‘The Buccaneers’ Team on Nan’s Pregnancy, Theo’s Abdication & More Burning Season 3 Questions
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Buccaneers Season 2 Episode 8, “She Knows.”]
The Buccaneers‘ Season 2 finale has arrived, and it didn’t pull any punches as viewers followed the characters on a rollercoaster ride of twists and turns so shocking, we’re still recovering.
All of the drama unfolded at a Tintagel-set masquerade, which saw some bonds broken, life-changing decisions made, and secrets shared. The biggest shock was the revelation of Nan’s (Kristine Frøseth) pregnancy, which left her determined to hold onto her marriage with the Duke of Tintagel, Theo (Guy Remmers), despite her learning about his affair with her best friend, Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag).
This also meant putting her romance with Guy (Matthew Broome) on hold as he also remained married to Paloma (Grace Ambrose). Meanwhile, Theo was angered, believing Nan was responsible for exposing his indiscretion to the papers, not realizing that Lizzy’s ex-fiancé, Hector (Jacob Ifan), was responsible, and he decided to carve a path for his future with Lizzy by abdicating his throne.
While his choice allows him the option of divorce, his revelation to the crowd at the party was moments late, as Lizzy had seemingly promised to move forward with her marriage to Hector as a means of protection, unaware he had orchestrated the drama with that result in mind. Shocked by the announcement, Nan took off running with Lizzy trailing after her.
When Lizzy confronted Nan about the affair revealed to the papers, Nan was offended that her friend would think she’d betray her that way and revealed everything she’d been doing was to protect her baby’s future. After Theo’s abdication announcement, though, Nan decided that Theo couldn’t know about the baby for fear that the institution would take the child from her.
In the finale’s closing moments, Nan made Lizzy promise not to tell Theo about the child. Meanwhile, Theo’s mother worked to resolve the empty throne situation as it was revealed she called on Kit, a secret brother of Theo’s that he doesn’t know about. Needless to say, it was an episode filled with jaw-dropping reveals and raised some seriously big questions as we await news on a potential Season 3 announcement.
Below, the showrunners and stars break down some answers to the burning questions we still have.
The Buccaneers, Seasons 1-2, Streaming Now, Apple TV+
Is Nan's baby really Theo's?
In the show, Nan’s pregnancy reveal indicated that she got pregnant while she was on her honeymoon with the Duke, but she also traveled to Italy not too long after, where she rekindled things with her true love, Guy. So… who is the father? Co-showrunner Katherine Jakeways says, “She’s pretty certain of the dates of it and that the doctor has told her that it’s within this period, and there were several months where Guy was in Italy, where she was in the honeymoon period with Theo, and that’s the time when she got pregnant.” Still, Jakeways admits that while Nan is “pretty certain that it’s Theo’s,” the lingering uncertainty and possibility that it’s Guy’s is “a question that people will have.”
Will Lizzy keep Nan's secret?
Obviously, by the end of the season, Nan and Lizzy’s friendship had gone through some serious wear and tear, and Nan put even more weight on the fraying threads of their relationship by asking Lizzy to keep her pregnancy a secret. Can Lizzy stay true to that promise? “I can’t imagine Lizzy lying about that,” Aubri Ibrag tells TV Insider about her newfound loyalty to Theo. “I can’t [imagine it] because then she would be hurting Theo if she lied… It stresses me out.”
As for where she thinks Nan and Lizzy’s relationship is by the end of Season 2, Ibrag says, “I think it was the most heartbreaking thing of the season for Lizzy… because there is no world in which she wanted to hurt Nan in any way… This whole affair situation was irresistible, and it’s not something that she’s ever experienced before, and for the first time in her life, she just wanted to jump off a cliff and do what she wanted to. And so that comes with a lot of consequences, with the heartbreak of hurting Nan.”
Jakeways admits, “We’re excited about how that leaves Lizzy because she’s got this massive secret. She’s kind of got the love of her life, but it’s at the expense of her best friend who now has given her this big secret that she can’t tell the love of her life.” As Jakeways points out, when it comes to Lizzy, “honesty’s such an important thing” and so Nan revealing this secret to her “gives her a huge kind of dilemma at the end of the second season.”
What does Theo's abdication mean?
Should the series continue into Season 3, Theo’s abdication would surely flip the script on things moving forward, especially as the show gears up for the arrival of mystery brother Kit. “There’s loads in terms of potential of where it could go,” Jakeways teases.
Remmers acknowledges that taking Theo from a Duke to an abdicated man would certainly mean a lot of change. “When he abdicates, he is literally uprooting his life, his roots, his core, his family, his heritage, and his father, whom he didn’t know very well,” Remmers says. This is especially true with the Kit revelation, as he’s technically a bastard in the royal line. “There is a lot of honor and pride there, and it just shows how much he loves Lizzy in that moment that he will sacrifice his entire life for her,” Remmers adds.
While Theo’s choice certainly set a path for him and Lizzy to be together, Ibrag notes, “There isn’t complete happiness and peace for either of them at the end of the day, but we sacrificed all of that for the love.”
Where does Nan & Guy's relationship stand?
It’s clear that Guy and Nan are still very much in love, but her pregnancy has shifted her priorities, and he’s unaware that Paloma is holding onto divorce papers, prolonging their mistaken marriage. Is there a shot at happiness? “I think they’re now back to having a lot to figure out again,” Broome shares. “Especially when [her pregnancy] comes to light…. He’s got to figure this stuff out with Paloma, and it’d be interesting to know what he wants after all has been resolved. ‘Cause who knows? That might change the world he wants.”
Will Nell return?
Season 2 made way for the introduction of Nan’s biological mother, Nell (Leighton Meester), and while she was left behind in America in the penultimate episode, we can’t help but wonder if she’ll make a comeback in a potential Season 3. “We always like characters to kind of come back,” co-showrunner Beth Willis says. “[Leighton] was an absolute delight in front of the camera, behind the camera. We were so lucky that she was already a fan of the show. She said yes immediately, and really everything clicked into place. She was such fun to be with, and she was so passionate about the role.” In other words, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for Meester’s return if The Buccaneers returns for Season 3.
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