It's my annual time of submission to the Mouse again, aka paying for Disney +, catching up with various things from last year.

Obi-Wan- Kenobi: mostly I liked it, though unfortunately a key scene had me muttering "you stole that from a Vader/Anakin & Ahsoka scene, screenwriter, I hope you're paying Dave Filoni" , more about this later.

( Spoilery comments )

Thor: Love and Thunder: I am in the absolute minority of MCU watchers in that I didn't likie Thor: Ragnarök all that much - in fact, I liked the Thor content of Avengers: Infinity Wars better in what it did with Thor than the entirety of Ragnarök - and what I heard about this latest movie didn't inspire me to seek it out in the theatre. But since I did submit to the Mouse, I thought I might as well, and yeah. All the elements I disliked, multliplied, for two thirds of the movie. ( Spoilers ensue ) Look, I like my humor between the drama as much as the next fan, but Taika Waititi's brand just doesn't work for me.

In Disney- unrelated news, I also watched the last episode of The Serpent Queen's first season. (Is it the first? Or is that supposed to be it?)

( Spoilers are better at this. )

In which the departures from history grow ever more bonkers, but the characterisation and themes rock.

( But I thought we were alike? )

Since I'm currently enjoying The Serpent Queen a lot, I'm keeping my Starz/Lionsgate subscription for another month, which means I'll also be able to check this Dangerous Liaisons prequel they're advertising. On the one hand, this is one of those stories where my instinct is to say "doesn't need one" re: prequel (Merteuil's answer to Valmont's "how did you invent yourself?" in Christopher Hampton's version summarizes the relevant letter in Laclos' original novel neatly), otoh, I thought this about Saul Goodman, too, and lo, I happily ate my words. Also, there are the inevitable "but there were no black people in Paris at that time! Only a few servants!" (at the sight of young Valmont and young Merteiul talking to one each) comments at Youtube, which aside from the obvious motivation is just plain wrong. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas would like a word.

But to return to my latest historical interest on tv, I wrote a contribution at the promo post, to wit:

Title: The Serpent Queen (2022)

Media: TV Series

Approx length: New series, as of today (October 3rd) four broadcast episodes

Where to find it: Starzplay (now called Lionsgate+ in some countries), one of the Amazon Prime channels

What is it, in summary?: tv series about Renaissaunce Queen Catherine de' Medici

What do you love about it?: It shapes up to be a really good ensemble series. Both Samantha Morton and Liv Hill (as teenage Catherine) in the title role are fabulous, but the show doesn't make the mistake of letting Catherine be the only interesting woman around. We get the pov of servants as well as of nobles, and said servants have their own lives and opinions. Antagonists of our (anti)heroine get fleshed out and we're given their povs as well. Lots of complex relationships between women, grudging alliances with rivals, mind games, fantastic location shooting (those Loire chateaus are swoonworthy) and great costumes. As or our main character: so far, this is the Catherine de' Medici I always hoped to see, neither over the top evil nor innocent of all wrong doings (well, other than as a child, and even then she's trying to outplan an environment eager to destroy her), but the product of her era with all its vices and virtues. And, in both her incarnations, a glare that sees entirely through you.

What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Characters teaming up, missing scenes, possibly crossovers.

Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests, or that showcase particular characters and relationships?: It's a vey new canon (see above re: the episode number broadcast).

Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): To date there's been one gorey execution scene and a deeply traumatic childbirth scene. No explicit sex scenes so far. Historical sexism. There may be incest in the future, depending on the show's take on a few Valois siibling relationships, but that's not a given, as the biography it's based on doesn't interpret the relationships in question this way.

Additional: Here is the show's trailer; and this is a scene whish fleshes out Diane, Catherine's arch nemesis, who is actually helpful to her here (for her own reasons).

I now had the chance to watch the first two episodes of The Serpent Queen, the new tv series about Catherine de' Medici, and am delighted so far. Now did have cautious hopes, because the biography it's based on, by Leonie Frieda, is reasonably good, the trailer was entertaining, and Samantha Morton as Catherine was promising.

