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This Snark Week I offer you: The Kent Family Chronicles, more specifically, parts 1 and 2: The Bastard (1978) and The Rebels (1979). These are adaptations of an apparently very successful series of 18th century-set historical fiction novels by John Jakes, both of which were made in the 1970s and offer a fiesta of polyester and scoffing. Yes, there’s a third in the series: The Seekers, but seeing as that’s set on the frontier and I have no interest in screencapping a bunch of Little House on the Prairie costumes, I’m sticking with the first two. I’ll be splitting the combined two movies into five sections for a full week of snark! If you want to watch along, you can find both movies on YouTube.
Here’s part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4!
Peggy Comes To* Sonny Crockett (*romance novel language). She’s in Philadelphia with her husband and heard about him shagging all over town. “Why are you here?” he asks her. “Why do you THINK I’m here?” she declares. SEXYTIMES.
As Peggy leaves, she’s accosted by some street thugs who want to rob her. Philip is randomly nearby, rescues her, and she runs off.
Jim Backus (THURSTON HOWELL III FROM GILLIGAN’S ISLAND;Â Love Boat appearances = 2) as John Hancock get ornery at Sonny Crockett.
Sonny sees Peggy’s husband slip a note to a sketchy looking woman!
He follows her to the bar where she works, gives her some money to shag him, and then when they’re done, finds the note.
Turns out Mr. Peggy is a traitor and was passing info to the Brits! Sonny confronts him in an alley, they fight, Mr. Peggy tells his henchman to shoot Sonny, but the henchman shoots Mr. Peggy accidentally instead.
Mr. Peggy is dead! But Peggy can’t believe her husband was a traitor! She runs into Sonny while wearing slutty mourning wear and tells him never to speak to her again.
ALL SORTS OF BORING THINGS HAPPEN WITH PHILIP, who does some kind of secret mission for George Washington and gets caught. The Brits sentence him to hang. At his hearing, the Duke of Kentland (pops;Â Love Boat appearances = 1) just randomly shows up!
Long, complicated, boring scene as the Duke figures out Philip is his son (signet rings are involved, it is boring, I hit fast-forward). Philip gets off and heads back to Boston, where he opens a printing shop with another guy (Bobby Troup of Emergency!).
In Boston, Philip recognizes Peggy as the mystery woman he rescued. He goes to say hi, and she is very “Thanks but go away.” Philip sees her OVERLY EMPHASIZED laced-front dress and dun dun DUN, Peggy is pregnant!
Peggy is with her aunt, played by Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet; Love Boat appearances = 1).
Philip and Sonny run into each other. Philip tells Sonny about this enticing woman he rescued and ran into, and that she’s pregnant. It’s clear that Philip is Into Her. SONNY KNOWS. He goes to visit Peggy at her aunt’s house:
Peggy and Sonny reconcile.
Sonny wants to marry Peggy, but she points out that everyone thinks her coming child is her ex-husband’s. She wants to wait till after the birth to get married.
Philip runs into the Marquis de Lafayette, recast with an older actor now and wearing VERY QUESTIONABLE MAKEUP CONSTANTLY. The two get their French on, hang out, and then lots of military/political shit happens that I care nothing about and mostly fast-forward.
Peggy has her baby, she and Sonny write back and forth.
A WHOLE LOT of boring military shit happens, including some troop training by General Baron von Steuben. I fast-forward. At some point, Sonny Crockett dies, I was so bored that I didn’t catch why. As he dies, he makes Philip promise to take care of his mystery love without ever saying who she is.
There’s a big battle at Dorchester. Zzzzz still don’t care.
Philip attends a fancy dinner party:
Philip chats up Peggy, she says enough to help him figure out she’s Sonny’s girl, he hits on her.
And we jump to — the war is over! It’s 1781, and Philip and Peggy get married!
Key stats:
- Love Boat appearances: only 4!
- Shitty wigs: only 1!
- Tits out: 5 pairs
- Actors who have made me keel over: only 1!
And we’re out! Hope you enjoyed!
WOAH… They really upped their Hair game. And here I was, blissfully ignorant on how Elnett had cornered the 1780 market. Oh, well…
I’m sure someone has mentioned it but Peggy (Gwen Humble) is Mrs. Ian McShane.
Who is from Deadwood, right?
AND the mom from the Buccaneers! All I can hear is her awkwardly saying, “EUROPE!”
What on earth is that weird lapel with the knot work look? I cannot get over it. And you’re totally right, that dress is totally a tablecloth.
Also, the children just kind of disappear conveniently until it turns out it’s all to give them a new country? Hm.. Sure.
Fom what I can tell, Philip is like a mixture of Johnny Tremaine, Davy Crockett, and Nathan Hale. Based on this and the knowledge that they go out to the frontier in the third season, my guess is he turns out to be Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan, too.
I just can’t hate the tablecloth dress. In fact I’m kind of in love with it’s fantastical “anthropomorphized teacup” aesthetic. Like I can totally imagine that’s what Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast would be wearing when she transforms back into a human.
Okay, Mrs. Potts in that would be amazing!
WAIT a minute, I can make a whole gown o/o these brocade curtains!
A masterful effort! It reminds me of why I read a lot of Regency romances: barring actually-excellent ones like earlier Carla Kelly which feature insightful war and PTSD themes, we usually get only the last few minutes of the Napoleonic wars, like the June 1815 ball in Brussels the night before everyone gets called away for what eventually becomes Waterloo, some brief mention that the good British fighters are over in the US right that minute, and for the rest of it there are plenty of parties and balls and outfits and romances and catfights, and some smuggling and highwaymen for drama, and it all happens within 200 pages or less. That sort of length suits me fine. I could never have watched this whole series these days, so thank you for doing it for us and showing us the good bits and the naughty bits.
Having just recently done a re-watch of the KFC’s, I thoroughly enjoyed Kendra’s recap. I will now be basing my assessments of mini-series star-power on the “Love Boat Appearances” scale.
Why does Peggy’s hair remind me of a beauty pageant contestant?
Omg it’s totally honey booboo!
Not Mama June? Lol
There is so much WTF in there that I find myself at a loss . . .
The Marquis de Lafayette looks like one of the aliens from that alien nation show in a shitty wig.
Thank you for watching this shitshow so we don’t have to. You are doing God’s work, those screen caps are HILARIOUS.
Hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but the wedding dress (one of a lady’s better dresses at the time, as the custom of wearing an all white dress didn’t occur until the 19th Century) was hand embroidered in Hong Kong for Mr. Dorleac. It was not a tablecloth as someone has told you and as you have described (if so it would have been a VERY LARGE table as there were over 15 yards of fabric involved).
Secondly, he was the costume designer on the mini-series, not the hair dresser, so he therefore had very little to say about the anachronistic up-does that are seen on screen.
Richard Harper
Artistic Management: representing Jean-Pierre Dorleac