Watching: Renegade Nell

2024, Disney

We are also watching The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin set roughly in the same period and roughly about the same thing (British Highwaymen) and both feature a highwayman named Nell. But they are very very different shows.

Very.

In the early 1700s, as the monarch is Queen Anne, Nell (don't call her Nelly) Jackson (Louisa Harland, Derry Girls) is just recently widowed, her soldier husband killed in war, the same battle that supposedly killed her. She returns home to her father's Inn, but on the way she bumps into the dandy highwayman Isambard Tulley (Frank Dillane, Fear the Walking Dead), is possessed by a Tinkerbell-liked spirit and thoroughly trounces Tulley & his highwaymen -- basically she is embowed with superpowers.

Not long after actually getting home to her welcoming family, her father is murdered by the local nobleman's son and she is framed for murdering said nobleman. She has to grab her sisters and go on the run, for who will take the word of nobody woman, and it doesn't help that Thomas Blancheford (Jake Dunn, The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself), the nobleman's son, is being supported/manipulated by the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester, Hustle), using black magic against Nell. Thomas proves too weak for the responsibility, and his sister Sofia (Alice Kremelberg, The Sinner) is more than happy to step into the role of family protector, and black magician.

Nell gets embroiled not only in a need to clear her name, but also in the Jacobite conspiracy led by Poynton, and whatever otherworldly agenda the sprite Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed, Ted Lasso; doing his usual Mr. Swallow routine) has. You would think an adventure show about faeries and political conspiracies would run roughshod over the women of the show, especially considering the time period, but much of the show is focused on Nell, and others, recognizing and attaining their own agency. 

There is a lot going on in this show, and while only occasionally uneven, you can see the skill with which showrunner Sally Wainwright navigates not only the Disney landscape (PG! family focused!) but also her own legacy (she is known for British shows Happy Valley and Gentlemen Jack which I have seen neither, but everyone raves about them being smart smart smart) as she writes a balance of quippy, snappy dialogue but also works to provide a proper story for each and every character. Complexity is usually death knell (ba dump, pssssh) of swashbuckling adventurer shows but it works rather well here.