Okay, people - strap yourself in for another Pointless Character Analysis™ moment. I’m afraid another moment of Montmartre-Parapluie Fangirl Feels is coming your way.
Because... this scene. A draft of this post has been sat in my inbox for ages, because this one single scene in Season 2 gets me every. Single. Time.
It’s an excellent example of screenwriting (you GO, Mitchell Akselrad!) because it’s just such a high-quality piece of characterisation – it tells us worlds about Anna, Hewlett and Simcoe’s characters and motivation in this one moment. Even if you’d never watched a single episode of Turn before this scene, you’d have an idea of what these characters are about, what drives them, and the tensions in play. It gives all the onscreen characters a chance to be smart, human and vulnerable at once, and I can’t help but celebrate it for that!
I have an established fondness for a certain tall unstable sociopath present in this scene - and what absolutely kills me is the way they writers play with our expectations here. After a truly smug little put-down of his old commanding officer, Simcoe is back to the old ‘intimidating loom’ over Anna, oblivious to the fact Anna looks anything but pleased to see him - and all but threw her bucket of water at him just to keep a bit fo distance between them. (Unfortunately, despite the green, Queen’s Rangers don’t melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, Anna. Sorry) . Hewlett’s indignant, helpless and clearly concerned for her. Unlike Simcoe, he can actually read body language.
But just when you think this situation is going to turn into one of those depressing Outlander/Game of Throne detours, Anna completely turns the power-play upside down by one of her favourite manoevres where inappropriate Simcoe is concerned: attack as the best defence. She goes a step further, exposing her reduced circumstances and suggesting he ‘rest in her room’ (which by the bye, is pretty darn saucy for the 18th century) with the cool eye of a practised poker player. She’s calling Simcoe’s bluff.
And it works like a dream.
Will you look at that little wide-eyed open-mouthed stare of his? That’s the lovestruck look of a thirteen-year old with his first crush. For all his menacing posturing Simcoe has NO idea how to handle anyone making a romantic advance, and Anna knows it. He’s six feet three-inches of awkward dork as well as ‘insane killing machine’. Although the gif above doesn’t show it, if you watch the scene poor Simcoe’s all but frozen like that for a good five minutes just at the very thought of sharing Anna’s room. It’s subtle, hilarious, and a bit touching all at the same time - and you don’t get this kind of depth from ‘Violate -Everything-in-Sight’ Black Jack Randall. Somewhere underneath the ‘murder you without a second thought’, Simcoe is as romantically awkward as any of the Big Bang Theory guys...
And then - there’s Hewlett’s reaction, firmly aligned with the audience’s at this point, which is most definitely:
