From left to right: Lydia Quigley, Lucy Wells, Charlotte Wells, Margaret Wells
Harlots is a British period drama television series created by Alison Newman and Moira Buffini. The series premiered on 27 March 2017 on ITV Encore in the U.K. and on 29 March 2017 on Hulu in the U.S. The series focuses on Margaret Wells, who runs a brothel in 18th century England and struggles to raise her daughters in a chaotic household. The series is inspired by the book The Covent Garden Ladies by Hallie Rubenhold.
Harlots contains examples of:
- Always Murder: Even though Charlotte's death was actually an accident, everyone automatically assumes she was murdered.
- Antagonist in Mourning: Lydia and Isaac after Charlotte's death.
- Band of Brothels: The series centers around two rival brothels.
- Bedlam House: Lydia's stay in Bedlam is a nightmare. The doctor treating her decides to spin her around really fast to "revive her nerves".
- Blackmail:
- Harriet threatens to tell the authorities that Margaret murdered George Howard if she doesn't give her money to buy her children's freedom.
- Using Charlotte as an intermediary, Lydia blackmails Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam into paying her fine so she can get out of jail.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Said by Lydia: "blackmail is such a vulgar word..."
- Brother–Sister Incest: Lord Harcourt Fitzwilliam raped his own sister when they were younger, unwittingly impregnating her with his child.
- Bury Your Gays: Just barely dodged by the lesbian Amelia, who is stabbed but manages to survive through a long recovery.
- Unfortunately played straight in 3x03, with Charlotte's fall from the upper story of Lady Fitz's house.
- Call-Back: Lydia giving Kate a pair of yellow shoes before her debut as a harlot in season 3 recalls Margaret doing the same for Lucy in season 1.
- Cassandra Truth: When Margaret realizes that Lucy's keeper Lord Fallon is a serial killer. She tries to warn her daughter, but Lucy doesn't believe her and insists on staying with him. Lord Fallon then reveals to Margaret he knows that Lucy killed George and threatens to have Lucy hanged if Margaret exposes him.
- The Chain of Harm: Mrs. May abused Lydia when she was younger, who in turn abused Margaret and Nancy. While Nancy has already broken the chain by the beginning of the series, Margaret struggles not to replicate Lydia's actions. She does do some pretty awful things to her girls, but it never reaches the same level as what Lydia did to her. Margaret eventually manages to break the chain too and when her daughters become bawds, they're considerate and thoughtful to the sex workers who work for them.
- Child by Rape:
- Kitty Carter had a daughter after being raped and began working as a harlot to support her.
- Isabella had a daughter after her brother raped her and kept Sophia's existence a secret.
- Chippendales Dancers: Daniel does this at Mary Cooper's wake.
- Crapsack World: The show pulls no punches in depicting London in the middle of the Georgian era as this, with vast wealth inequality, women having little to no rights (ironically prostitutes actually have more rights than married women, at least when it comes to income, personal property and their children), slavery, and an aristocracy that's effectively above the law.
- Crime of Self-Defense: Margaret's younger daughter stabs a man in self-defense while he tries to rape her, so Margaret kills him and arranges for the body to be disposed of. Unfortunately, then her elder daughter is blamed for the murder.
- Dark Secret: Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam has one which Lydia Quigley uses to blackmail her.
- Dead Guy Junior: Kitty Carter is murdered in the season 2 premier, and Fanny changes her daughter's name from Mercy to Kitty in her honor.
- Death by Childbirth: Lydia's mother died giving birth to her and she was left with her abusive father.
- Death Faked for You: Hunt can't go through with Margaret's execution, so instead he falsely announces her death and arranges for her to sent to America in secret.
- Defiled Forever: One of the recurring problems of the series is that, if a woman is raped, particularly by a man of wealth and status, she is ruined in the eyes of society, while the perpetrator trots off without punishment. And if the victim was a woman of color, a lesbian, poor, a sex worker, or some combination thereof? Absolutely nobody cares. Of course, none of the sympathetic characters think this way — but they're stuck in an endless fight against a world that does.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: When he discovers Emily lied to him about being pregnant, Charles orders her out of his home. When Emily says the house belongs to her, Charles scoffs, "did you think my mother would be stupid enough to put the deeds in your name?"
- Distracted by the Sexy: Charlotte sleeps with Isaac to distract him while Nancy sneaks into his brothel and robs him.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Deconstructed. Sex workers are treated as disposable by those around them, but the writers take great pains to show that they are normal people doing their best with the cards they've been given, for better or worse. When Kitty is callously murdered, the show puts a lot of focus on how beloved she was by those who knew her and how devastated they are now that she's gone.Margaret: From where I'm standing, all girls are blameless. Even those with used cunnies, like poor Kitty Carter.
- Disposing of a Body: After George Howard is killed by Margaret and Lucy, Will and Nancy dumps his body in a river.
- In season 3 Emily helps her keeper get rid of the body of a man he had tried, but failed to save before anyone suspected him of murder.
- Dominatrix: Nancy and, occasionally after some training from Nancy, Lucy
- Double Entendre: Lucy, Elizabeth, and Fredo advertise their "tailoring business" (actually a front for a mollyhouse) by having Lucy wears men's clothing and perform a strip tease in a public square, all the while alluding to gay sex.
- Due to the Dead:
- Subverted with Mary Cooper. Margaret's girls hold a wake for her, but afterwards Lydia has Molly's body stuffed under the floor of Margaret's new house.
- After her murder, Kitty is mourned by those who knew her. Margaret sews her throat back together so her body will be presentable for the funeral. The other girls pitch in to support her daughter. Fanny even renames her own daughter Kitty in her honor. And a good part of season 2 is devoted to finding Kitty's killer and bringing him to justice.
- After Charlotte's death, Isabella organizes an elegant wake to honor her. Everyone attends, and even Lydia comes to genuinely mourn her.
- Elopement: Sophia runs off with a servant in the season 3 premier.
- Face Death with Dignity: When Margaret is set to be executed for murder, she tells the executioner to get it over with. He decides to spare her.
- Fake Alibi: Lord Fallon stabbed Amelia in an alley, but when the police came to question him, his mistress Lucy lied by saying he was with her at the time. Lucy believed Fallon was innocent and was horrified when she realized the truth. To matters worse, Lucy's mother Margaret took the fall for Sir George's murder so Lord Fallon couldn't blackmail her by threatening to pin the murder on Lucy herself. After her confession, Margaret told the police what Fallon did, which is why they knew to question him. She thought that by doing so, she would ensure Fallon was executed at the cost of her own life, not expecting Lucy to cover for him. Josiah Hunt faked Margaret's execution, but Lucy didn't know that. She believed that by lying for Fallon, she caused her mother to die in vain.
- Fake Pregnancy: Emily lies about being pregnant with Charles' baby.
- Follow in My Footsteps: Double subverted. Lucy doesn't want to be a whore like Margaret and Charlotte were, and to be fair, Margaret hadn't wanted her daughters to follow in her footsteps either, it's just a very cruel fate that forces Lucy to become a whore.
- Great Escape: Lydia and Kate escape Bedlam by tricking a doctor into sexually assaulting Kate in front of visitors, grabbing the keys, and fleeing during the ensuing panic.
- High-Class Call Girl: Most of Lydia Quigley's girls fall into this category, as does Charlotte Wells.
- Hope Spot: Harriet does get enough money to buy her children, but her step-son decides to refuse to sell them.
- House Fire: Isaac Pincher sets Charlotte's brothel on fire in retaliation for reporting him to the police for running a bawdy house.
- Idiot Ball: Lucy telling Lord Fallon that she killed George Howard.
- Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: Marie-Louise, a Frenchwoman living in London, frequently insults people to their faces in French, even her clients while she's having sex with them, but most of the other characters have no idea what she's saying. Subverted when she does this to Lydia in front of her son Charles knowing that he can understand her. Charles nervously gives his mother a Tactful Translation.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Benjamin Lennox establishes himself as firmly this when he frees Harriet... but without her children - his half-siblings - whom he keeps as his slaves while casting her out, knowing that that would hurt her the most.
- Knight Templar: Josiah Hunt replaces Cunliffe as the Chief of Justice after Cunliffe's death. Unlike his corrupt predecessor, Hunt follows the law to the letter and doesn't play favorites.
- The Lost Lenore: Isabella is horrified after finding Charlotte's body and organizes Charlotte's wake in Isabella's own home, class divisions be damned. Isaac is also devastated after Charlotte's death, and even curls up on her bed to cry.
- Love Triangle: Margaret has been in a relationship with Will for years, but she returns in season 4 with a new husband named Jonas.
- Makeup Is Evil: Lydia Quigley and her girls all wear lots of face powder and pink eyebrows
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Charlotte Wells starts working for her mother's rival, Lydia Quigley, because her mother's murder of George Howard almost got her and her lover Daniel executed.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: The doctors at Bedlam perform all kinds of dubious "treatments" on their patients. One doctor outright sexually assaults Kate under the guise of curing her.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Fanny is hiding her pregnancy.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Hal praising Emily for her loyalty and swearing he loves her, completely unaware of the role she just played in his brother's death.
- Open-Minded Parent: Elizabeth Harvey opens a mollyhouse (brothel for gay men) because her son is gay. She wants him and other gay men to have a place to be themselves.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Margaret finds Charlotte's body after her fall.
- Pet the Dog: When new patient named Kate is brought kicking and screaming into Bedlam, Lydia gives her advice on how to survive in there. Later, when they make their escape, Lydia makes sure to free the other prisoners rather than save her own skin.
- Pimping the Offspring:
- Justified and deconstructed. Margaret Wells is a brothel madam who employs her own daughters, Charlotte and Lucy, and the first episode sees her auctioning off the latter's virginity. While the show spends a lot of time showing how this negatively affects the sisters, Margaret is framed as brutally pragmatic rather than outright monstrous. In the harsh, intensely misogynist world of 18th-century London, there aren't many employment opportunities for women and marriage puts them at the mercy of a husband who may turn out to be abusive, feckless, or both. Margaret genuinely believes that prostitution is the best option for her daughters because they can make their own money while retaining a degree of freedom. Furthermore, Margaret is dealing with the trauma of being sold to a madam by her own mother when she was a little girl. Margaret initially views herself as a good parent because she didn't abandon her kids and provided for their material needs, but over time she does come to see the faults of her parenting. Her relationship with her daughters is complicated, especially with The Unfavorite Charlotte, but the three of them deeply love each other regardless.
- Subverted. Elizabeth Harvey operates a molly-house (secret brothel for gay men) where her son Fredo works. However, Fredo is a willing adult and part-owner of the business rather than an exploited child. Because homosexuality is a capital crime in this setting, molly-houses are one of the very few places where gay men can meet each other for romantic/sexual encounters. Elizabeth opens the molly-house specifically so Fredo can have a safe place to express his sexuality and puts herself at great risk to hide his secret. Therefore, she is portrayed as an Open-Minded Parent and Mama Bear, not as an abuser.
- Platonic Co-Parenting: Discussed. Kitty tries to convince her friend Fanny that they, along with Harriet, should leave the Wells brothel and start their own. One of the benefits would be that they could all raise their children together. Margaret had forced Kitty to sent daughter away and planned to do the same to Fanny once her baby was weaned. Sadly, Kitty is murdered by the end of the episode, but Fanny is eventually allowed to keep her daughter.
- Platonic Prostitution: Charlotte pays Daniel, a male prostitute, to spend time and converse with her platonically. However, their relationship later turns romantic.
- Politically Incorrect Villain:
- Lydia Quigley is a racist, condescending to a woman with dwarfism, and a Female Misogynist, to boot. She specifically only wants a flock of "white swans" in her house. By contrast, the sympathetic Margaret employs women of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and has no issue with homosexuality.
- The Spartans are absolutely rabid misogynists and Social Darwinists of the worst kind.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: George goes from annoyingly pathetic to full-on villain after he rapes Charlotte.
- Harcourt raped his own sister and later brags about "breaking" many women and girls.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Prince, despite being an immature fop, is ultimately willing to listen when confronted with proof of what Harcourt did and not only banishes him from court but tells him in no uncertain terms that if any of the women who testified against him are hurt he will personally make sure that Harcourt hangs.
- Replacement Goldfish: After the death of Charlotte, her lover Isaac steals one of her dresses and forces Rosamund to put it on before he has sex with her.
- Satellite Family Member:
- Harriet has two children who are in danger of being sold into slavery in the Americas, so she becomes to sex worker to earn enough money to buy their freedom. Once she accomplishes that, she stays in the sex industry to fund their education. Her kids don't matter to the story outside of that.
- Sophia's significance to the story comes from being the illegitimate daughter of Isabella and her brother Harcourt. Sophia was conceived when the latter raped the former, and her existence was kept a secret for many years. She is unwittingly brought into the power struggle between her parents, with her mother trying to keep her safe and her father trying to use her as a pawn once he finds out about her.
- Screaming Birth: Anne, after becoming Lord Fitzwilliam's mistress, gives birth to his son half-way through season 3 and screams the whole time. He's so annoyed that he throws a vase out of sheer frustration.
- Shame If Something Happened: When Florence Scanwell decides to leave Lydia Quigley's service, Quigley threatens her daughter Amelia.
- Sparing Them the Dirty Work: Lucy stabs George Howard when he tries to rape her. He doesn't die right away, but it's obvious that he will as he lays bleeding out in the Wells' house. Lucy's mother, Margaret, smothers Howard so when officials inevitably look into it, his death will be her crime and not Lucy's.
- Speech Impediment: Josiah Hunt has a stutter, which the other characters mock him for.
- Son of a Whore: Charles Quigley, Jacob Wells North, Kitty's unnamed daughter, Lucy and Charlotte Wells. Also Amelia Scanwell (though she didn't know it at first) and Fanny's baby.
- A Taste of the Lash: Justice Hunt has Nancy flogged for starting a riot and threatening to kill Lydia for Kitty's murder.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: Averted. This series does not pull punches with all the terrible things that can happen to sex workers in the 18th century.
- Villainous Breakdown: Harcourt has a spectacular one when the Prince not only banishes him from court (destroying his reputation) but also makes clear that if Harcourt does anything to hurt the women who testified against him then he will personally make sure that Harcourt hangs. Since the Prince is higher on the food chain, he has the power to actually carry out his threat, meaning that Harcourt can't do a damn thing.
- Welcome to the Big City: Lydia kidnaps virgins for the Spartans to rape, or to force into her service as harlots. Most of them are innocent, trusting young girls newly arrived from the countryside looking for respectable work.
- Where da White Women At?: Will and Margaret. Hal and Emily. Both of these are loving, healthy relationships.
- Wham Episode: Season One Episode Six — Sir George tries to force himself on Lucy, so she stabs him and Margaret strangles him to death.
- Also season two episode six — Charlotte's deception is revealed when she conspires to save a girl in Quigly's clutches from being raped. She fails, and Quigly locks her in an adjoining room for the night where she is forced to listen, and her plot to bring down Lydia and save this girl from rape are both stopped in one fell swoop.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Nancy is outraged when she learns that Margaret sold out Emily Lacey to Quigley knowing Quigley was out for her blood.
- What You Are in the Dark:
- Margaret Wells is given the chance to save her own life by selling out Amelia Scanwell to men who plan to rape and kill her, but can't bring herself to do it.
- Josiah Hunt claims to only care about enforcing the law. When Margaret confesses to killing George Howard to protect her daughter, he has her brought to a noose in the courthouse basement, but ultimately his conscience won't let him execute her as the law demands.
- Wrongfully Accused: After Margaret kills Sir George Howard, Charlotte and Daniel are accused of the murder.
