Sanditon's Rose Williams Cried Over That Heartbreaking Ending
Proceed with caution if you haven't watched all eight episodes of Sanditon on Masterpiece PBS. Major spoilers ahead!
If you watched Masterpiece PBS's Sanditon expecting a typical Jane Austen ending, tonight's episode probably came as something of a shock. Andrew Davies's adaptation of the Regency author's unfinished novel concludes with news of a proposal, but it's hardly the one fans were hoping to see. Last fall, when the season's finale aired in the UK, at least one fan decried it an "absolute letdown".
Our heroine Charlotte Heywood (played by Rose Williams), is left heartbroken at the end of the series, when her love interest Sidney Parker (Theo James) becomes betrothed to another women. When Williams initially read what was in store for her character, she was brought to tears.
"I cried," she told me over the phone, explaining that she first learned of the storyline through an episode breakdown. "It really hit me emotionally because I had read episode one, and then I read through a paragraph to describe what happens in each episode. It made me upset reading the eighth because it's so sad. "
But Williams saw a silver lining in Charlotte's unhappiness, and an unlikely parallel to the ending of Titanic, when Rose reflects on her life after Jack's death. Yes, Charlotte is single, but her life is filled with possibility.
"The piece that I like about the ending reminds me almost of?—even though the circumstances are very different—the end of Titanic. You see the photos of Rose, and she's learnt to horse ride, she's learned to be a pilot and fly a plane, and there are pictures of her with all her kids," Williams said.
"I felt like there's that potential for Charlotte. She can go out there and create her own destiny. She's not carrying anybody; it's like the world is open to her."
Williams also noted the subversion of traditional gender roles in Davies's story; in this case, it's the man who is trapped by the domestic world, forced to marry for money instead of love. "Normally it's the woman that's forced into a marriage that they're unhappy with. But in this case it's a man that's forced into a marriage that he is unhappy with. I think that's interesting," she said.
While Charlotte's future is wide open, what's next for Sanditon as a series is unclear at this point. ITV declined to pick up the show for a second season, but Davies has said that if ratings are high enough in the States, the series could continue. There is also a contingent of passionate fans pushing for another chapter on social media.
Should Charlotte return to the small screen, Williams hopes she tries her hand at architecture.
"I think I would want her to have been inspired by Tom Parker's vision and by Stringer's ambition. I would want to see her have gone and made something for herself in the world of work," she says.
Not that Williams is entirely opposed to a love interest for her character. "It would be nice if Charlotte could have the world and a man that she could love," she said. "Everyone loves a happy ending."
Need to catch up? Sanditon is available to stream on the Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
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