Harlots (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript

Hello, Pa.

See you soon, Mr. Benjamin.
Thank you, Kitty.

I've got Harris's list.

Give it back!

Give it back!

You shouldn't be reading that,
you virgin.

Give it back, stop!

Let's see what's in
here about you girls.

Here's yours, Fanny.

"Miss Fanny Lambert.

"The very thing in winter for
those who love a fat, jolly girl,



"a fine, bouncing crummy wench,

"and not amiss in summer,
barring perspiration."

Does it say I stink?

Perspire doesn't mean stink.

Yeah, it does.

Here's Kitty's.

I've read mine already.

I'm appealing.

Appalling. Read mine.

No, Emily, wait your turn.

"Betsey Fletcher, Russell Street.

"This girl is new upon the town,

"having been debauched
not six months ago."

She's one of Nancy's girls.



What's in there for Nancy?

Fanny, Kitty, you're both wanted.

Culls are waiting.

"Nancy Birch, Russell Street."

"When flagellation is required,

"she acquits herself to
the entire satisfaction

"of her cull."

Read your sister's.

"Miss Charlotte Wells."

"Her extravagance would
scatter the fortune

"of any but the most ambitious keeper.

"But her eyes dart delight.

"Her bosom enchants to rapture,

"and her wit makes her the
very meteor of the hour."

I'll be in there next year.

I doubt it.

Your ma keeps you
cosseted up like a baby.

She's waiting for the right cull.

Better get a move on.

You're losing your shine.
What, like you have?

Read mine.

"Miss Emily Lacey.

"A wretched piece,

"nasty, disagreeable,

"snuffy letch...

"without even one good quality."

It doesn't say that.

"Walks like a parrot..."

"... and swears like a drunken drab."

When the time comes,
I hope your quim splits.

Emily Lacey!

All of you.

I've got an officer out there
with such hard prickstand

he can hardly walk.

Mr. Gibbon's arrived to ponder
the riddle of the female,

and you're all sitting in here
on your goods like pecking hens.

Take me to the circle of bliss!

Emily, go and service Mr.
Holland before he expires.

Eat fast.

Scrub up.

Stop vexing my best girl.

I need you to play.

She's as pure as the snow on St. Paul's.

What's your price, so I may have her?

You're a valued patron, Mr. Gibbon,

so you'll pardon my candor

when I tell you you'll
mount that harpsichord

before you have my daughter.

Clawing your way up in the world?

I'm soon taking a fine new house,
in Soho.

Greek Street.

When we're settled there,

I'll be taking sealed
bids for Lucy's virginity.

Twenty-five pounds to have her now.

Sealed bids.

As I did for Charlotte,
my older daughter.

She is one of the brightest
stars in London's firmament.

And I intend no less for Lucy.

Miss Lambert, at last.

Fanny, the lieutenant would
cherish a voyage on your peaks.

At your service.

I'll give you thirty pounds to have her,

now on that stool.

That's out of the question.

Forty. I know her value.

Fifty.

Fifty pounds.

Lucy?

What is keeping Miss Carter?

What a hell-bound spider you are.

I'm clawing my way upwards in the world,
Mr. Gibbon,

not down.

"At Lydia Quigley's
house of earthly delights,

"Michelangelo himself
could not do justice

"to the perfect alabaster
of Miss Pettifer's bosom."

The musk, madame.

That's most gratifying.

I'm sure I don't deserve it.

The French Piece.

Read hers.

"Miss D'Aubigne, Golden Square, Soho."

It says here you're
dead behind the eyes!

Charles?

Morte derrierre les yeux.

I want eager zeal, comprends?

Or you'll go to the pimps of Cheapside

and you won't be smiling then!

She says that from now on,

she'll be the very spirit of joy.

We're rehearsing a tableau, Mama.

Diana, bathing with her nymphs; look.

The Duke of Cumberland is bringing
his retinue after the play.

Make sure he gets anything he wants.

Where are you going?

