Frances Forsyte Has Definitely Entered Her Villain Era on The Forsytes

It’s hard not to feel for Frances Forsyte on The Forsytes. She is a woman of social standing and class, and she will do everything she can to keep that position. The problem is her husband doesn’t quite feel the same, and there’s a threat to her marriage.

Louisa Byrne has been a threat since Jolyan first realized she was in the area. It didn’t matter about the children at the time. His heart was still with the lady’s maid he met in Italy. Once he found out that they shared children, he knew that he had to do what was right, and that’s created an issue.

Frances Forsyte Shouldn’t Have Prevented Jolyan from Seeing His Children

I get that it’s hard for Frances on The Forsytes. She’s stuck in a time when women didn’t have that much power. They couldn’t own their own bank accounts, and there is a huge risk of Frances and June losing everything should Jolyan choose Louisa over her. While divorce is difficult, it’s not impossible, and it threatens the whole of Frances’s world.

However, she took things too far by demanding that her husband not see his children. I understand the fear that Jo will want to be with his former love, but the children are innocent in all of this. It’s not like these children are from an affair, either. They were conceived before Jo and Frances were even together!

Frances is pushing her husband away by making all of these demands, and Jo isn’t one for following the rules. Of course, he was going to make sure his children had a life that he could provide. Louisa may not want it, and that is her choice, but Jo has to at least try.

Frances Takes Matter Into Her Own Hands on The Forsytes

This is where Frances has entered her villain era. Rather than running the risk of losing her husband, she’s decided to force Louisa away.

To be honest, Louisa setting up shop in Soho and believing that she would never run into Jo was absurd. She fought against seeing him, and yet, she didn’t think that moving away would help to fix the issue. It looks like she wanted Jo to choose her, but she had to play a role first, so it didn’t look like she was a homewrecker.

However, for Frances, she is destroying a livelihood. Or at least, she’s risking that. By encouraging the landlord to evict Louisa, she’s forcing her and the children to move away. This could affect her business, as her clientele may not know where to find her. All it’s doing is pushing Jo closer to Louisa, and by the end of The Forsytes Season 1, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Jo has decided to leave Frances.

There is no coming back from this. June doesn’t agree with what her mother has done, and she’s shared it all with Jo, knowing that he needs to do what is right. It’s tearing this family apart as well as another one.

It’s hard to see where Frances will land after this. Maybe there is an option of marrying Jolyan Sr., but I have to wonder why she didn’t marry him in the first place. Those two seem far more likely to have a successful marriage than Jolyan Jr.

The Forsytes airs on Sundays at 9/8c on PBS and streams on PBS Masterpiece on Prime Video and PBS Passport.