Hey, remember Arthur’s genius plan to win the election by buying a bunch of votes using a low-tech system involving used train tickets? This may shock you, but it did not work. Sure, Arthur won the election. But six months later, as the opening title informs us, that win has come back to haunt him. A trial for voting fraud has, thankfully, not found Arthur directly guilty of the crime. But the same can’t be said for others in his circle, voiding the win.

This outcome has immediate repercussions. James acts out by angrily finishing the painting of a sign on the Guinness plant wall. After getting the news from Rafferty, Olivia decides to celebrate (though few others see this as a celebratory moment). That means subbing Rafferty in for her usual violin instructor for a private lesson with the doors closed after the pair discuss their plans via a lot of extremely thinly veiled double entendres concerning crying and the proper handling of elegant violins. When Arthur returns home, Potter tries to tattle on the pair, an attempt Arthur shuts down by essentially telling the servant it’s none of his business. It’s un marriage blanc. Does he not get that? But in private, Arthur advises her to exercise a little more discretion in her, um, fiddling.

Now visibly pregnant, Anne gets a much less pleasant reaction to the trial’s outcome than Rafferty when she visits Reverend Grattan. Still peeved about being shut out of the will (and, of course, the limits it places on his ministry), Grattan likens Arthur to an “eel from the River Liffey slipping out of the grasp of justice.” Grattan threatens blackmail, claiming to know the real truth about the election fraud. It’s frankly a lot to lay on any pregnant woman, much less one of Anne’s delicate constitution.

At his office, Edward receives an unexpected visitor in the form of Adelaide, who’s been dodging his calls (or, more accurately, his written requests to socialize) but sweetly wipes the paint off his face. She might not be interested in dating Edward, but Adelaide would like his help with a pet project she conceived with Anne. She wants to tear down Dublin’s slums and replace them with smartly designed, humane housing for lower-income Dubliners. Additionally, she’d like Guinness to cover the costs, and it won’t be cheap. She does not want to factor into his decision-making, she claims. But it’s not like she couldn’t have sent these plans over with a messenger.

And how are things in America? Complicated! Cousin Byron sends word that he’s “hit on a fine plan to smooth our path once and for all,” but Edward’s a little, let’s say, not entirely comfortable with that plan. Byron’s been working like a one-man PR firm, spreading the gospel of Guinness wherever he goes. Years later, Guinness would adopt the famous (and not entirely misleading) slogan “Guinness Is Good for You.” Byron’s way ahead of the game, touting Guinness’s ability to keep men, well, afloat using an elaborate nautical metaphor.

But, as Byron’s cousin William warns him, mere salesmanship won’t help him during his meeting with Eamon Dodd (Sam C. Wilson), a Civil War veteran on the Union side who’s now in charge of the muscle end of the Fenians’ operations as the Manhattan Battalion Commander. The meeting, ostensibly a political gathering, seems to take a disastrous turn after Byron launches into his Guinness sales pitch. But it turns out Byron does have a political scheme to lay out. If the Fenians help Guinness, then Guinness will help the Fenians to the tune of 15 percent of all sales funneled through charities — a number that, we soon see, shocks Edward.

Arthur’s having a tough time of it too. At Edward’s insistence, Bonnie has shut him out of his dockside entertainment house, the Angel. Enraged and drunk, Arthur heads to the brewery and attempts to call out his brother. But, for once, Edward is not at the office. Instead, Arthur recites some Shakespeare and settles into a sulk after discovering some plans Edward has not shared with him. Yet Arthur’s night takes an unexpected turn for the better when a guard named Patrick (Cúán Hosty-Blaney playing our second Patrick of the series) wanders in, one Arthur already knows from his nights at the Angel. Patrick liked him then and likes him now and makes clear he’d be open to an after-hours fling. Arthur doesn’t hesitate to accept.

