The Big Picture

• The Essex Serpent is one of Apple TV+'s best series, anchored by mesmerizing performances from stars Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston.
• The series delves deep into Gothic themes, showcasing a forbidden romance intertwined with commentary on religious propaganda, Darwinism, self-discovery, and domestic abuse.
• Cora and Will's love story is vibrant, passionate, and complex, which also lets Cora's journey shine.

As slinky, winding, and poisonously disquieting as a real snake, The Essex Serpent is a gem within Apple TV+'s impressive lexicon. Based on the novel by Sarah Perry (who wrote her doctoral thesis on Gothic media — she knows her stuff), the miniseries marks Claire Danes's return to television after her Emmy Award-winning role in Homeland. It also welcomes Tom Hiddleston back to the Gothic romance stage after Guillermo Del Toro's heinously underrated Crimson Peak. As Cora Seaborne, a recently widowed woman who leaves Victorian London to investigate sightings of a strange creature — the ominous rumors coincide with a missing local girl — Danes is captivatingly vulnerable and majestically melancholy. As for Hiddleston, this genre fits him like a glove. He infuses his trademark sensitivity and broodingly sincere magnetism into Will Ransome, Essex’s vicar and the cool-headed skeptic to Cora's passionate naturalist.

And like a serpent coils around its prey, Cora and Will are irresistibly drawn into a forbidden, intense, and longing-fueled love affair born out of their complementary differences and unexpected similarities. That sizzling connection would be enough to command attention, but The Essex Serpent's thematic density supports its achingly romantic heart. In addition to scientific theoretics, Serpent is a warning against religious fervor, a meditation on domestic abuse and toxic male affection, and a blistering indictment of rigid societal restrictions. Plus, Will is inconveniently married to a kindhearted woman. Behold, the drama!

‘The Essex Serpent’ Is Perfectly Gothic

From the opening scene where a young woman begs for God's absolution as she enters marshy waters, only for her to scream and vanish from view, The Essex Serpent is Gothic to its bones. Adapted by Anna Symon and directed by Clio Barnard, the production surpasses even the quality expected of Apple TV+. A reliance on real locations establishes a thick, luxurious mood through visual language. Impenetrable fog ripples across the grimy marshlands. Reeds rustle in the wind. Seagulls routinely caw, and the sound designers make sure you hear the mud squelching underneath striding boots. Every article of clothing looks lived in. The score unsettles without being overbearing; plucking a few low strings is enough to convey foreboding tension. When these elements unite, Serpent revels in its Gothic nature with forthright commitment. The atmosphere carries across all six episodes without being undermined by self-referential winking.

Appropriately for the genre, this setting reflects the shifting emotional states of The Essex Serpent's characters. When Cora Seaborne arrives in Essex, the somber mood tempered by a beautiful view suits her situation. Her abusive husband had just died, leaving Cora free to pursue her passion for the first time. That passion? Paleontology. She overflows with vibrant curiosity. Learning more about the world invigorates her. After hearing about Essex's so-called serpent, she wonders if it's an ancient being who "escaped evolution." She abandons high society's nonsense and investigates in person, whisking her son Frankie (Caspar Griffiths) and friend-slash-maid Martha (Hayley Squires) along for the ride.

When Apple TV+ approached Sarah Perry about an adaptation, they asked Perry what elements were immutable. She told The Guardian in a personal essay: "Keep it gothic, and keep the women real. To the lasting confusion of a number of readers, the novel depicted women as they were in the 1890s – not fainting away in violet-scented swoons and never allowed beyond the withdrawing room without a chaperone, but vital, intelligent, lively and well-educated people, involved in politics, social justice and the sciences, and I felt if that was lost, the betrayal would be far worse than an injustice against fiction."

Claire Danes’s Performance Anchors ‘The Essex Serpent'

Cora is all these things and more. Just like The Essex Serpent's layered themes, Cora exists at the intersection of Darwinian naturalism, science, medicine, religion, and the supernatural. The script, the direction, and Claire Danes's performance present Cora's complicated nature with an empathetic touch. Our protagonist carries many scars. Her husband branded her neck with a fire poker, and she frequently experiences PTSD flashbacks. Recalling her abuse doesn't hinder Cora's newfound freedom, but it informs the veracity of her abandon. As soon as she's left London behind, Cora sheds the suffocating corsets and restrictive gowns coated in jewels. Her clothing, although still stylish, emphasizes comfort over frills. She recycles the same gray coat, casual dress, and trousers. Her frizzy hair goes untamed. When her friend Luke Garrett (Frank Dillane), an ambitious doctor who covets Cora romantically, gifts her with a necklace fit for royalty, it's symbolic. Luke enjoys Cora's differences, but he still expects her to come to heel. Nonconformity ceases to be charming when Luke doesn't get his way.

