Anne – Wherever You Are Is My Home

By: Miranda Sajdak

Episode Seven of “Anne” provided a solid continuation of the prior, with a lot more feeling of continuity in general as the series comes to an end. The opening has Anne (Amybeth McNulty) presumably in some kind of Sunday School class, along with the usual suspects – Josie (Miranda McKeon), Diana (Dalila Bela) and Ruby (Kyla Matthews). Josie’s insisting that Anne is now poor, due to the fact that Matthew lost everything in the prior episode and we become aware that he’s mortgaged Green Gables to try to afford enough to pay the bills. Anne insists she isn’t poor and Josie sarcastically wonders how Anne couldn’t know about her own home’s finances.  Though the group is supposed to be practicing a song, Anne doesn’t stick around (it seems she can’t help so she flees from schoolhouse rooms), but runs home to find out the truth.

There, Marilla (Geraldine James) berates Matthew (R.H. Thomson) for losing their money and mortgaging the home without asking her. Anne overhears the end of the conversation, as the two bicker over finances. Matthew has spent the money he got from the mortgage to purchase new crops, which he hopes will help him pay back everything he owes. However, Marilla doesn’t want new crops – the goal is to ease him out of the workforce and not put more pressure and work on his shoulders. As she’s scolding him, Matthew has a heart attack and Anne rushes into the house to help.

We soon learn that his condition, while not exactly dire at the moment, is not good. Matthew needs bed rest and he certainly won’t be able to go to work on the fields anytime soon. Marilla stresses, spending the night poring over financial documents she doesn’t fully understand. Anne joins her and helps her calculate the math – based on interest and what they owe how much they’ll need to pay back and when. Marilla takes Anne with her to the bank to beg for an extension on the loan and things go from bad to worse. The banker learns that the loan, contingent on Matthew working the farm, may be no good and decides to execute a clause allowing him to demand the money back by month’s end. Now, not only do they have too much to pay, but they have to pay it back in 30 days. They can barely make ends meet as it is!

Marilla decides they must start selling off their wares and they do. She refuses to accept charity; however, and won’t allow her friend Rachel Lynde (Corrine Koslo) to ask for help around the town. Nonetheless, Diana gives Anne a brush (and presumably some other silver items) to take to the pawnbroker in town. As Anne and Jerry (Aymeric Jett Montaz) head over to try to sell what they can of the livestock. Jerry’s been let go, as well, and Marilla hopes he’ll take his final payment out of the sale of the horse before he heads back home. In town; however, things deteriorate further. Jerry is attacked by two ruffians and his money stolen.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel though. Anne manages to meet up with Matthew’s friend from the tailor shop, and informs her of their situation. She gives Anne all she has to help and Anne is grateful, unaware the woman is likely providing charity rather than repaying her for returning her dresses to the shop. At the pawn broker, Anne has some luck as well and manages to convince him to buy a number of goods.

While heading out, Anne runs into Gilbert (Lucas Jade Zumann) in the street and the two finally come to terms with each other. They make a truce, though Anne learns that Gilbert has decided on a life change: he’s now working at the docks, hoping to travel and get some more out of life. He feels his father would approve, as he was such a fan of travel throughout his life. He’s not sure about when he wants to return to Avonlea, but knows it will be best done when he’s ready and not out of obligation. As Gilbert and Anne chat over a small meal, the two scoundrels who attacked Jerry arrive at the café and sit down to peruse the newspaper where they discover an ad, placed by Marilla, to take in boarders at Green Gables. They decide that would be a great opportunity for them.

Outside the café, Jerry runs into Gilbert and Anne. Jerry is about to attack Gilbert when he realizes they know each other from Avonlea, having met during the fire at Ruby’s house. Jerry and Anne bid Gilbert a farewell and head over to Josephine Barry’s place to spend the night. Jerry can’t stand the idea of sleeping in his own bed – the whole place is far beyond any wealth he could imagine – so he spends the night curled at the foot of Anne’s as he’s more used to bunking with his sisters than on his own. It’s another solid moment of development for this character and paints an interesting picture of what the working class life might be like at this time.

When Mrs. Barry (Helen Johns) learns of Anne’s predicament, she (of course) offers to help, but Anne refuses charity. Mrs. Barry hires Jerry back to work at Green Gables, offering to pay his salary in full. It’s a business arrangement, not charity, which Anne at first refuses, but Jerry accepts. Mrs. Barry also gives Anne some money and a book – by George Eliot – and reminds her that love is not charity. Marilla relents, and takes the money, though she knows it still won’t be enough for them to pay back all their bills.

So, Anne gets to work. She goes around the village, offering her services as a cleaner before the holidays. Mrs. Lynde also gets to work in this episode, managing to convince some fellow churchgoers to pass the collection plate at services to help those who lost everything when the ship sank, especially including the Cuthberts.

There’s another subplot here that didn’t quite work out for this writer, but it’s there and should be addressed. When Matthew learns the severity of his condition, he decides he’d be better off dead. He tells Marilla that she and Anne could survive on his life insurance and she reminds him they’d rather have him than that money. Nevertheless, when she goes out to work with the remaining animals, he heads downstairs to grab his gun and some bullets from a locked cabinet in order to end his life. Fortunately, he’s interrupted by Jeannie, one of Matthew’s former acquaintances who also happens to own the tailor shop where Anne returned her dresses. Jeannie has stopped by to see how Matthew is doing and she reminds him what a heartbreak it is to lose someone you love. She urges him not to kill himself and Marilla later makes him promise not to. This time, he seems more placated and is pleased to greet Anne on her return from town.

Marilla gets word by mail that two boarders are interested in looking at the house and she tells everyone over dinner that they should have a brighter future; with the boarders on the way and some money saved up now, she can go to the bank and talk to them more seriously about the loan. It’s Christmas and Jerry takes the time to carve a star for the Cuthberts, a nice touch as he and Anne are becoming closer than they were in the opening of the show.

Of course, we aren’t surprised one bit to see the boarders are the two men who assaulted Jerry in the street, though they take their scam one step further and arrive separately, pretending not to know each other. The show ends on an odd beat, with Anne about to bring in the second boarder to dinner and, personally, myself and those watching with me were left confused. It felt like the series hadn’t figured out how to end this episode solidly. Perhaps there shall be more to come in future on all these storylines, but for now this was actually a bit of a let-down of an episode and didn’t seem to hold up to the strength of the prior five or so, which had steadily grown in tension and character development. It felt more like a bridge – a set-up – without real payoff and left us feeling like we needed more.

However, thus far the show has held up much better than anticipated. Amybeth has provided a new and formidable version of Anne to add to the adaptations that have come out over the years and the writers have done a good job of developing her character in a new way. While it seems they’re trying to set up a potential love triangle between her, Jerry and Gilbert that feels like an unneeded plot point and, hopefully, it will just grow into a normal friendship between Anne and Jerry. In addition, we hope there will be more on the way to give us even more answers to the questions that remain after this episode.