To watch the sport in Covent Garden.

"This radiant, young votary of Venus

"possesses between her lithesome legs

"a gateway to the temple of bliss..."

That's me.

I'm bliss, I'm radiant...

I'm sunk in lust and lechery.

What is the cost to my soul?

Five shillings.

Go home to your wife, Ned.

Cleanse these streets

with the fire and purity in our hearts!

The fornicators, the adulterers,

the abusers of themselves,

the child-stealers,
and all the abominations of Sodom...

They have taken our great city

and sunk it in the vilest sin.

God lights His righteous fire tonight.

The burning of the harlots!

Burning!

Shit! Margaret!

They're coming for us!

We will cleanse these streets

with a fire of purity.

It is God's work we do tonight.

Let us pray that we do it well.

They've never touched us,
all the years we've been here.

I'll hold them off.

Open the door in the name of the king!

Wait a while!

Why wake Christian people
in the middle of the night?

Feel God's righteous fire!

Burn, harlots!

Burn, you sinners!

Will you walk with me?

If we seem a couple,
they might not arrest me.

I'm sorry.

Please, Mr. Oswald!

Jacob, son.

Up to the attic and hide.

Open the door!

It pains me to tell you that
the constables have come.

I haven't finished yet. Curse you!

I need to get you out.

What is it, what is it, what do we do?

Go out the back, Lieutenant.

Get these on.

Who dares interfere with an
Englishman's right to go whoring?

Mr. Holland, set yourself straight!

Think of the safety of these girls!

We should run, let's run!

No... if you run, you'll be rape-fodder!

Go to Charlotte and tell
her what's happening.

Get yourself straight, girls.

Open the door!

Open the door.

Margaret Wells, I am charging you

under the Disorderly Houses Act of 1752,

that you do keep an
obscene and bawdy house...

You lie,
and your warrant is a trumped-up sham!

Get your hands off my tenants!

Charlotte...

Howard!

I've ridden hard to be with you.

Now you must ride harder.

How I have pined for you.

Night after night, all alone!

Have you signed the contract?

Are you mine?
I want to be your lord and master.

Surely you don't want
to talk about that now?

What's in the box?

It's a gift isn't it?

Wait.

You are the pineapple of Great Britain.

Most lovers would bring pearls.

I cut it from our hothouse.

And as I did so, I thought of Eve.

She came to my mind in your form.

Naked, she was tempted by such a fruit,

tempted to know sin...

So if I am Eve,

then you are?

The serpent!

A person is here for Miss Wells.

Her sister. Lucy?

Curse you, Haxby!

Why didn't you damn well wait?

It's Ma.

I pay my taxes and my levies.

I support the night watch.

I donate to the parish for the poor;

I keep my house in excellent repair...

The warrant is signed by a witness

who declares that he paid
you for intimate congress

with the women who abide with you.

What witness?

The court is not obliged to name him.

I take money for furnished rooms.

These girls are my tenants.

There's nothing illegal in rent.

Your business is procuring harlots.

Nothing would distress this
dissolute and shameless whore!

Order!

Let not her tongue sway you,

for this harlot has slithered

from her mother's womb
to lure mankind to vice.

No, Sir!

I am Charlotte Wells and I am
here to speak for my mother.

Sit down, Charlotte!

The warrant must be faulty
and the witness false.

He can only have been paid
to smear my mother's name.

How dare you interrupt this court.

We are pursued and harried like prey!

My mother protects her girls
because the law does not!

Charlotte, sit down!

These she-hounds are
a cancer in our city...

Margaret Wells should be commended...
... and must be cut out!

... for the way she runs her house,

She is the exemplar of
all the bawds in London!

In your own words, you have admitted

that your mother is a common bawd.

I grieve for the desperate
women I have seen today,

who, faced with starvation,
have sold their flesh.

But you are no such creature,
Margaret Wells.

You are a leech

grown fat upon the sins of others.

Not true!

A vile parasite engaged
in a brutal trade.