( Only vaguely spoilery report on the first two episodes )

So much did I like the first two episodes that I nominated the show as a Yuletide fandom. Here's hoping it will continue as good!

Day 30 ~ How would you end the show?

Given that there won't be another season after the third one, i.e. the show will end with Lorenzo, well, I've already written how I'd tell that story. If, otoh, there would be another season, then, as mentioned two posts previously, I'd go for another time jump and the young Catherine de' Medici as the central character, with the supporting cast including Uncle Giulio (aka Pope Clement, Giuliano's kid), dastardly cousin Alessandro (the Pope's illegitimate son, which yep, makes him a bastard's bastard), future hero of a drama by Alfred de Musset cousin Lorenzacchio (Alessandro's future assassin) and possible first love cousin Ippolito. In many ways, this was a downfall era for the Medici (both politically and morally), and they'd gone from being loved to being hated in Florence, but otoh, traumatic as it was for child and teenage Catherine, it shaped her into the hardcore survivor she became. So I'd end with Catherine, last descendant of the direct line from Cosimo to Lorenzo to her, leaving Italy for good and arriving at the French court to start a new story as not yet Queen of France.


( The other days )

Day 28 ~ Fancast: Who would you like to see in a role on The Medici?

Given the third season will be broadcast in Italy starting November, and I just saw a poster saying it will be the final one, the question is sort of redundant, but I'll play anyway. Let's say there's a fourth season, with another time jump, to the Medici who is as famous as Lorenzo and outside of Italy more famous than Cosimo, but whose traumatic youth in Florence (and later in Rome, and then in France) hasn't been covered over and over again the way her middle aged years have. I vote Maisie Williams as young Catherine de' Medici! Playing a child hostage turning deeply traumatized teen turning woman getting even should be a piece of cake to her.

( The other days )

Day 26 ~ A scene you can watch over and over again.

Several, though they're not all online. This one, however, is. It occurs in 1.04. Context: Cosimo has been put on trial on trumped up charges and poisoned (though not lethally so) while in prison for good measure. This is encouraging him to tell his wife, Contessina, with whom he has a very complicated push-pull relationship, various things he probably wouldn't have otherwise. (More's the pity.) It's my kind of "two people who usually would never admit feelings to each other finally do" coupled with "arranged marriage becomes real" in one scene:



And then she saves his life which he finds unforgivable for quite a while....

( The other days )

Day 24 ~ Favourite quote about the Medici

It's not about them, nor has it been said about the show (yet?), but historical Lorenzo supposedly said when dying "“I wish that death had spared me until your library had been complete" to one of his favourite writers and scholars, which, well: one reason why I'm fond of him.

In terms of show quotes: "Now and then, the truth needs a little help to be told" says Cosimo in 1.04, elegantly justifying many a year of Medici propaganda and scheming. :)


( The other days )

Day 22 ~ Make or link to a graphic of your favourite ship.

Well, my favourite ship is Contessina/Awesomeness, so I'll link one of her great moments. Context: her young daughter-in-law, Lucrezia Tornabuooni, has had a miscarriage and in addition to her natural sadness about this also wonders (and is afraid a bit) what would happen to her if it turned out she won't be able to have any living children. This being the fifteenth century, and Lucrezia having married into the soon to be most powerful family of Florence, it's a realistic question. (What with wives usually blamed for infertility or dead children, and annulments being more than possible if you're the Pope's banker.)

Contessina (married to a husband who didn't want to marry her), who is mentoring Lucrezia, doesn't reply with tender reassurances that Piero (her son) will always love Lucrezia, or of her own affection. (Though there was a hug at the start of this scene, and Contessina likes Lucrezia a lot, but that's not the point.) Instead, she says this:











GIFs taken from this tumblr.


