Using A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a touchstone for this episode works out quite nicely for The Buccaneers. Not only do you know they’ve been dying to get our American gals in fairy wings and glitter, but this Shakespeare play is the one with the big “the course of true love never did run smooth” line. Honestly, if that sentiment doesn’t just perfectly sum up what’s happening on this series, I don’t know what does. Not to mention, Midsummer is all about the wrong people falling in love with each other, and the further we get into season two here, the more it looks like not one single person, save for Conchita and Richard, is going to end up with the person they actually want to be with. In Shakespeare, that unfortunate circumstance is mostly due to fairy mischief, and on this show, it’s because of people’s terrible decision-making, but still, we can hope that all will right itself in the end. I mean, the odds aren’t great by the end of Lizzy’s Midsummer-themed birthday party, but let’s try to be optimistic.

In the name of optimism, I’m kicking this recap off by discussing the couple who currently seems most likely to succeed, a surprise entry in this horse race: the Dowager Duchess of Tintagel (who at one time went by the name Blanche?!) and her long-lost love, Reede Robinson. I guess “long-lost” implies this dude just wandered off into the sea or something, but that is not the case: The Dowager Duchess, Blanche, chose the Duke of Tintagel and all the trappings that came with the title over Reede many decades ago. “You broke my heart,” he tells her of her choice all those years ago. “I broke my own,” she responds. The youths can ship whomever the hell they want on this show, Blanche and Reede are all I need now. I am obsessed. If they do not get to be together, it will be me wandering off into the sea, okay? And as it stands, we probably have a 50/50 shot of this working out.

Reede Robinson is Hector’s father, and he’s come to Tintagel to be there for the big party in which the worst-kept secret in history is taking place: Hector is going to propose to Lizzy. If you recall how last week’s episode ended, the Dowager Duchess is currently dealing with a major obstacle to completing her life’s goal of keeping the Tintagel line alive and kicking. Theo learned that Guy was on the grounds the night before the wedding, and the duke wastes no time demanding answers from his wife. Nan makes an interesting choice: She tells Theo that yes, she slept with Guy the night before their wedding, but when he asks why she stayed and got married instead of running off with Guy and Jinny, she covers for Theo’s mother and makes it seem like she came to her own conclusion that she needed Theo’s title to keep her sister safe. She says she went along with the marriage because she needed to be a duchess, not because the Dowager Duchess gave her an ultimatum. Theo takes off to have a nice brood alone and leaves Nan and Blanche to keep the rumors of his absence at a whisper.

This is the situation Blanche is in the middle of when she spots Reede from across the room at Lizzy’s party. The kids are dancing to “Good Luck, Babe!” She has never seemed so happy to lay eyes on someone. Their flirting is so good it should be taught in schools. And yes, part of that is about this man’s old knees. I’m so into it. They take to the dance floor, and it is very cute, alas, whatever else Blanche was hoping would happen that evening is completely upended by the return of her son.

Oh, Theo is on one, friends. During his week away, he decided that Nan had to leave. He knows he can’t get a divorce, but they can be separated. Blanche, though admittedly, the woman looks torn up about how angry her son is and what that means for Nan, agrees that they could send Nan away, never to come back to Tintagel, even if they remain married. However, there must be an heir first. If the notion that Blanche is advocating for these two people who really don’t want to have sex with each other to do it anyway for the good of the patriarchy makes your skin crawl, well, good. It certainly has that effect on all parties involved.

Theo attempts to get the deed done almost immediately, but as quickly as he starts making out with her, as emphatically as he asks her to tell him that she wants him, he pulls back. He can’t do this. He can’t even look at her. And then he tells her the truth about the whole heir thing and Nan realizes two things right away: She is trapped, and this is all because of the Dowager Duchess. She pulls Blanche from the party for a quick aside in which she informs her mother-in-law that she is disgusting for treating her like nothing more than “a vessel” for Theo and that she will never, ever provide an heir for her precious Tintagel. She has lost. It’s pretty intense. And you know who witnesses the whole thing? Reede. Because, of course, he does! This man!