I fine you 100 pounds for
running a disorderly house,

and if I see you before me again,

I'll have you whipped and transported.

Empty the court! That's justice?

It's not enough!

That is not enough!

That is not enough...
You shut your mouth!

Egregious shame!

Florence Scanwell, that blind bitch.

Someone had to shut her up.

You have imperiled my
move to Greek Street!

My final payment was due today,

how am I going to I afford it now?
I'll help you.

Most certainly; a hundred pounds!

I have some pressing gaming debts.

But once they're clear...

You're contracted to a baronet.

He should be paying your debts!

Ma, I haven't signed.

How can I relinquish my freedom to a man

who thinks I'm a pineapple?

Damn you for a stupid slut.

You need to be his property.

Men don't respect whores;
they respect property.

That's for what you made me.

Got excellent news,
august and venerable madam.

The Wells woman.

Bloody Margaret Wells,
leaving us to walk home.

Why couldn't she get us sedan chairs?

They took all her money.

She's as tight as a nun's nip.

Why are you moaning?

She loves you.

She loves my profit.

She loves my pert heavers.

She'll have them worn to sagging,
and for what?

Enough of your spite and lamenting.

You're like a stinging fly!

My cunny puts food on his table.

I'm sick of Covent Garden;

sick of Margaret Wells
and her two-faced clucking!

Sweet Emily.

Why don't you just cluck off?

Our new home, if I can still pay for it.

That money-grabbing landlord.

What a weasel.

He's given me till Monday,
but he's hiked the rent.

Ma, there's your solution.

Sell her virginity.

I'm keeping you intact till we move in.

Why, when it's coming anyway?

You'll get a finer class.

You may leap up to where
Charlotte is in one great step.

You had me out at twelve.

Do not think I balk at it.

If you want to keep her immaculate,
fine.

Let her marry a shopkeeper.

And see a man own everything she earns?

I wouldn't wish marriage on a dog.

I'm worth at least fifty pounds, Ma.

They can view you
tonight at the playhouse.

And I'll take sealed bids.

You'll be a Wells woman,
through and through.

I believe in your crusade
against the daughters of vice.

It is not my intention
to charge you any rent.

I am a plain speaker, Mrs. Quigley.

I am not ignorant of
your name or your house.

You suckle and nurture
an evil trade in flesh.

Why offer me this?

You currently live in a hovel.

You cannot see your child

but she is stooped and thin
with the pallor of a ghost.

What do you want?

I want you to impale Margaret Wells

on the spear of your campaign.

There are viler bawds than she.

I am fit and well and
my cheeks are rosy.

I'd like to see Margaret
Wells publicly flayed

until her back resembles
a latticed tart.

Would you not enjoy that too?

Make an example of her.

I worship you, George Howard.

Enter.

I've prepared a fresh copy
of the contracts, my lord.

You'll be responsible for her debts

as well as her upkeep.

I must advise you,
it will drain your funds.

I want sole ownership now!

I want Charlotte Wells
contracted as mine!

"A busy week for toast
of the town Miss C. W.,

"lately in the keeping of
young Baronet Hardhead."

"She was blazing a trail
at the boxing on Tuesday.

"At the Masquerade on Wednesday..."

She said she'd been living like a nun!

She was out every night!

You knew.

Why didn't you damn well tell me?

Come in for a nip of gin, Mags.

Florence Scanwell, Nancy.

What do we know about her?

They say that on her wedding night,

she saw her husband's prick and
thought it such a fiendish thing,

she stabbed her own
eyes out with a brooch.

These boys come to pay my rent.

Strange about the timing though,
isn't it?

Just when you're set
to move up in the world,

you get raided.

Who wants me, Nance?

Who have you offended?

Whose name is on my warrant?

Look what came to the door, Ma.

I would have sent it away,

but it has some rather unusual curves.

It's looking for a position.

I'm never stuck for a position, sir.

It's got a spark.

I've been told Mrs. Quigley's
is the outstanding house.

