Notes on 'My Lady Jane' Season 1 Episode 2: "Wild Thing"
On My Lady Jane's take on bedding ceremonies and historical sex education, as well as Guildford marrying Jane for her brain
Welcome back to my next post about Prime Video’s My Lady Jane!
I’ve been eager to write about this show again. I’ve been annoying everyone I’ve ever met by talking about it like I’m Cady Heron in Mean Girls with word vomit.
If this is the first letter you’ve seen about My Lady Jane, I suggest my previous post about the series premiere. I’m writing about every episode to give them the extra care and time I think they deserve. This letter is about My Lady Jane Season 1 Episode 2, “Wild Thing,” written by Gemma Burgess and directed by Jamie Babbit.
It would be remiss of me not to take a second to urge you to follow Gemma Burgess on Instagram. As someone who becomes a sponge when it comes to creating TV and storytelling, I’m loving all the fun facts the co-showrunner and executive producer is sharing over there.
And, for good measure, Lady Jane Grey reading check-in: My copy of My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows is en route. I can’t wait to read it and share my thoughts with you! I also suggest reading Jodi Meadows’ Substack post about attending the show’s premiere.
I want to admit that I didn’t need to rewatch “Wild Thing” before writing this post, but I did. I tend to handwrite pages and pages of notes when I like something because I genuinely cannot like anything a normal amount. I could’ve relied solely on those notes to write this post. But where’s the fun in that?
And, here we are… I have a homemade iced coffee to my left, my handwritten notes about “Wild Thing” to my right, and a whole lot of love for My Lady Jane in my heart. I couldn’t be more ready to dig into all of my favorite details about this episode — and reveal the deep dives they took me on along the way.
Surprisingly, the first thing I got stuck on was the concept of bedding ceremonies.
I’m glad My Lady Jane doesn’t skip past how wild it is for a newly married couple to be escorted to bed and supervised by a crowd to ensure they consummate their union. Whether it be the narrator’s voiceover expressing Jane’s nerves about their first time being in front of everyone or Jane and Guildford's (near) first kiss being encouraged by those same soon-to-be spectators, “Wild Thing” spotlights a general invasiveness before it ever gets to the ceremony.
Since this isn’t my first rodeo, or period drama, I’ve seen other TV shows take on this ritual. The CW drama Reign does in its series premiere when Mary, the eventual Queen of Scotland, is encouraged by her friend Kenna to sneak off and watch the bedding ceremony of King Philip II of Spain and Elisabeth of Valois. Even though Phillip pulls Elisabeth’s gaze to him and says, “We are the only ones that matter here,” many people are still in that room, including a bishop who blesses the consummation. But Reign wants to make this ritual feel romantic, even sexy, through feigned privacy, warm lighting, and sensual music.
While that works for the story Reign wants to tell, I can’t get past how deeply uncomfortable and unromantic bedding ceremonies are to me. So, I looked into examples from the Tudor period, during which My Lady Jane takes place.
Historian Lucy Worsley told the Daily Mail the following in 2014:
“Catherine [of Aragon] was led from the wedding feast by ladies in waiting, then courtiers de-robed Henry [VIII] in the bedchamber. Until the very last minute the room would have been full of people cheering them on. Then, in the morning, there would have been the ‘inspection of the sheets’ by the ladies of the bedchamber to see if the marriage had been consummated and maybe an heir was on the way.”
It couldn’t be more symbolic of My Lady Jane’s take on bedding ceremonies that it scores the sequence with Goat Girl’s cover of “Tainted Love.” “Sometimes I feel I’ve got to run away” plays as the overcrowded scene (“Quite the turnout” if you ask Lord Dudley) moves Jane and Guildford around and undresses them like dolls. The couple only has a second to connect before Guildford’s father and Jane’s mother push them onto the bed in front of that giddy group of onlookers.
“Wild Thing” finally gives Jane and Guildford minimal privacy from the suffocating crowd under the sanctuary of a single white sheet.