Prior to learning what’s really going on with Blanche and Tintagel, Reede was giving her a lot of grief about giving up her ideals to play a part in the establishment. They had so many dreams and hopes for a better world, and when Blanche got the power to make a difference, she faded into the background in the name of propriety. “Idealistic is just another word for naïve,” she tells him. And yet, it is his shoulder Blanche leans on when she realizes everything she’s sacrificed will be for nothing if Nan walks away. Perhaps it is because Reede is by her side that she makes a bold move: Knowing that Theo will disown her if she tells him that she knew about Guy and still forced Nan to marry Theo, she decides she has to tell her son the truth. Then he’ll know that none of this is Nan’s fault and maybe, just maybe, the two can reconcile and Tintagel will be saved. And that’s what she does. “If you’re caged,” she tells Theo, “I built it. I turned the key.”

Theo reacts exactly as Blanche knew he would: He banishes his mother from Tintagel. He also, just like his mother guessed, sees Nan’s involvement in a different light and wants a little redo of their last conversation. Unfortunately for Theo, and for Blanche, who once again is betting everything so that Tintagel may endure, Nan doesn’t really enjoy being treated like an object to be used and abused for high society, and so she rips apart Blanche’s room until she finds a letter with Guy and Jinny’s address and she makes a run for it.

Blanche will no doubt wind up seeking some solace in whatever is being rekindled with Reede, but what will Theo do when he realizes Nan is gone and off to see Guy? Well, friends, I hate to tell you — or, I love to tell you, I haven’t decided yet — it’s looking more and more like Theo will be seeking out the company of Lizzy Elmsworth. While her birthday party is also a means for Hector to propose — he even invites Lizzy’s mother, which is a nice gesture even if that lady is an absolute menace when it comes to her daughters — which he does, very sweetly, the event also turns into another opportunity for Lizzy and Theo to feel some intense feelings toward one another. Lizzy unfortunately (or fortunately? I can’t decide, remember?!) runs into Theo right after she has accepted Hector’s proposal and right after Theo has told Nan he can’t even look at her, which will be a problem because they need to procreate. Needless to say, Theo is in a real mood. When Lizzy tells him the happy news, his response is to tell her that she’s settling. Hector is unworthy of someone as “sensational” as Lizzy. Marrying him, or anyone simply “pleasant enough,” would be “an extraordinary waste.” It would be romantic and moving if it weren’t so complicated.

Lizzy’s head is spinning. It’s not out of sympathy that when she runs into Nan as Nan makes her big escape, she pointedly asks if this means she doesn’t love Theo. “It’s always been Guy,” Nan tells her. She and Theo are over. It seems that Lizzy takes this assertion as a pass to feel however she feels about her friend’s husband. And, apparently, how she feels is quite hot and bothered. She finds Theo, and he, now in a (relatively) better mood about his marriage after his mother’s confession, tells Lizzy that he shouldn’t have said what he did; he was awful. Lizzy doesn’t want an apology. She wants to tell him that she “liked very much” how he made her feel in that moment. Theo is too distracted looking to make amends with Nan to realize what she’s telling him, and in the end, the birthday girl is left engaged to one man but pining for another. Shakespeare really had a point with that whole course of love not being so smooth, didn’t he?

God, Conchita and Richard are so in love. Something or someone is going to ruin them, right? It can’t be this good. They’re so into each other, Conchita wins back Cora’s trust, and now they know this matchmaking thing can be a real business, and they’ve saved Richard’s family from total ruin. It’s too good!

The Society Pages

• Richard’s face in the carriage when Conchita tears into Cora and says she’s only a “teeny bit older” than their young client. Is Richard becoming an MVP of this series?

• I worry, too, about Mabel and Honoria. They sneakily hold hands during the party and remain delighted by their good fortune — they have to spend time together — but Lady Elmsworth clocks the closeness and decides to hire Conchita to look into a match for her daughter. At double the price. A heartbreaking development for several reasons, but especially if Conchita is willing to go behind her friend’s back.

• Jinny is putting in an effort to make this new life she and Guy are forced into work: She has her pal Paloma help her make dinner, which ends in disaster, or, as some may put it, a cutesy little food fight. Whatever new normal Jinny and Guy are creating here is about to be completely upended. At least Paloma will enjoy it, right?

• Reede and Blanche: “You gave up everything.” “You mean I gave up you.” “Wasn’t that everything?”

 The moments between Lizzy and Theo would be romantic and moving if things weren’t so complicated.