This is my entry in Harris's List.

I have the gateway to
the temple of bliss.

Have you been long on the town?

I've got good experience.

I'm the best girl in my current house.

Any children? None living.

What do you know of art and culture...

and the current
subjects of conversation?

I can talk if they want.

What instruments do you play?
The male instrument.

In other words,
you're nothing more than a rutting post.

Every one of my girls moves,
eats, speaks,

sings, and plays like a lady.

The only way she differs
is in her worship of Venus.

I earn a fortune for my current house.

You're nothing but a bare-forked animal,
my dear.

Shakespeare...
and my girls would know that.

Take her out.

I am constantly asked for.

Mrs. Wells has me on my back morning,
noon, and night

and I know I can do better.

Presumably Wells owns the
dress you're standing in.

What's your debt to her?

Don't know, maybe five pounds?

As an act of benevolence,
I'll settle it.

Then your debt becomes payable to me.

So you will take me?

I'll have to refine you and
dress you in a proper style.

These costs will be added to your debt.

So you'll work like a black.
Do you understand?

Wha...

You can't lock me in!

Let me out!

You are cutting out my heart,

you treacherous whore.

Howard!

Pining alone.

Living like a nun.

Well, don't you dare come
to the playhouse tonight,

you cheating, ly...

you don't deserve to live!

Mumma's ordered me to try the goods.

You let me out,

or I'll tell every cull
I'm a prisoner here.

You'll be hanged for a kidnapping pimp,

and so will Mrs. Quigley.

Then go.

As soon as your debt is paid.

What's your name?

Emily Lacey.

Miss Lacey.

I bet you made that up.

What's your real name, Sally Piddle?

I'm the Duchess of Quim.

I'll wager you're a wild
bouncing kind of a ride.

We'll teach you all the
refinements you'll need...

music, dancing, French.

So climb on.

I won't harm you; look.

We had a girl who left

to be mistress to the Duke of Norfolk.

So...

you will teach my cunny French?

Oui.

Stay.

You need rest.

I must sort things for Lucy.

I've reserved the box.

The word is out.

You will have bids.

See what I've been keeping for you?

My mother took me
down St. Martin's Lane.

She'd spent every last
farthing on her gin, the slut...

and she was a bunter;
no one'd go near her.

She sold me to a bawd
for a pair of shoes.

I was ten.

I know.

Do you know that woman's name?

Mrs. Quigley.

She dressed me warm,

she gave me a full meal.

She said if I pleased her gentlemen,

I'd be her own sweet girl.

I swore it wouldn't
be like that for you.

I gave you schooling.

I gave you time.

Do you like them?

They don't fit.

Then make them.

Howard!

Where's your fine lady?

In Richmond.

Not your wife, man!

He means Miss Wells.

Lord Repton is besotted with Miss Wells.

The sister comes out tonight,
have you heard?

Wells junior.

Maidenhood to the highest bidder,

and I swear that will be me.

My husband loves a hymen.

I had Charlotte's.

I would like her sister's too.

All there for the taking, Lucy.

Snuff?

I've carried you before, Miss Wells.

I'd be insulted you don't
recall only I was at the back.

Now I've graduated to the front.

Congratulations.

But I won't be doing this for very long.

I thought I might set
myself up as a fancy-man.

There must be many a
lady who'd pay for a throw

with a well-shaped man like me.

My price is very fair.

I'd even give you the
first one for free.

Nothing comes for free, sir.

You would, I guarantee it.

Right, Seamus.

You're a harlot, sir.

You lied to me.

You went out every night I was away.

Yes,
but all of London knows my constancy.

So why do you not sign my contract?

I don't want to be owned,
like your wife.

Then I have no surety of your faith.

You have my word.

A whore's word?

Take it or not, as you please.

What have you done?

Why does he scorn you?

I won't sign his poxy contract.

You are the village idiot.

Lucy.

Lucy!

Lucy.

Whatever is the matter?

Control yourself.

