As we await the highly anticipated second season of Hulu’s The Artful Dodger, now is the perfect time to revisit the wild first season of this Oliver Twist spinoff. The series follows Jack Dawkins, the infamous pickpocket from Charles Dickens’ classic novel, now reinvented as a brilliant surgeon in 1850s Australia. But his attempts at going straight are constantly sabotaged by his criminal past, particularly when his old mentor Fagin shows up to drag him back into a life of crime.
Season 1 masterfully balanced medical drama with heist thrills, throwing in a forbidden romance and life-or-death surgeries that pushed the boundaries of Victorian-era medicine. Here’s everything that went down in Port Victory.
A Blast From The Past
Jack’s carefully constructed life as a legitimate doctor gets turned upside down when Norbert Fagin, his former mentor and surrogate father, arrives in the colony. Fagin immediately recognizes the Artful Dodger and weasels his way into Jack’s life as a servant. Jack is already under immense pressure due to a 26-pound gambling debt. If he doesn’t pay, he loses his hands, and without his hands, he loses his career as a surgeon. Fagin, acting as the devil on Jack’s shoulder, uses this debt to lure him back into the world of dangerous heists, arguing that thievery is the only way to stay afloat.
How Does Lady Belle Discover Jack’s Secret?
While attempting to steal a ruby necklace to settle his debts, Jack is caught by Lady Belle Fox, the Governor’s daughter. Unlike the other elite women of Port Victory, Belle has no interest in marriage. She wants to be the colony’s first female surgeon. Instead of turning Jack in, she blackmails him into teaching her medicine. Their partnership leads to medical breakthroughs that defy the era’s standards, including the first use of ether as anesthesia and the discovery that carbolic acid, derisively called sewage acid, can prevent fatal infections.
These surgeries often take place in front of cheering crowds, infuriating Jack’s incompetent rival, Dr. Sneed. Sneed is so arrogant he botches a surgery on Rotti, who had been slashed after confronting Darius, the local big shot, about his affair with Captain Gaines’ wife. Jack and Belle are forced to step in, performing a secret, high-stakes procedure to repair the damage and save her. This successful intervention is the final straw for Sneed, who challenges Jack to a duel. The duel ends with Sneed getting shot in the thigh due to a misdirected shot from Fagin, and ironically, the man is saved by his supposed nemesis, Jack.
What Is Captain Gaines’ Role in The Artful Dodger?
As Jack and Fagin resort to grave robbing to provide Belle with anatomical lessons and also make some money, Captain Gaines, a law-and-order zealot, grows increasingly suspicious of Jack’s activities. Fagin manages to keep him at bay by manipulating the local elite and even goes so far as to get Gaines’ wife and her lover Darius arrested by misdiagnosing them with syphilis just to gain leverage. When Gaines later enforces a strict liquor ban and confiscates a massive stash of spirits, Fagin convinces Jack that stealing the shipment is their best shot at paying the debt, but the plan goes sideways when a rival gang leader named Red intercepts the shipment first.
Red is eventually captured and sentenced to hang, but because she is pregnant, Jack and Belle perform an emergency C-section to save the baby. They lie to Gaines by claiming both mother and child died to protect them from the gallows, but more trouble arrives when Oliver Twist shows up in Port Victory as a wealthy man carrying a gold shipment.
During a dinner meant to honor Oliver, who proposes to Belle’s sister, Fagin’s team creates a fireworks distraction, allowing Jack to lift the vault keys from around the necks of both Oliver and the Governor. However, when Fagin reaches the vault, it’s empty. Oliver had anticipated the theft and stolen the gold himself, setting Fagin up as the fall guy.
Fagin is arrested and offered a pardon if he betrays Jack, and Oliver adds to the pressure by threatening to reveal Jack’s criminal past with incriminating documents if he mentions his involvement in the gold disappearance, which Fagin already deduced. Fagin refuses to fold Instead he threatens Oliver’s entourage to find the transport route Oliver plans to use to export the gold and uses a pilgrimage of cloaked men led by the Bishop to stall the carriage, providing cover to switch the gold chest for a fake. Oliver eventually realizes he’s been played, but Fagin has already taken the real gold to Rotti, knowing she would return it to the Governor, though not before Fagin pockets a gold bar for himself.
How Did Jack Save Belle in The Artful Dodger?
Jack avoids arrest during the heist because he was with Belle, who had grown distant after asking him to run away with her. When he finally agrees, Belle reveals she has a thoracic aortic aneurysm, an incurable condition that the colony’s doctors were too scared to diagnose. Jack and Belle spend their time trying to perfect a surgical knot to repair the artery, but they keep failing until Jack observes a hangman’s knot used in executions. He realizes that applying the knot in that specific way will hold the vessel.
Armed with this insight, Jack breaks into the Governor’s house, where Belle’s mother has locked her away, convinced Jack is feeding her morbid fantasies. He finds her collapsed, carries her to the hospital, and begins the surgery. Captain Gaines and her parents storm in with a gun drawn, but once the incision is made, they have no choice but to let Jack finish. Against all odds, the surgery succeeds.
The Artful Dodger Season 1 Ending Explained
Just as Jack finishes the surgery, he is arrested by Gaines and taken to a prearranged meeting with Fagin. Fagin hands over the documents of Jack’s criminal past in exchange for a pardon, appearing to betray his surrogate son, except it’s a trap. The moment Fagin secures his pardon, Red appears and guns Gaines down for trying to kill her and her daughter. I don’t know why she didn’t add one more bullet, though. The man might just survive next season.
Even after escaping death by the skin of his teeth, Jack returns to the Governor’s house to check on a recovering Belle, resulting in his arrest. He ends up in a cell with Fagin, but they still have a gold bar and the stolen documents, ensuring the secret of the Artful Dodger is safe for now.
The Artful Dodger Season 2: What to Expect
Season 1 leaves us with plenty of unresolved threads heading into Season 2. Jack and Fagin are locked up together, but they’re far from defeated. With a gold bar hidden away and the incriminating documents secured, they still have leverage and resources to potentially buy their freedom or orchestrate another elaborate escape.
Belle’s recovery from her groundbreaking surgery raises questions about her future. Will she finally be able to pursue her dream of becoming the colony’s first female surgeon now that she’s survived an impossible operation? Her relationship with Jack is stronger than ever, but his arrest complicates any plans they might have had to run away together.
Captain Gaines took a bullet from Red, but as I mentioned earlier, the lack of a follow-up shot suggests he might survive. If he does, he’ll be more determined than ever to bring Jack down, especially after being humiliated and manipulated by Fagin throughout the season.
Oliver Twist’s presence in Port Victory also opens up interesting possibilities. He’s been outsmarted by Fagin once, so will he seek revenge or cut his losses and leave the colony? His engagement to Belle’s sister could keep him around, which would create ongoing tension with Jack.
Red and her baby are alive and free, thanks to Jack and Belle’s risky C-section deception. She’s already proven her loyalty by taking down Gaines, so she could become a valuable ally for Jack and Fagin in Season 2, especially if they need muscle or criminal connections to navigate whatever comes next.
The biggest question is whether Jack can maintain his dual identity as both a respected surgeon and a master thief, or if he’ll eventually have to choose one path over the other. Season 1 showed us that no matter how hard he tries to go straight, his past and his skills keep pulling him back into the criminal underworld.
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