Emily Bader is so good in the titular role that the confidence of a girl who thinks she knows everything visibly fades when Jane is under that sheet with Guildford. This scene also speaks volumes of Guildford’s character because he doesn’t manipulate Jane’s educational blind spots. (I know it’s a low bar for a man to be considerate, but I appreciate it nonetheless.) Instead, Guildford calms Jane’s nerves by telling her their pathway out of this — entangling their feet.
And just like that…My Lady Jane, the whip-smart and deeply funny show that it is, comments on historical sex education — again. Even though this TV show is the furthest thing from historically accurate (I love it for that), I like to see how it engages with and pushes back against some of the truths of the time.
My Lady Jane knows it’s absurd for supposedly esteemed and, therefore, more educated adults to think that seeing people’s feet correlates to their having sexual intercourse. The show’s self-awareness pokes fun at its characters, but it can only do that because sex education has advanced since the 1500s. Though, I’m not entirely convinced that sex ed is where it needs to be yet. I know how little I learned at a Catholic grade school and high school not that long ago.
And Otis wouldn’t have had half of the cases he did on Sex Education — one of my favorite shows ever — if young people knew everything they needed to know. Coincidentally, Edward Bluemel, who portrays Guildford, played Maeve’s older brother Sean on the Netflix series. He may only be in six episodes total, but his turn in the final season leaves a mark for me. Anyway, I digress.
I like that My Lady Jane presents a world where the characters can desperately need sex education — much like the young women in Bridgerton (“Inserts himself? Inserts himself where?”) — and also have sex-positive lives.
It can go from Lettie wholeheartedly telling Jane, “If you don’t get it [marital purposes, i.e., sex], then all the fluids and vapors build up and cause fits,” to Princess Mary and Lord Seymour’s unique relationship. They aren’t on the same page about what they want for their future (divisive domination vs marriage), but they understand each other’s sexual desires.
There’s also Lady Frances, who tells her daughter, “Jane, I know we haven’t discussed what happens between a man and a woman. But if you’re anything like me, I think you’ll take to it like a duck to water,” before offering Jane a few tips that only speak to a man’s pleasure. Then, in the very next sequence, Frances and Stan Dudley can have sex with her guiding him to make sure she orgasms but not caring if he does — unless she can get information about Dudley’s financial status out of it.
I always enjoy when modern historical dramas bring light and weight to what women do and don’t know about sex. It’s incredibly refreshing when so many shows of that genre center on men and their pleasure. It’s one of the reasons why Bridgerton and its prioritization of the female gaze have caused such a stir.
Knowing that women are at the helm of My Lady Jane makes all of those conscious choices better — most notably, Guildford marrying Jane for her brain.
During a time when women are not always educated about sex yet sexualized and expected to participate in rituals like bedding ceremonies that prioritize male pleasure to produce male heirs, it couldn’t be more romantic for Guildford to be drawn to Jane’s mind. And that is written all over Jane’s face. But the romance doesn’t stop there! Jane says Guildford’s name for the first time as she excitedly pours over books that could be the key to changing his life. Guildford makes a new vow (he actually says, “I do.”) never to command Jane to obey him again.
I like that My Lady Jane wants to deliver a well-told romance while telling funny and nuanced stories about women during the Tudor period. I like that the show’s alternative history has me looking into the actual history. I like that I want to rave about this show forever because it reminds me how fun it is to enjoy things. For now, though, I’ll leave you with a fun fact I learned from “Go Behind the Scenes of My Lady Jane with Edward Bluemel” for Town and Country:
“In episode two, Emily and I have a closeup of our feet, and I didn’t realize that required a shaving of the feet. They wanted the feet to look good, they wanted the feet to look clean. I’m playing a character who’s also quite a bit younger than I am, so I need every scrap of help I can get, which mean that my foot hair had to go. It was sad to see it go, but it’s all right. It’s back now. I’m thriving.”
Until next time, when I get to fawn over Jane and Guildford’s dagger fight (!),
💌 Shelby
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