You must shine!

Lord Repton. My dear.

Let me see her.

Silly girl.

The opera moves her. She cries.

Why, the poor lamb...

Please.

May I offer you this note?

Gentlemen, I'm considering all bids.

I'm not ready.

It's not hard.

You'll learn to be the Queen of Pretend,
as I am.

You know why the men sing so high,
don't you?

Done to them when they're little boys,

to stop their voices breaking.

That's the cruelty of the opera.

The subject is love, but...

the men have no balls

and the virgins are
all played by whores.

The tears worked, you clever minx.

They want you more than ever.

Nancy sent me.

Who signed that warrant?

Charles Quigley.

Lydia Quigley!

Are you coming after me
with lawmen and judges? You?

See how this sluice rat
behaves at the opera.

I want one hundred pounds or
I'll have you up before a judge

for a malicious prosecution.

Do you really think you'll
have the judge's ear?

Oh...
one of your girls came to me today.

A pert little doxie by
the name of Emily Lacey.

A very rideable piece.

She's mine now.

You cannot steal my girls!

She implored me to take her
from your flyblown cunny house.

Damn you for a kidnapping pimp!

Come, my doves.

Let's leave this rat to eat its young.

He offers twice the highest bid.

For me?

We need the money.

Then take it.

If you are free to lie and cheat

and play the whore, then so will I be.

Look at this quagmire you've come from.

Look at what I've done for you!

Your sister will realize
I am quite man enough.

You may wait.

I'd rather be cut in quarters.

Charlotte!

Charlotte, you infernal whore!

I'll go after her, my lord.

We are honored by your generous bid.

My precious girl.

I am yours, my lord.

Why are you driving him away?

He's an easy keeper.

He's a snake.

You could have him dropping
jewels on your pillow,

but no, you provoke him to this spite!

Indulge him.

Take his contract.

I'm thinking about your future.

You have never,
ever had to sell yourself for pence

or beg for food.

My ma sold me for a pair of shoes.

I've heard about those
shoes so many times

I could start a cobbler's.

The only safety is in money!

I hate money!

Money is a woman's only
power in this world.

You make it your
solace and your dream...

and one day wealth, real lasting wealth,

will make you free.

Are you free?

I will be, when I'm in my new house.

Thank you, Ma, for all you've done,

for Lucy and for me.

You never, ever sold us short.

I can't get it in, you slog!

I'm soft as a rotted fruit, curse you!

You're the most hideous piece of flesh

I've ever had in my life,

even more insipid than my dull,
fatiguing wife.

You're clearly frigid, still a virgin.

I shall ask your mother
for my money back.

No... please,

my lord, just tell me what to do.

I've had enough of you!

I'll do anything you like,
just don't tell my ma.

In return for my silence,

you will tell everyone...

that I impaled you, hard.

When Charlotte asks what it was like,

what will you say?

It was like the opera.

Once I slept on a feather bed

With blankets woven warm

Now I'm glad to lay my head

On a cloak that's old and torn

So sing with me a merry catch

As summer days will come

My love, he is a soldier boy,

So I'm following the drum

With a pat-a-pat-a-tat

And a rattle and a scrat

And the beat of a marching song

I'm ragged and I'm worn
and my hose are torn

Do you need a ride?

My offer still stands.

Like I said, first one for free.

Think like a whore.

How much can you get?

A guinea.

For what?

Sell me your charms. I offer you love.

Then you're a fool.

For a harlot, that doesn't exist.

Then I have nothing.

Hunger in my stomach and
a mouth full of breeze.

Here's tuppence.

What's that for?

Your company.

I'm lame and tired before my time

And still I follow him

Oh, I'm lame and tired

But still I smile

And so I follow...

I want your forgiveness.

Eight shillings.

I prayed for boys, William.

Every time, I prayed for a boy.

She's strong. Like her mother.

This city is made of our flesh,

every beam, every brick.

We'll have our piece of it.

Synced & corrected by Monkeymannn