"Watermelon anyone?"
"Yes please."
This episode, methinks, was all about showing us just how high the stakes were, reminding us why exactly everything last episode was of such grave goddamn importance. This time around, people die. By the thousands. And by the thousands, I mean around ten. But still.
As always, though, this historical drama succumbs to the disease of telling us everything in exposition-heavy dialogue. They seem to be pushing this great imminent war, and all we're given are measured discussions about funding the armies and political banter that is, by necessity, temperate. I'm not watching this show for its temperance. I'm watching for the sex (curiously absent from this episode, though I have a few nice things to say about Colm Feore's bum) and mad leaders stabbing each other in the dick.
We are somewhat fulfilled in terms of the latter as we follow Della Rovere's trip to Naples, where the vegetable king's son Alfonso (played to utter perfection by Augustus Prew) takes the liberty of showing off his father's gruesome gallery of stuffed human corpses, trophies he'd collected before his at-the-time untreatable dementia hit. It's a fantastic scene. It's also an isolated scene. According to IMDb, we should not expect to see Alfonso any more this season, which is an absolute tragedy, since he's one of the most enjoyable characters on the show so far.
Another character that we most definitely will no longer see is Djem, the half-brother of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, who crashes with the Borgias for a bit. While there, he's utterly chill with all the kids (except wee Gioffre, sadly missing from this episode): he looks up to Cesare as a mentor, Juan as a pal, and Lucrezia as a little sister, or potential love interest. Djem is written and acted wonderfully, especially his misguided attraction to Christianity, and his murder, while heartbreaking, reveals tons about Cesare's and Juan's relationship, which is always fascinating
Other plot points: the Spanish Jews gain entry into Rome... for a price, Cesare is made Cardinal (sad), Michelotto screws the pooch on an attempted assassination (facepalm), Michelotto somewhat redeems himself when another assassin botches the shit out of Djem's murder (woohoo), and Lucrezia eavesdrops on a suitor parade (rather funny) before finally being saddled with one mysterious Giovanni Sforza.
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