As The Essex Serpent progresses, Cora simultaneously falls in love for the first time and falls for a world she's never had a chance to explore. Her time in Essex is about self-discovery as much as anything. When people respect her individuality, she beams brighter than a lighthouse at night. Sometimes, that euphoric rush makes Cora oblivious or selfish. Her temper flashes when others enforce their expectations upon her. That's both a trauma response and Cora's natural resistance coming to a head. She doesn't know how to be an attentive mother to Frankie, even though she loves him dearly. Such things don't come naturally to her mind, which makes for a flawed, unique, and invigorating female protagonist.

Tom Hiddleston Is a Perfect Fit for Gothic Stories

Once Cora arrives in Essex, she declares the marshlands to be "witch-burning country." Indeed, a fearmongering church official weaponizes religious propaganda to fan the fervent flames of superstition. Essex's residents blame Cora for the serpent's presence. These beliefs don't damage just Cora: Naomi Banks (Lily-Rose Aslandogdu), a young teenager, scrubs her skin with soap after kissing a boy. To make matters worse, the kiss wasn't consensual. Just like Eve succumbed to Satan's temptation and condemned the world to sin, for some, the reason the serpent haunts Essex is because of innocent women's moral failures.

Religion is the world Will Ransome (Hiddleston) inhabits. A former lawyer turned vicar, Will seeks purpose instead of achievement. He walks a tightrope between fact and faith: he believes in the power of an unseen God but dismisses the serpent as people's fears running unchecked. He loves his wife Stella (Clémence Poésy), proudly declaring her his equal in a tone that implies he's worthy of her and not the other way around. He isn't stuffy, elitist, or judgmental. Will wants to help people find peace through religion, not convert them to his cause.

At first glance, Will and Cora couldn't seem more contradictory. The more time they spend together, the more their mutual assumptions are proved wrong. They riposte about theology and see the world in new ways thanks to the other's influence. Their minds connect as fundamentally as their souls, a trope that recalls Gothic classics like Jane Eyre and makes their romance all the more pulse-racing. The Essex Serpent's atmosphere and character development isn't mere table setting for Will and Cora's romance, but it's a platform for their unlikely, tormented, and tender love to flourish. Without such context, their connection wouldn't matter.

Cora and Will Have Sizzling Chemistry in ‘The Essex Serpent'

Let's be frank: putting Tom Hiddleston in a vicar's gear is decidedly unfair. He and Andrew Scott could participate in a hot priest contest, and the internet would joyfully fund such a venture. Will's very introduction involves him being muddy, bruised, and panting, with the sleeves of his navy sweater rolled up, and his wet hair plastered to that frustrated visage so familiar to Loki fans. The Essex Serpent's eroticism thrives on details like these: breathy pauses, lingering eye contact, everything that's said yet unsaid in the way Will gently removes his scarf and folds it reverently around Cora's neck — and holds for a heartbeat too long for a married man. An emotionally and sexually charged waltz draws its power by focusing on the impact of his hand cradling Cora's waist, and hers flexing across his broad shoulders. We pay rapt attention to every almost-touch. Cora's rapturous expressions hit our solar plexus as soundly as their romance's actual consummation, which unfolds in feverishly ardent flashbacks. Hiddleston and Danes steam up the screen like the infamous window scene in Titanic, or the fog-riddled marshes consuming Essex.

Stella, a wife who's never villainized, complicates things. Her existence makes Will and Cora's attraction far from noble. But because those two match like stones cut from the same slab of rock face, we're swooning anyway. The running motif that is Will's scarf deserves a Romance Hall of Fame reward. How he wraps it around Cora's throat and takes both ends in each hand, using the bond as leverage to draw Cora in close — without kissing her, and without binding her. It's not the branding of an abusive husband, but the urgency of true love. Plus, who can argue with a dismayed Tom Hiddleston dropping to his knees on a church floor? Will prays, cries, and repeatedly punches one of the pews, complete with his bloodshot eyes and guilt-stricken expression. Luke Garrett stands no chance with Cora when a Tom Hiddleston character longs for her with a smoldering acuteness so searing (and obvious), it physically pains him — in a crowded room, no less.

Ultimately, The Essex Serpent portrays polyamory positively. Stella even guides Will and Cora together, since her fate diverges from theirs. But as a God-fearing man, Will can't have a relationship with two different women without appropriate angst. A romance isn't a true Gothic romance without its fair share of brooding melodrama and soul-searching vexation. In a piece for Aeon, Sarah Perry wrote that "the Gothic provides a hiding-place and a place of consecration for those seeking what lies beyond the boundary of society and reason, a sublime contagion to which we are never quite immune." The Essex Serpent subscribes to this summation with the aplomb of prestige television, the studied eyes of those willing to engage in intricate nuance, and two of the industry's finest performers setting the screen ablaze.

The Essex Serpent is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

Watch on Apple TV+