Still.not.Pope.
- I think I'll wait until episode 3 or 4 to start watching Game of Thrones. I like to have a vue d'ensemble.
- However, I'm more than pleasantly surprised by The Borgias. I was apprehensive about it because of that other ridiculous Showtime mistake about the Tudors, but I was wrong. First, it doesn't suffer from having a central character who's much less interesting than, well, pretty much everyone around him. Plus, it has Jeremy Irons. I went into this for him, and so far, he's a delight. In the latest episode, during that well-played bit of exposition where he explained to his youngest son the intricacies of the Italian states AND manipulated him towards his goals, I cackled. And when poor Gioffre ended up telling him "I'll marry whoever you want me to", Jeremy Irons gave him such a look that I could have sworn he was about to say: "Well, since you mention it...". It was excellent.
- I'm also...delighted is not exactly the word, but I'm really enjoying Cardinal della Rovere's adventures. First because Colm Feore is a wonderful actor, and second because I sometimes feel like yelling "still not Pope!" (I need an icon of this) pretty much every time I see him. Aww, only 11 years to wait, future Battle Pope. Plus, since he's unkillable, I'm sort of wondering how many perils he'll have to live through. But more seriously, he's a wonderfully intense character.
Cesare works for me. The character is fascinating and makes you feel for him, which isn't exactly a given, while showing his practicality and ruthlessness. And there was that disturbing bit with the garotte and the watermelon, or the one with him touching the spy's scars, so he's not just the man forced into priesthood and pining for an innocence he never had. And his relationship with Lucrezia is wonderful, so far. It's innocent but very, very close, and even if it never goes further, you can already see why the rumours will take (apart from the fact that people were disposed to hate them and to believe the worst, of course) I also loved his scenes with his mother: loving, but also slightly threatening when he finds her with Theo (Cicero! Mr Collins!), and when he takes her to the wedding, he does it for her, of course, but also as a gesture of defiance vis-à-vis his father.
- Episode 4: I was distracted at first because I kept wondering who was the actor playing Giovanni Borgia. It's stupidface Lepidus (from Rome and, er, history), who was ineffectively mumbling in the corner while Marc Antony and Octavian were being their ruthless, predatory selves. Blech.
- Machiavelli. Yeah, that one didn't work so well, because: 1)working for Piero de Medici, but fine, they wanted to introduce him at that point. 2)They seem to have gone for the sinister ageing éminence grise look, which...sigh. Come on, he wasn't even 25 at the time, he wasn't a Talleyrand, all right, and he hadn't written The Prince yet. (It reminds me of the wtfuckery of Cato as a cranky old grandpa in Rome, when he was younger than Caesar.) I reserce judgment, but I'm afraid they'll depict him as a, well, machiavellian character, which would be just a tad lazy. And they'll have to explain (or not , I suppose, since this isn't Quattrocento Florence) how he'll come to work for the Republic once they've chased Piero de Medici, given the way they've introduced him. Never mind. It's nothing unsalvageable, and I look forward to seeing more of him.
- Putting the pieces in place for the French invasion: pretty well done. First with the map exposition scene, then with the conversation between della Rovere, Machiavelli and Piero de Medici, and then with Savonarola's prophecy.
- Joanne Whalley is quite wonderful as Vanozza (although, where does the "former courtesan" thing come from? She was married a lot but that one seems to be all on the show. Oh well, I suppose it's a shortcut for "did have a colourful past. And four children with a Cardinal".), and I like what I've seen of Giulia Farnese and of her relationship with Lucrezia.
But mostly, Jeremy Irons hamming it up and the adventures of still-not-pope (11 years!) della Rovere fill my heart with joy, so far.
I'm kind of greedy, because seeing Piero de Medici, whose much more interesting father died right before the series started, and king Ferrante of Naples in the 3rd episode, made me think that I'd love to see a series about Lorenzo's Florence, and particularly about that episode following the Pazzi conspiracy, when Lorenzo de Medici fled Florence, went to Naples and managed to convince Ferrante, who had attacked Florence at the behest of Pope Sixtus IV, to switch allegiances. It would be a wonderful piece of drama. I suppose I'll have that reaction fairly often in the series, because we'll keep seeing characters whose history is fascinating in its own right and would merit a few episodes, and we'll only get glimpses of them.