( The other days )

C.J. Sansom: Tombland: The latest adventure in the Matthew Shardlake mysteries. While the previous outing, Lamentation, would have made for a good conclusion, I had an inkling we might not have seen the last of Matthew and friends due to the job he takes at the very end of it. (Property lawyer for *Spoiler*.) And indeed it was not, though one of my major guesses, that if Sansom continues his series, the next book will feature the death of Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour subsequently losing his head in more than onse sense in a major way, turned out to be incorrect: the consequences of Seymour’s actions to *Spoiler* and Matthew Shardlake are dealt with in the opening chapter of Tombland. The rest of the novel takes place a few months later in the same year, and the big political event of the novel is the rebellion in Norfolk.

One of Sansom’s most estimable traits – which differentiates him from the zillion of other writers setting their novels in the era of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I or even during the years in between – is that he really brings home what ordinary citizens lived like and what the consequences of all those back-and-thro religious changes (one year’s heresy being next year’s orthodoxy, and vice versa) were, as well as the consequences of Henry’s costly (and ineffectual) wars. The last novel, Lamentation was a bit atypical in that because Shardlake’s main client there was Catherine Parr, the cast was more noble-heavy than usual. This novel, otoh, goes in the other direction: the nobility (including the royal part of same) only makes cameo appearances, while the brewing rebellion – due to years and years of Henrician mismanagment followed up by two years of, in this telling, more mismanagment by Edward Seymour – and the poverty and countless injustices it hails from is told via the our hero, who visits Norwich due to *Spoiler* sending him there to assist a distant relation accused of murder, ending up with the rebels.

(He still solves the case, though, which gets much more prominence than last novel’s murder got, and is skillfully interwoven with the political plot – Matthew Shardlake meets many of the later players via said case first.)

The various new characters in Norfolk are vividly drawn, and despite the end being obvious (even if you’ve never heard of this particular rebellion before, you’re probably aware the reign of Edward VI didn’t include reforms that wouldn’t happen in England until Cromwell, O, not T), I came to care a lot about them and dreaded what was bound to happen. But of course I remained majorly invested in our recurring cast. Lamentation ended with a big rift due to the events in that novel, which continues into to this one, but eventually ( a pleasing spoilery event takes place. ) Moreover, the new kid on the block, Nicholas, continues to be a good addition to the cast – he’s different from Barak as Shardlake’s assistant both due to his (gentry) background and his character, he gets character development and growth in this novel, and because of his background, his pov on the rebellion early on is really different from Matthew’s and Barak’s without Nicholas being vilified for this.

Another strength of these novels is that the humanity of our hero remains strong: he’s the only one who doesn’t lose sight of the murder victim and what she’s been through when most other characters are far more invested in the results her death had.

Nitpicks: at one point, Matthew is told an information which some pages later is told to him again and treated as news by our narrator, which made me wonder whether Sansom’s editor didn’t catch it or whether Matthew was uncharacteristically obtuse regarding what „he interfered with her“ means in the context it’s told.

Also, it’s a rule in this series that Matthew will always dislike the girls his assistants fall in love with first, even if he later changes his mind about them. Look, author, at some point, you’re starting to look coy about what we’re supposed to take from this tendency.

Best in-joke for the Tudor lore wise: very late in the novel, it’s mentioned in conversation that the Earl of Warwick’s younger son Robert has met a girl in Norfolk, „old Robsart’s daughter“, whom he wants to marry. This has nothing to do with anything in the novel and is just idle gossip of no interest to our hero, but his source adds the obligatory „marry young, regret later“ comment in case you’ve missed which future famous historical mystery has just been set up.

In conclusion: the series remains top quality, and I look forward to the next one.

On to events a century earlier:

Day 20 ~ What do you like best about The Medici?

Like The Borgias in their heyday (i.e. the first two seasons), it provides me with interesting characters and complex relationships which now and then even fit really well with their historical context, even if just as often fantasy rules, and does this in exceedingly beautiful Renaissance surroundings.

( The other days )