‘The Buccaneers’ Star Christina Hendricks Says Patti’s “Excruciating” Divorce Trial Shows “How Far We’ve Come and Yet Not at All”

The Buccaneers Season 2 Episode 7 “All Rise” focuses on a very scandalous trial. No, not the trial of Lord Seadown (Barney Fishwick), who totally killed his own brother last week. Rather, the Apple TV+ show is circling back to a different Season 2 storyline. The one where Nan’s (Kristine Frøseth) mom is trying to divorce her dad…

**Spoilers for The Buccaneers Season 2 Episode 7 “All Rise,” now streaming on Apple TV+**

The Buccaneers Season 2 opened with Nan’s wedding to Theo, Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers) and the long-awaited introduction of Nan’s secret birth mother Nell (Leighton Meester). It turns out that Nell is actually Nan’s aunt! Nell stayed with her sister Patti (Christina Hendricks) and Colonel St. George (Adam James) shortly after Jinny’s (Imogen Waterhouse) birth. While Patti suffered from what we’d now recognize as postpartum depression, Colonel St. George hooked up with Nell, resulting in Nan’s birth.

Now reunited with her sister, Patti makes an important decision. She will divorce her adulterous husband. However, that’s easier said than done…

The Buccaneers Season 2 Episode 7 “All Rise” shows us just how difficult it was for women to divorce their husbands in the 19th century. When poor Patti attempts to prove her husband’s infidelity in court, she ironically finds herself painted as the villainous seductress. Colonel St. George’s lawyers twist Patti’s words and shame her for flirting with her own husband.

The misogyny that Patti and other witnesses, which ultimately include her sister and Nan’s birth mom Nell, endure in this episode is even more upsetting because you can still see it play out in modern court cases.

Photo: Apple TV+

“Yeah, I think that that was the exact intention of the writers when they wrote this,” The Buccaneers star Christina Hendricks said. “To show how far we’ve come and yet not at all and that the fight for women remains.”

“However, I think that we do a modern take on it that the fights ends in a better result than it probably would have in the late 1800s.”

Patti is eventually able to prove Colonel St. George’s infidelity thanks to Nell bravely taking the stand. The divorce goes through, giving the St. George ladies a much-deserved happy ending. Still, Patti had to go through quite the emotional gauntlet to get there.

“I did find it quite emotional and interesting to have to put myself in a place of that sort of public humiliation and those tactics,” Hendricks said. “We as a culture now are so sort of desensitized by personal information and the type of information that’s out there that the same kind of words are not as scathing today.”

“But I had to put myself in a place of where Patti would be that this kind of information being aired in front of a courtroom of judgmental, glaring men would be excruciating.”

Excruciating for Patti and upsetting for Buccaneers fans to watch.

So what’s next for Patti? Where will The Buccaneers go next? The Buccaneers Season 2 finale premieres next Wednesday, August 6.