William Ransom

William Ransom is a young English gentleman commissioned as an officer, raised with all the polish and certainty of the aristocracy under the watchful care of Lord John Grey. He is dutiful, proud, and quick to bristle at insult, moving through drawing rooms and army postings with a confidence that has never yet been tested by the truth of his own birth.

Vandervaart plays him with a stiff, correct bearing that makes every crack in it land hard — the show has spent years building the dramatic irony of who his father actually is, and William's genuine unawareness gives that irony teeth. He's compelling precisely because his certainty about his own identity is the thing the story is quietly dismantling.