In the first episode Cornelia reflects on the choices she made to get to America. Likewise Hugo Blick also made many creative choices when writing this western, and by default so did his characters.
To make a HEA possible and even probable however we need to analyse and rework some of those choices. In brief and no particular order are some of the choices Eli and Cornelia face and what might have happened if they had chosen differently.
Family - Eli looks longingly at Cornelia while she holds the baby he cut from the dead boomer's stomach. A short while later they have a hypothetical disagreement about what to do with the rescued children. He thinks Cornelia could easily accept the baby's as a replacement for her lost son, breastfeed it, use her money to set up home in the north. She of course rejected this and reverses his argument with one of her own. Didn't he lose a family, couldn't he then by the same logic take on this one? He laughs, she does too, it's absurd, the two of them setting up home together with these orphaned children...or is it?
Why exactly don't they do just this? Why scoff at the notion? Is it so much more outlandish than her going off to kill Melmont, than Eli chasing the impossible dream of a piece of land for himself? In grander terms this wouldn't be any lesser of a dramatic plot twist than anything else that happens in the series. Them making a life together, a family, would in no way be the easy option, and it would be so much more satisfying than them going their separate ways. Eli is already showing signs of attraction towards Cornelia and she clearly holds him in awe. So in my mind a great alternative storyline would be them heading north together and making a new family and a new future.
Backwards - of course in the programme Cornelia takes on responsibility for returning the children to their family a few days south. Eli for good reasons won't go, staying instead on the farm to work off the compass he gives to her. In real terms this was a bad call on his part. Suddenly Cornelia the green English lady can drive a wagon alone with two young children, catch up with the 'boomers', and get back all in one piece in around a week? Unlikely is the word for that. Also these two have but a month together, by losing a whole week of being together they kind of lost some of my interest. I watched the two episodes during this Eli/Cornelia hiatus and really was just waiting impatiently for them to be reunited. I know, I know, this is how writers and directors keep us hooked. The will they won't they, the tension and the longing. But given how tragically it ends for the pair of them, does this sacrifice of screen time for the leading couple pay off? Yes and no. Sad and sweeping The English stays with me and many who watch it because of the trauma of its viewing. However, I take issue with anyone who thinks this kind of tragedy is somehow more worthy than tales with a happier resolution. Is it any more artistic, any more dramatic, any more romantic because they don't end up together?
It's kind of a masculine approach don't you think? That a romance, epic, adventurous, and moving as it is, has to be elevated from a potential chick lit classification, because what could be worse than that?! The horror, the guilty pleasure! Whilst applauding all involved in the making of this series I would have been the one to stick my hand in the air and say...'hang in a minute'. 'Aren't we pushing our audience a little too far?' Yes terrible things happen, everybody ultimately dies in the end, but Cornelia didn't even get a frickin clear photo of them for christsake!
Killing Melmont - so after Cornelia saves Eli by killing Black Mog, Eli decides to take her to Melmont. He has unfinished business with Billy Myers, an ex soldier who had a part in the ruin of a Cheyenne village along with the dastardly David M. Eli witnessed this but as a lone scout could do nothing to stop it. It's haunted him ever since, but I don't know what seeing Billy Myers might do to help him with his closure, maybe I'm missing something. Better Eli owned that he wanted to help her, that he cares about her, owes her loyalty for what she did to help him escape Kills on Water. As the climax of the drama builds many of the key players come together, but frustratingly Cornelia never fully explains to Eli what Melmont did to her, and Eli never explains to her what happened at the Cheyenne village all those years ago. I loved the scenes where it was just Cornelia and Eli talking, I wish there had been more of them, certainly they could have had the conversation about their respective 'secrets', there would have been more clarity if they had.
That ending - I've already said how I would give them both a HEA. They briefly separate after killing Melmont to avoid being caught, but then Cornelia catches Eli up in Nebraska and helps him get his land. They don't settle of course, that's too tidy, instead they ride off together again and we are left to imagine new horizons. I will write this soon, but first I think I want to rewrite key scenes with a little more detail about Eli's thoughts and feelings, especially for Cornelia.
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Rethinking The English (fanfic)
Roman d'amourA short alternative story arc which makes the recent BBC drama The English, less heartbreaking. Followed by a reinterpretation of key scenes.
