“Gentleman Jack,” HBO Max’s 19th century-set show about real life LGBTQ figure Anne Lister, who lived an unconventional life for a woman due to her focus on business, involvement in politics, and more-than-amateur medical experience, and who kept meticulous, coded journals about her lesbian relationships, is back.
Season 2 of the series, which stars Surrane Jones as Anne Lister and Sophie Rundle as her now-wife, Anne Walker (the two pledged their love to each other privately in Season 1) returns Monday night. And, the couple’s marriage takes center stage in Season 2, creator and executive producer Sally Wainwright told TheWrap.
“For me, Season 2 is always about the marriage and how the marriage plays out in public and what the pressures on the marriage are once they’ve moved in together at Shibden Hall,” Wainwright said, mentioning Lister’s family home.
Society, though, will create problems for the pair, most especially from Walker’s meddling family members, who continue to try and intervene in the heiress’ personal life.
“So, it’s about how the external pressures from Anne Walker’s family and from Halifax society especially during the election, which was a real violent election. … It’s about how those external pressures affect the internal dynamics of their relationship, and how hard it was to conduct a marriage like theirs at that time in a society that just had no capacity for it and no language for it either,” Wainwright said of Season 2’s big theme.
With the pair having to navigate those pressures, at least Walker is doing it from a better place. The character struggled with mental illness in the first season, but Season 2 finds her stronger, without glossing over her problems.
“She struggled her whole life with these demons, and it never was like, ‘Oh, we flipped the switch and now she’s back and she’s healthy and everything is good. This is a struggle that’s going to keep playing out,” Rundle told TheWrap. “But she’s definitely in a better place when we find her again in Series 2, and that’s because of the influence of Anne Lister.”
Viewers will also see Walker come into her own more, and at times even go against the grain with her very strong and opinionated wife.
“I love to get into exploring the strong side of Anne Walker because she definitely has one and she can be a bit of a madam and we talked a lot about that, that she’s very wealthy and she’s a very powerful woman, actually. And she can be a bit difficult and I really liked that when she got a bit princess-y. It was always quite fun to play with that and see what that does to Anne Lister when she surprises her by having an opinion,” Rundle said. “And, Anne Walker is definitely a very stubborn person deep down and so it was really fun to see her when she’s feeling strong and … [she] sort of knows her mind a bit better.”
