I cannot stop gushing to friends about Netflix’s new period drama My Brilliant Career and about one scene in particular. The bullwhip scene.
**Spoilers for My Brilliant Career Episode 2 “HE,” now streaming on Netflix**
While the whole show is an utter delight, Episode 2 “HE” is an hour-long masterclass in romantic chemistry. My Brilliant Career‘s heroine, Sybylla Melvyn (Philippa Northeast), has been invited to stay at wealthy suffragist Augusta Beecham’s (Kate Mulvany) gorgeous estate, Five Bob, with the intention of kickstarting her writing career so she can avoid having to get married to support herself and her family. However, while she’s at Five Bob, she develops an intense connection with Augusta’s nephew, Harry (Christopher Chung). The two trade jokes and share ideas, chomp on apples together and literally build fences. However the energy begins to crackle the most on the day that Harry shows Augusta his favorite spot on the farm.
Augusta learns there’s a pond and decides to hop on in. However, when she isn’t moving, Harry grows scared and jumps in after her to rescue her. She then reveals it’s just a prank and he’s furious. Well, only for a hot second.
“The way that Sybylla is able to turn Harry’s emotions very quickly by calming him down when when she’s jumped into the pond and then he storms off,” Christopher Chung told DECIDER. “She puts her hand on his chest very much like she’s putting it on a horse to go, ‘Whoa.‘”
“I think that moment…is very important and special to the two of them.”
Also very important and special? What happens next: the bullwhip scene.
After their little moment in the pond, Harry and Sybylla ride across the ranch. At one point, Harry impressively uses a bullwhip to redirect cattle. Syb immediately wants a go. Harry lets her try it for herself, but when she fails at the first try, he takes it upon himself to give her a lesson. He comes up behind her, his arm coils around her waist, and the two begin moving as one, cracking the whip.
“So that was one of the first things I did when I came from London to Sydney to start prep for the show was learn how to whip,” Chung said. “There were definitely a few duds there because it’s all in the wrist. There’s nothing about power. It’s just how well you can use your wrist to flick it out to crack the air. But when you get it, the satisfaction that you get when you crack a whip nicely and it makes that proper earth-shattering sound that goes out against the landscape is just wonderful.”
Then, Harry takes the moment one step further. He asks Sybylla to stand still and then asks, “Do you trust me?” The music intensifies as he begins to whip at her feet. We crosscut to Sybylla getting into a bathtub to pleasure herself to the memories of Harry cracking that whip.
So I think when we were doing the actual day, surprisingly, I don’t know why, they wouldn’t let me crack a whip next to Pip,” Chung said, sarcastically. “I was really good at it by then, too, so I was surprised that they wouldn’t. I guess we still had to get through the rest of the shoot.”
Chung also revealed that the steamy scene was one of the first things that he and co-star Philippa “Pip” Northeast shot together.
“So we had to find that chemistry very, very quickly. But we were both really game to make sure that we did these characters justice,” he said. “So it was the way that [director] Alyssa [McClelland] had told us how the shots were going to be, we knew that it was going to be very suggestive, and it was gonna be used later on in montages.”
“We kind of knew what the moment had to be charged with so that was that was really fun and also, like, if you start your shoot from that point having that chemistry, it takes all the other awkwardness away.”
To experience the bullwhip moment for yourself, watch My Brilliant Career on Netflix (and then maybe consider a bath).
