There’s something about Mary Bennet |
Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting
Getting Hooked on Quitting
Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?
Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous
Is College Necessary?
Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset
Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear
Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset
Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters
‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting
Getting Hooked on Quitting
Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?
Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous
Is College Necessary?
Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset
Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear
Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset
Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters
‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC
There’s something about Mary Bennet
The star and writer of BritBox's "The Other Bennet Sister" on why the "Pride & Prejudice" wallflower resonates
Published June 25, 2026 10:30AM (EDT)
If “The Other Bennet Sister” has taught us anything, it’s that romance can be summed up in two words: bird calls.
In one of the most awkward yet endearing moments in the BritBox series – which imagines what happens to unmarried sister Mary Bennet (Ella Bruccoleri) after the events of “Pride & Prejudice” – she’s faced with a rather overly attentive Mr. Thomas Hayward (Dónal Finn) while walking through the forest. Mary had always been drawn to the solicitor and only recently learned that his understanding with another woman had ended. Unaware that her tender feelings are reciprocated, Mary begins talking about birds, as one does.
“It’s classic Mary, not to see what’s standing right in front of her,” head writer and executive producer Sarah Quintrell told Salon. “She needed to stop him talking, and I thought she would say, ‘Is that the lark?’ And then I thought she’ll do some really embarrassing bird noise. Then, because it’s Hayward, he’ll join in, and it was really important to show that he matches her.”
What follows is an unrepentantly goofy scene in which Mary attempts a serious discussion about and demonstration of the difference between lark and thrush calls. Mr. Hayward’s answering bird noise is enthusiastic, if not entirely precise.
“I was with my partner the night before, and we were listening to birds on YouTube,” Ella Bruccoleri told Salon. “I was like, ‘Oh, let me really try and nail the thrush.’ and I was really trying to go for accuracy, listening to it over and over again.
“Then I get to set, and Dónal has not gone for accuracy,” she continued. “He’s just gone for the most insane version. He’s like – it could be a parrot, it could be anything – he’s just squawking away. So I’m like, OK, but I think that’s probably quite alright because Mary would go for accuracy.”
Quintrell added, “It’s sweet because [Mr. Hayward] is connecting to her. He’s saying it’s OK to be yourself, and you don’t have to be perfect.”
As Regency-era gestures of love go, inaccurate bird impersonations are simultaneously the nerdiest and wackiest. Mr. Darcy would never . . . and that’s the point. Mr. Hayward isn’t trying to impress Lizzie Bennet; he’s communing with Mary, in all of her meek and geeky glory.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
(BBC/Bad Wolf/James Pardon) Ella Bruccoleri as Mary Bennet in “The Other Bennet Sister”
Janeites may be forgiven for overlooking, if not outright loathing, Mary Bennet from Austen’s sacred “Pride & Prejudice” text. In a novel full of insufferable characters interfering with romantic soulmates, Mary commits the sins of both pedantry and priggishness. She also – gasp – views the sniveling Mr. Collins favorably.
As much as the series is Mary’s bluestocking origin story, it also........