Star crossed lovers abound for The Forsytes this Autumn in August

Welcome back, folks, for more Autumn in August fun with the latest adaptation of John Galsworthy’s The Forsytes on PBS Masterpiece.

For episodes three and four, love is definitely in the air as we observe Soames Forsyte(Joshua Orpin), the competitive cousin of Jo at their family’s financial firm.

While his father is hellbent on getting Soames put in charge (much more interested in that than his son is, if you ask me), he has fallen in love with a young woman named Irene(Millie Gibson).

Irene has always dreamed of being a ballet dancer in Paris as her mother once was but upon the sudden death of her academic father, she and her scheming stepmother Clarissa(Fiona Button) soon realize that their finances are not as flush as they thought they were.

A quick solution to their money problems would be for Irene to marry well but she’d rather earn the funds for Paris herself. She initially sees Soames as a friend but over time, his true feelings are made known to her and eventually a proposal of marriage that she decides to accept:

While Soames’ father is less than thrilled about this marriage, Irene’s connections are good enough for him to not have any major objections(or at least not any that would add societal pressure upon Soames to reconsider). What does anger him is the young couple planning to extend their honeymoon in Paris into a permanent living arrangement.

However, that plan is doomed to fail as Soames starts to exert his anxieties over his marriage. As his grandmother points out early on to Irene, this is his first time being in love and his immediate discomfort around Irene and her friends in Paris sets off emotional alarm bells for him.

He’s as subtle as he can be towards Irene(who was hoping for the two of them to build a life together in Paris to pursue her artistic talent) but those red flags are waving, especially when they attend a ballet performance and all his thoughts are smothered in jealousy:

Meanwhile, June has found herself a romantic partner that her parents are sure to disapprove of; Phillip Bonsinney(Jamie Flatters), a young architect whose home and office are one and the same.

He also has “radical “ politics-helping the poor and the erasing of class lines-all of which makes June’s mother instantly upset. Jo, however, agrees to meet Bonsinney and tells him that as soon as he completes his first commission as an architect, he and June can get married.

As Jo explains later to his wife, it’ll probably be a long time before Bonsinney even gets a credible job offer and permitting a long engagement  here may allow for the relationship to cool off and end on its own terms. Her mother reluctantly sees the logic of this but June is a persistent person and it won’t be that easy to dissuade her in the long run:

Well, with two episodes left, plenty of fireworks are about to go off, I’m sure!

I am glad that this is going to be a several season show (seasons two and three have already been greenlit and in production)rather than a one and done miniseries. You get more time with the characters and there’s more than enough source material to take this family drama into the next decade.

Plus, thanks to PBS Passport, I was able to wait until summer to enjoy this series and my patience will no doubt be well rewarded for the next two seasons indeed. See you all next week for the finale!: