I’ve always loved this show. But I go back and forth trying to come to terms with it. Ria so very badly wants an adventure, wants to live, wants to feel. Her husband is a good man, he provides, he loves her, he tries to understand her. He does everything he is supposed to do. But still something is lacking. And at several times it’s hard to believe that she never goes through with an affair with Leonard.
In Series 2, Episode 2, she goes on a mission to stop fox hunting (it’s 1980). She doesn’t tell her husband. His response to her initial feelings about the hunt are defensiveness and anger at being asked to answer to something he doesn’t care about. Later in bed she is in distress as he tries to read. He complains about her feelings but holds her when she asks him too and they are both somewhat content with that at the time.
But Ria goes out, gathers a crowd, hands out flyers, creates a feeling of purpose among a crowd in the town. She later describes the incident to her husband, but pretends it was a different woman. “For those few minutes, she belonged only to herself!” Ria declares. Her husbands response is “I’m glad she’s not mine.” So first he reacts to her feelings with defensiveness and anger, then later in bed, her strong feelings about the hunt annoy him, and finally when describing herself to him as another woman, his response is “I’m glad she’s not mine.” How horribly crushing.
So she goes to the hunt, the day of...but no one shows up. No one from the crowd in the town who said they would come show up. She is alone. But then, Leonard appears, with his chauffeur (who doesn’t have a choice) and a homeless man. Leonard offers his support. Leonard watches with love while she rants, quite freely and with great strength at a stray hunter. And when she finds out she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and feels foolish, Leonard sympathizes. But he never holds her. And this is one of those times I can wrap my head around the affair not happening, because it’s as though Leonard is just a figment, a fantasy that allows Ria to validate herself.
Her husband is a good man and he does what he’s supposed to do and he holds her when she asks despite the fact that he doesn’t understand her and wants to ignore any instances when “she belongs only to herself”. But no man, no woman, no partner is perfect. You can’t just have an affair, you can’t just look for someone else when your partner fails you. So maybe Ria has just dreamed up Leonard. It makes sense. The homeless man, the chauffeur...bit characters we all add to fantasy to make them plausible. She conjures up a man who is supportive of her, loves her emotional strength and sympathizes and validates her feelings when she states “it’s all so silly, isn’t it?” Leonard doesn’t pat her shoulder and say there, there. He looks her in the eyes and says “Yes. What you say is true.”
But in the end, she is alone chatting to a butterfly. Because Leonard can’t hold her. A fantasy can’t hold you.
