This had a rather slow, plodding pace, but we're basically laying groundwork at this stage, so I'll forgive it for now. We open with the murder of the Duke of Urbino, which isn't filmed in a terribly exciting way and is treated as what it is -- a plot device, a pretext for war. Speaking of "pretext for war," in this episode we learn thank God for video games, because before they came along men with money and time to kill would just start up fightin' any time they got bored.
This episode sets a lot of balls in motion, and not all of them are going to be winners. For one, the Buckingham treason plot bored me to tears. The Thomas Tallis storyline feels like a completely ancillary flourish, but Joe Van Moyland, who plays Tallis, is crushingly gorgeous in a fragile sort of way, and I know it's heading to a sexy place, so I'm hanging in there. But let's face it we're all just waiting around for Anne Boleyn. We see her briefly this time, and I'm really reluctant to bag on actresses but Natalie Dormer is not as beautiful as I remembered from the previews. Her face is softer, more plasticine; maybe that means she'll prove a more expressive actress.
I don't know if I'm completely sold on the portrayal of Henry here. Rhys Meyers does an alright job, but the overall picture is one of entitlement (not that it's inaccurate); a man who takes what he want because he can. It will be interesting to see if we get more of Henry as the accomplished Renaissance man, who can win people over with his accomplishments. I know they sort of address this later with the (not true) story of him writing "Greensleeves," but I'm holding out hope for something a little more in depth.
The interesting thing about historical drama is not how accurate it is (in this case it seems not very), but how we choose to portray it and what that says about us. The treaty Wolsey concocts is portrayed as a precursor to the European Union; the word "humanism" -- if I recall correctly, the number 1 bullet ooint in textbooks about the Renaissance -- occurs several times.
Playing Thomas More is almost too easy -- intelligent! principled! -- but they give him some nuance here. He advocates political pragmatism -- don't piss of Buckingham -- in addition to sticking to his convictions, proving what made him a good advisor.
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