The Serpent Queen 1.03
Sep. 26th, 2022 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the series continues to develop promisingly.
One of the many things I like about this new show so far is that Young Catherine's servants are depicted as people in their own right and with their own agendas. They are loyal within reason, but they're also looking for alternatives in case she'll be sent back to Italy, they have their own lives which don't involve her, and realising she's willing to sacrifice one of them when push comes to shove, they respond as sensible people would - knowing she'd do this to them as well in similar situations. BTW, considering this is all part of the story Mature Catherine tells Rahima, I wonder whether it's a warning, which, of course, Rahima ignores. Speaking of the framing scenes, the encounter between Mature Catherine, Rahima and recently widowed Mary Queen of Scots to me reads like a hint as to what Mature Catherine wants with Rahima in the long term - use her against Mary, and I don't mean by giving her one of Mary's dresses. Incidentally, let me tell you: this brief scene with Mary (and Mary, Mary and Mary - this is one series where the four Marys serving Mary Stuart actually ARE all called Mary, and it wickedly uses this as a point of characterisationof Mary Stuart) dressed all in white, as a recently widowed Queen of France would be, was a treat.
Still, Young Catherine continues so far to be the main Catherine of the series, and Liv Hill continues to rock in the part. I will miss her once the series leaves her behind. This episode fleshed out two antagonists of our heroine, Diane and the Dauphin, but while Diane's realisation that she's better off with Catherine as Henri's wife than with another (noble, beautiful) bride is genuine, as is her offer of alliance, the Dauphin's scene of vulnerability with Mathilde (talking about his and Henri's years as child hostages in Spain, and a little person back then being the only one kind to him) is counteracted by his continuing to be a jerk afterwards, especially once his father (Colm Meany taking a break from playing Francis as jovial and becoming frightening by playing him as brutal) dresses him down and beats him up in public. Still, both of them gain layers in those scenes. It makes the Diane & Catherine relationship more complex, and means that when the Dauphin dies, he's not a psychopathic caricature anymore. (Still a villain, of course, just not one twirling his none existent moustache non stop, and it's made clear how he came to be this way.)
The series keeps it ambiguous as to whether Ruggieri has any actual powers or whether events like the deaths of the poor boy last episode or that of the Dauphin Francois here would have happened anyway. Whether or not he does is besides the point, the point being that Catherine increasingly is given reason to believe he does, that she gets explicitly warned and agrees to pay any price if only she finally gets pregnant, and that the situation where her tailor Sebastiani becomes said sacrifice is partly created by her (because she leaves Ruggieri's book with him). There are still lots of contributing circumstances - the enormous pressure Catherine is under to produce a child and the way she tried everything else, the fact she likely left the book by accident - but it is presented as a moment of clear choice when Montmorency tells her that either Emperor Charles V. will get blamed for the Dauphin's death, which means more war, or she will, which means she''s doomed, or her servant will, and Catherine the survivor chooses innocent cheerful Sebastiani. Until this point, Young Catherine only acted in defense of herself and against superior forces of one kind or the other; this is the first time we see her sacrificing someone's life, and because the execution is actually shown on screen, in a ghastly way, too. For all the black humor in this series, it does play this kind of horror straight, and my esteem rises more and more for it.
One of the many things I like about this new show so far is that Young Catherine's servants are depicted as people in their own right and with their own agendas. They are loyal within reason, but they're also looking for alternatives in case she'll be sent back to Italy, they have their own lives which don't involve her, and realising she's willing to sacrifice one of them when push comes to shove, they respond as sensible people would - knowing she'd do this to them as well in similar situations. BTW, considering this is all part of the story Mature Catherine tells Rahima, I wonder whether it's a warning, which, of course, Rahima ignores. Speaking of the framing scenes, the encounter between Mature Catherine, Rahima and recently widowed Mary Queen of Scots to me reads like a hint as to what Mature Catherine wants with Rahima in the long term - use her against Mary, and I don't mean by giving her one of Mary's dresses. Incidentally, let me tell you: this brief scene with Mary (and Mary, Mary and Mary - this is one series where the four Marys serving Mary Stuart actually ARE all called Mary, and it wickedly uses this as a point of characterisationof Mary Stuart) dressed all in white, as a recently widowed Queen of France would be, was a treat.
Still, Young Catherine continues so far to be the main Catherine of the series, and Liv Hill continues to rock in the part. I will miss her once the series leaves her behind. This episode fleshed out two antagonists of our heroine, Diane and the Dauphin, but while Diane's realisation that she's better off with Catherine as Henri's wife than with another (noble, beautiful) bride is genuine, as is her offer of alliance, the Dauphin's scene of vulnerability with Mathilde (talking about his and Henri's years as child hostages in Spain, and a little person back then being the only one kind to him) is counteracted by his continuing to be a jerk afterwards, especially once his father (Colm Meany taking a break from playing Francis as jovial and becoming frightening by playing him as brutal) dresses him down and beats him up in public. Still, both of them gain layers in those scenes. It makes the Diane & Catherine relationship more complex, and means that when the Dauphin dies, he's not a psychopathic caricature anymore. (Still a villain, of course, just not one twirling his none existent moustache non stop, and it's made clear how he came to be this way.)
The series keeps it ambiguous as to whether Ruggieri has any actual powers or whether events like the deaths of the poor boy last episode or that of the Dauphin Francois here would have happened anyway. Whether or not he does is besides the point, the point being that Catherine increasingly is given reason to believe he does, that she gets explicitly warned and agrees to pay any price if only she finally gets pregnant, and that the situation where her tailor Sebastiani becomes said sacrifice is partly created by her (because she leaves Ruggieri's book with him). There are still lots of contributing circumstances - the enormous pressure Catherine is under to produce a child and the way she tried everything else, the fact she likely left the book by accident - but it is presented as a moment of clear choice when Montmorency tells her that either Emperor Charles V. will get blamed for the Dauphin's death, which means more war, or she will, which means she''s doomed, or her servant will, and Catherine the survivor chooses innocent cheerful Sebastiani. Until this point, Young Catherine only acted in defense of herself and against superior forces of one kind or the other; this is the first time we see her sacrificing someone's life, and because the execution is actually shown on screen, in a ghastly way, too. For all the black humor in this series, it does play this kind of horror straight, and my esteem rises more and more for it.