And where is Edward while all this is going on? He’s gone to visit Ellen at her home, a boarding house with a snoopy landlady living on the first floor. Ellen doesn’t think they have any business together anymore now that Arthur is no longer in a position to help the Fenian Brotherhood. But it’s the Fenian matter that’s brought Edward to her door. (Or at least that’s part of what’s drawn him there.) To avoid the landlady, they head upstairs, quietly, to Ellen’s quarters. Ellen suggests that if he doesn’t want to pay a 15 percent commission to the Fenians, he should bargain the price down, or risk getting Byron killed. Then each confesses that they find the other “spring[ing] to mind” with a surprising frequency. They make love, quietly, a moment the episode crosscuts with Arthur’s tryst back at the office.

Anne, too, is quite busy having her baby, noisily.

Before the ceremony celebrating the expansion of the brewery, Arthur and Rafferty have a man-to-man talk in which each expresses some honest feelings. Rafferty believes Arthur should be more involved in brewery affairs, particularly after his political humiliation. After noting that this will take him away from Olivia more often, Arthur makes clear that he’s okay with Rafferty spending time with her in his stead, so long as they practice the utmost discretion.

It’s a big day, so big that even Benjamin makes an appearance with his wife Henrietta (Elizabeth Dulau) in tow. Benjamin’s not only sober: He’s going to be a dad. He’s also surprised to see his brothers getting along so well, asking, “Has peace broken out on the Guinness battlefield?” Apparently, yes. But things aren’t so peaceful elsewhere. Aunt Agnes is absent owing to some business involving “one of the cousins.” This turns out to be Christine, who’s so heartbroken at Benjamin having taken a wife that she plans to shoot herself. Agnes makes a variation on a now-familiar pitch: Christine should put down the gun, forget about men, sign up for the charitable foundation, and drink a lot of booze.

In his speech, Arthur gives an appropriate abundance of credit to Edward before vowing to redouble his efforts on behalf of the company. The crowd cheers. Everything’s coming up Guinness. Then, as the ceremony ends, Edward tells Arthur that they’re going to have to talk about New York.

Skipping over the scandal following Arthur’s election seems like an odd choice, albeit one that ultimately makes sense within the context of the series. House of Guinness moves fast, and its multi-tendriled plot pushes forward on my fronts at once. Focusing on one aspect of one character’s story might have just slowed things down. That said, it is a pretty big story to breeze through, particularly since it seems to have had such a profound effect on Arthur. The fast-forwarding also gives us a suddenly pregnant Anne. Still, it’s another solid and juicy episode that finds the family ascend from the lows of scandal to the highs of professional success. But it looks like another low awaits them, if they’re not careful.

Sláinte!

• It’s worth noting that, of all the liberties House of Guinness is taking with history, connecting the Guinness family’s efforts to expand into the United States with the activities of the Fenian Brotherhood seems to be the biggest stretch. In the series’ press materials, creator Stephen Knight plays coy about what’s fact and what’s fiction, writing, “I’m picking stepping stones of actual events to leap between and in the leaps between it are invention, and not just invention but speculation, maybe that happened, maybe that would have happened.” What’s in the history books suggests this subplot is a combination of invention and speculation.

• Or is it? Every episode bears the credit “Based on an Idea by Ivana Lowell.” Lowell is a member of the Guinness family and, per Knight, “an absolute mine of information and untold stories about the family going back years.” It’s fuzzy, in other words.

• Last week, we met William Randall Roberts, a real historical figure. This week, we meet Eamon Dodd, who is not. But some of the crazy schemes the Fenian Brotherhood are cooking up are real. They only seem like fiction.

• Anne’s response when asked how long she’ll be giving birth may be the series’s funniest moment to date.

• Songs in this episode: “Brewing Up a Storm,” by the Stunning, a track from the Galway band’s 1990 album Paradise in the Picturehouse. And “Choose Life,” from the more recently formed Galway band Shark School, who in 2024 launched a festival called Femme Fest.

 The Guinness siblings aren’t going to let a little political scandal keep them from expanding the business and starting new affairs.