will be forced to endure a great deal before Richard finally kills her. Starting with, of course, a chilling dinner of ‘prairie oysters’ (don’t ask) with her captor.

“You’ll want to rape me,” she says quietly at one point.

It’s a statement, rather than a question; as she points out, the threat of violence and assault are “everything I expect in a man”. And sadly, her fears mirror those of our own modern society, with 2021 data from End Violence Against Women revealing that being followed, harassed and assaulted are almost universally shared experiences of being a woman and girl, and that the threat of men’s violence leads to additional “safety work” and a restricted sense of freedom.

Like so many of us, Cornelia is tired of constantly undertaking personal risk assessments. She’s tired of having to constantly fight to keep herself safe from male violence. And she’s sick of having to assume the worst of men, too – especially as her assumptions so often prove to be correct.

“I’m realistic when it comes to matters of consent,” replies Richard, his words nastily ambiguous.

“Then go fuck a horse.”

Cornelia’s words are delivered coolly, almost matter-of-factly, and completely at odds with her vulnerable demeanour. Even when Richard reminds her that he is going to kill her, and that he’d love it if she came back from the grave as his horse, she doesn’t allow herself to show any weakness. Indeed, it seems that Cornelia wants it known she is not a “hysterical” woman, even going so far as to clarify why there are tears on her face at that moment.

“I’m crying, but not why you might think,” she says. “I’m just angry. Somebody killed my child, and now I’m not going to kill him.”

Thankfully for Cornelia, help arrives in the form of a silhouetted Eli Whipp, who has fought his way back, and just in time to kill Richard. He says he’s there for his bag and his horse; Cornelia, however, believes their paths have been intertwined by fate itself.

In short, Blunt’s is the sort of female character we don’t often get on screen; she’s pragmatic, shrewd and a survivalist – but she’s vulnerable, too. She is a staunch believer in magic and astrology (“I’m a Scorpio,” she says at one point. “It’s a star sign, all the rage in London – and mine’s all about revenge”), is insistent that she is not, and will never be, the marrying kind, and is the sort of person who covers their eyes at violence. 

Still, though, she steals a dead man’s guns when the moment strikes, and it is she who is the one to kill off another of Richard’s henchmen using… well, using a horse and a bucket of water. As you do.

Cornelia is the sort of woman who fears the violence of men. Who cries when she’s angry (a wholly relatable experience for anyone who has frustratedly burst into tears of rage), and cries when she takes a life. And her tears are never shown as a weakness, either – far from it. Instead, they are portrayed as an entirely acceptable response to a traumatic experience.

Most importantly of all, Cornelia’s desire for vengeance is not scoffed at by Eli. Instead, he listens to her story (despite insisting he doesn’t want to hear it), before teaching her to use a rifle. Properly. All he wants is to claim a plot of land – a plot of land he’s owed, at that – after seeing his country colonised by outsiders with little respect or compassion for the people already living here.

“I wanted to kill a man for the murder of my child,” notes Cornelia in a voiceover. “You wanted back your land, stolen from you. But the difference between what we want and what we need… well, that was something we both had yet to learn.”

Eli eventually decides that he will accompany Cornelia across a land filled with “killers and thieves” – they are both headed north, after all, and there is safety in numbers. But it’s worth noting that both Blunt and Spencer burn with a quiet intensity in every single scene, and the chemistry between the pair is palpable from the start. Indeed, we barely need that voiceover from a future Cornelia to tell us that this meeting, which was “written in the stars”, will end in love. Why else would she have learned the Pawnee word for, “I cherish you,” eh?

Throw in the gorgeous, almost mythic, American landscape, and you have a multitude of reasons to watch this complex drama. Be warned, though: this isn’t the kind of show you can half-watch while scrolling through Instagram. Its plot is complicated (sometimes too much so) and it will demand your full attention from start to finish.

If it continues in the same vein as this first episode, it is well worth your attention. Promise.

The English airs on Thursdays at 9pm on BBC Two.

Images: BBC