A mad Milanese urine shower is like the least disturbing thing Della Rovere has witnessed this week.
So here's what you missed on The Borgias. Rodrigo managed to marry Lucrezia off to Ascanio Sforza's cousin Giovanni who is also cousin to Ludovico Sforza the Duke of Milan which is good for them because Della Rovere's been on the campaign curcuit trying to get principalities north of Rome to agree to give the French Army uninterrupted passage en route to depose Rodrigo and (presumably) to install Della Rovere himself as Pope in return for the entire Kingdom of Naples which is ruled by a bean-headed vegetable and his awesome/twisted/underused son Alfonso but too bad for Lucrezia because Giovanni Sforza is a disgusting piggish marital rapist. Cesare met some new ass called Ursula Bonadeo but her shitty husband insulted Vanossa in the worst way so Cesare is now on the warpath and on top of that his lapdog Michelotto has once again screwed the pooch. And that's what you missed ooon THE BORGIAS.
Rodrigo has mad guilt sweats about saddling Lucrezia with Giovanni Sforza - he obviously doesn't know about the whole marital rape malarky, but his nightmares are making him feel oogly. Once again, we get a further taste of Jeremy Irons' awesomeness as he weeps and stuff. It's like every single week they give him awesome performance opportunities - gross old man crotch-grabbing, goofy accidental innuendo, weeping... maybe next week will be sword fight week! (Please?)
This week, much of the intrigue stems from Lucrezia's reaction to her awful situation. Said reaction involves making the household staff feel incredible pity for her and seducing the groom, the spry and sexy Paulo. The rising trio of Lucrezia, Paulo, and Francesca the maid promises much fun and adorable youthful ugly-bumping in the future. Also somewhat gratifying to see is a bit more of Giovanni Sforza, who is well on his way to becoming almost more multi-demensional and interesting than his pretty young principal-character wife.
Not so interesting, or should I say entirely boring, is Cesare's new dalliance with Lucrezia substitute Ursula Bonadeo. After a few character-establishing conversations that certainly do not establish anything close to character, Cesare manages to avenge Vanossa and liberate Ursula in a single stab wound to the neck. It's not nearly as exciting or climactic as it wants to be, because to be perfectly frank, while Ursula's husband Nose Bonadeo is certainly vile and deserved to die, Ursula is just not interesting enough to make the subplot worthwile. Then again, it's always the quiet ones. Closet freak.
We meet another young would-be ruler in Ludovico Sforza's locked-up nephew Gian Galeazzo, whose unbelievable response to the question of what he desires most ("Freedom... and pheasant") make him my second favourite whiny brat on this show, right behind Alfonso. But Gian Galeazzo is also a one-episode delight as the insane urine-happy Ludovico lets him literally eat himself to death. Anyway, the sum total of the Milan subplot is that the French army will have full access through that territory, leaving just Florence, the Papal armies, and (if they're lucky) Naples to stave it off. And we're not assured on Naples yet.
Finally, it looks like Gioffre is to be married off to Alfonso's illegitimate sister Sancia next episode, who will be played by (according to IMDb) Emmanuelle Chriqui, who is very attractive and sexy (or so society seems to think... truthfully, I don't think I've seen her in any single thing.)
On the whole, a small step-down from last week's episode, but if this war and carnage subplot ever comes to fruition, we're headed for a crazy Rome-style second half of the season. Bring it on. Seriously, please, writers, bring it on. We need it.
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