- However, I'm more than pleasantly surprised by The Borgias. I was apprehensive about it because of that other ridiculous Showtime mistake about the Tudors, but I was wrong. First, it doesn't suffer from having a central character who's much less interesting than, well, pretty much everyone around him. Plus, it has Jeremy Irons. I went into this for him, and so far, he's a delight. In the latest episode, during that well-played bit of exposition where he explained to his youngest son the intricacies of the Italian states AND manipulated him towards his goals, I cackled. And when poor Gioffre ended up telling him "I'll marry whoever you want me to", Jeremy Irons gave him such a look that I could have sworn he was about to say: "Well, since you mention it...". It was excellent.
- I'm also...delighted is not exactly the word, but I'm really enjoying Cardinal della Rovere's adventures. First because Colm Feore is a wonderful actor, and second because I sometimes feel like yelling "still not Pope!" (I need an icon of this) pretty much every time I see him. Aww, only 11 years to wait, future Battle Pope. Plus, since he's unkillable, I'm sort of wondering how many perils he'll have to live through. But more seriously, he's a wonderfully intense character.
Cesare works for me. The character is fascinating and makes you feel for him, which isn't exactly a given, while showing his practicality and ruthlessness. And there was that disturbing bit with the garotte and the watermelon, or the one with him touching the spy's scars, so he's not just the man forced into priesthood and pining for an innocence he never had. And his relationship with Lucrezia is wonderful, so far. It's innocent but very, very close, and even if it never goes further, you can already see why the rumours will take (apart from the fact that people were disposed to hate them and to believe the worst, of course) I also loved his scenes with his mother: loving, but also slightly threatening when he finds her with Theo (Cicero! Mr Collins!), and when he takes her to the wedding, he does it for her, of course, but also as a gesture of defiance vis-à-vis his father.
- Episode 4: I was distracted at first because I kept wondering who was the actor playing Giovanni Borgia. It's stupidface Lepidus (from Rome and, er, history), who was ineffectively mumbling in the corner while Marc Antony and Octavian were being their ruthless, predatory selves. Blech.
- Machiavelli. Yeah, that one didn't work so well, because: 1)working for Piero de Medici, but fine, they wanted to introduce him at that point. 2)They seem to have gone for the sinister ageing éminence grise look, which...sigh. Come on, he wasn't even 25 at the time, he wasn't a Talleyrand, all right, and he hadn't written The Prince yet. (It reminds me of the wtfuckery of Cato as a cranky old grandpa in Rome, when he was younger than Caesar.) I reserce judgment, but I'm afraid they'll depict him as a, well, machiavellian character, which would be just a tad lazy. And they'll have to explain (or not , I suppose, since this isn't Quattrocento Florence) how he'll come to work for the Republic once they've chased Piero de Medici, given the way they've introduced him. Never mind. It's nothing unsalvageable, and I look forward to seeing more of him.
- Putting the pieces in place for the French invasion: pretty well done. First with the map exposition scene, then with the conversation between della Rovere, Machiavelli and Piero de Medici, and then with Savonarola's prophecy.
- Joanne Whalley is quite wonderful as Vanozza (although, where does the "former courtesan" thing come from? She was married a lot but that one seems to be all on the show. Oh well, I suppose it's a shortcut for "did have a colourful past. And four children with a Cardinal".), and I like what I've seen of Giulia Farnese and of her relationship with Lucrezia.
But mostly, Jeremy Irons hamming it up and the adventures of still-not-pope (11 years!) della Rovere fill my heart with joy, so far.
I'm kind of greedy, because seeing Piero de Medici, whose much more interesting father died right before the series started, and king Ferrante of Naples in the 3rd episode, made me think that I'd love to see a series about Lorenzo's Florence, and particularly about that episode following the Pazzi conspiracy, when Lorenzo de Medici fled Florence, went to Naples and managed to convince Ferrante, who had attacked Florence at the behest of Pope Sixtus IV, to switch allegiances. It would be a wonderful piece of drama. I suppose I'll have that reaction fairly often in the series, because we'll keep seeing characters whose history is fascinating in its own right and would merit a few episodes, and we'll only get glimpses of them.