Taboo, episode 3, recap: Tom Hardy's drama is turning into BBC One's most transgressive series yet

Tom Hardy in Taboo CREDIT: BBC

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•  Gabriel Tate 

21 JANUARY 2017 • 10:15PM

I’m starting to get the feeling that Taboo is just having us on. So determined were the attempts to shock its audience in episode three that it was hard not to imagine Tom Hardy and Steven Knight first concocting a series of vaguely transgressive scenarios - I suppose we should call them “taboos” - and then working a plot in around them.

There was incestous longing in the church, an S&M club, the frankly disturbing fascination with viscera - the crabs crawling through the innards of Delaney’s would-be assassin, the Malay, was especially grim - and Zilpha’s repugnant husband (Jefferson Hall), first telling Delaney (Hardy) how his wife’s relationship with her sibling made him “so hard and so angry”, then humiliating her over dinner for having such long, heavy periods.

It’s been a long time since something so challenging was served up to a primetime BBC One audience, and the BBC deserve credit for taking a gamble that, with ratings holding up, seems to be paying off handsomely.

Watch | Taboo: episode 3 trailer

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It helps, of course, that its leading man has few peers when it comes to screen charisma. Although the swagger has now gone along with the top hat, Hardy holds the attention no matter how absurd the events. And who can blame him? Such ego-buffing can’t come around often.

Not only was Delaney tough enough to survive a knife in the belly, chew out his would-be assailant’s heart, dump his body in the river and be back on his feet within hours, but his sexual magnetism now extends to men as well as women.

First, his sister (Oona Chaplin) snogged him in a church after an interminable correspondence, then East India Company emissary Godfrey (Edward Hogg), a childhood friend from their seminary days, pledged his troth. Those rare few who didn’t want to bed him were either intimidated by or terrified of him.

Tom Hardy as Delaney CREDIT: BBC

And when his physicality wasn’t enough to get what he wants, Delaney wasn’t above using a bit of hocus pocus. Following another bit of business in the Delaney homestead involving paint, hieroglyphs and visions, he discovered a mark made in the fireplace by his mother, who had apparently been locked away like Rochester’s wife. When Brace proved less than forthcoming, Delaney warned “You will give me answers”, gesturing as if essaying a Jedi mind trick.

Taboo flirts consistently with self-parody thanks to this sort of portentous, vaguely supernatural claptrap, yet the house of cards remains standing, for now, thanks to Hardy’s fierce conviction and a supporting cast all but whooping it up - Mark Gatiss and Jason Watkins are an irresistibly repulsive double act as the Prince Regent and his aide, Solomon Coop. Yes, Coop - Steven Knight takes an almost Dickensian relish in outlandishly unusual names, from Brace and Thoyt to Coop and Zilpha.

Danny Ligairi as Martinez CREDIT: BBC

And yet the episode wasn’t without its disappointments. After all the build-up, Delaney - this bold crusader, this complex mystic - had the most prosaic goal of all in mind: money, and lots of it. We learnt that he was offering Nootka Sound in exchange for a monopoly over trade in sea otter coats from the East India Company and in furs from the Americans, his endgame being to dominate the tea trade with China.

That said, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find several more agendas lurking somewhere - not least the unspoken source of Delaney’s grudge against Strange (Jonathan Pryce).

Jessie Buckley as Lorna Bow CREDIT: BBC

The East India Company and the Crown, meanwhile, long at loggerheads, were edging closer to common ground against America and, of course, Delaney. Having failed to deal with him directly - and unable to kill him now his will bequeathed Nootka Sound to the Americans - they instead targeted Lorna Bow (Jessie Buckley).

In setting her up to attack the typically grotesque and arrogant Duke of Richmond, they ensured she became a legitimate target for the establishment. Delaney snarlingly declaimed her “a weakness”, but I sincerely hope not - in a series lacking any other female characters willing and able to take control of their destinies, his stepmother stands tall as the only one not just resistant to his wiles but capable of some canny manoeuvres of her own.

Questions again abound - not least the identity of Carlsbad, the shadowy female American spy - but with hands now being shown, battle will soon be joined. Batten down the hatches.