The Borgias ep. 8, The Art of War - Recap

That's a torso, y'all.

Stables. Night. Giulia Farnese sneaks around the corner holding a lantern in only the most appropriate sneaking clothes: a giant-ass fancy purple gown. I can't help but feel that some yoga pants or a good solid lycra bodysuit would have suited her purposes somewhat better, what with all the ducking and twirling that is often part-and-parcel of sneakery, but sadly spandex is a) not invented yet and b) rather out-of-fashion among wealthy Roman ladies. Paulo is conked out IN the stables, à la Samara from The Ring, so I guess we're now taking bets on when exactly he's going to go psycho and start butchering horses (or trying to have sex with them, one of the two). Giulia gently shakes him awake; he reacts with the fear of a man who has been prodded awake in the middle of the night by a pretty lady dressed for the damn Oscars. "Are you The One?" she whispers. He nods immediately because the Oracle told him so. She threatens to hang him if he tells anyone about their clandestine boffery. "It would be a shame to maim that body of yours," she says, creepily, like some sort of Disney villain (how creepy would that exchange be if the genders were reversed?) and then orders the horses. Paulo watches her go through sleepy squinty eyes. Man, have you ever tried to saddle horses on two hours of sleep? Me neither. But it's gotta blow.

Once again, Rodrigo's getting dressed by someone else, and once again, he's had a nightmare. "Of Lucrezia?" Cesare panicks. One-track mind much? Anyway, it wasn't about Lucrezia, it was about being abandoned by all his crappy "friends" and watching the French swarm through the city like "locusts". SOMEONE'S heard what happened in Lucca. Has anyone made "what happens in Lucca stays in Lucca" T-shirts yet? Get on it please. "And on my feet were the simple sandles of a Spanish peasant," he continues while his dresser shoehorns him into his schmancy white leather comfy shoes with gold stitching. "Summon the Spanish ambassador," he orders. "He may be our last hope." Thas a trailer line, yo.

Dawn. Tired Paulo is there to see Lucrezia off. She asks him to come along, worried for his life, but he's pretty sure Giovanni will "only" whip him, and makes no mention of the fact that he's TOTALLY engaged to Francesca. Yes, I'm still sailing that 'ship. And he's still under some hilarious delusion that Lucrezia's going to come back once this whole "giving birth" nonsense is over, either that or he's not in the loop about the state of his fuckbuddy's uterus. "When horses fly," snarks Giulia, "as we must now." Whoaaa, move over, Shakespeare. Lucrezia raises her awesome fur-lined hood and Paulo watches them go, both sad and really fucking exhausted.

Rodrigo's entire part in this episode is yawn-boring and rather disappointing, as previously mentioned. Right now he's yelling at the Spanish ambassador about Spain crapping out on him after all the awesome things he did for them - calling Isabella and Ferdinand "Their Most Catholic Majesties" and not, as the tabloids insisted, "Ferdibella", and granting them ultimate control over the New World. (Except for the chilly bits. Or maybe they didn't know about the chilly bits back then. Anyway, the rest is history, which is why this recap is written in Spanish. Not.) The boring version of Inigo Montoya insists that "What you ask ees eempossible," so Rodrigo grabs him and pulls him aside for a private finger-waggle. Boring Inigo won't budge. So Rodrigo gets sad, and stares out the window at all the people peacing out of the Vatican. Then he straight up grabs Boring Inigo and plants one right on his lips. "Tell them *smooch* our saviour was kissed thus by Judas Iscariot." Funny - last time he tongue-kissed a dude one of them went off to start this "apocalypse" and one of them tried to kill him two days later. He storms away. Boring Inigo wipes his mouth kind of disgustedly.

Rodrigo angrily dispatches Cesare to track down Juan. Both of them are pretty sure he'll be in a whore house. Probably in a whore too.

Which he is... there's an awesome extended sequence of Cesare peeking behind every curtain in a whorehouse until he recognizes Steve Perry's haircut snoozing face down while a saucy wench sponges herself down. He yanks Juan to his feet, which is kind of an impressive feet of strength. Wenchlady is more impressed that he has a cardinal for a brother. Juan's just acting super childish and sheepish, and when Cesare grabs him by the scruff of his neck and shoves his head into a bucket of water he goes down without a fight. Juan falls back onto a pile of pillows and Cesare goes on like that all didn't just happen, addressing him as "Gonfalonieri" with enough sarcasm to make your Clicktator proud. Juan whines about his hangover. Cesare's like well, I could shove your head underwater a few more times, I learned from The Princess Bride that that's a pretty failproof hangover cure. Juan's like really, enough with the TPB references already, we get it, you like that movie, we like it too, but enough is enough. Cesare rewards that last comment with another splash of water, from which Juan recoils with a little yelp. Then he sasses Cesare a little on how "lechery and debauchery" are sort of mainstays of nobility, which is why he's a Duke and Cesare's a perpetually dissatisfied cleric. Although he's got a bit less gusto in his sass today, who could blame him. Cesare gently reminds him that he's a damn general and there's a damn war, and yanks him out of there by the wrist, Juan trailing petulantly behind.

Giulia and Lucrezia ride through a Very Pretty Wood completely alone, which seems unrealistic but probably more aesthetically pleasing than if there was a retinue of awkward Hungarian extras gumming up the scenery. Giulia reminds her to take it slow, given her cargo, and then asks for yummy details about Hot Paulo...

...who is currently tied to a post and getting the shit whipped out of him by gimpy Giovanni. He's sticking to his story of "yeah, they totes whip AHH managed to snatch two horses and the whip AHH full tack without waking me up, what can whip AHH I say, I'm a heavy sleeper whip AHH!" Giovanni's not buying it and threatens him with death. And then all of a sudden, the adrenaline hits, or some other equally stupid hormone, and Paulo gets pissed. "She is headed as far from you as possible, my lord. She can no longer stand the sight of you. whip. The smell of you. whip. The thought of you. whip. And nor, my lord, can I." And that's the last we see of Paulo this episode, which is terrifying.

There's a lot of storming down the hall, a still-out-of-sorts Juan leading the charge to the armoury. The armourer runs down their inventory of pikes and bows and other such fun things, illustrating just how fucked they really are. Cesare asks about cannons and the answer is just precious: "Anyone worthy in the art of war never uses cannons." "Tell that to the French, Obi wan Kenobi," says Cesare (sort of). Then Juan pipes up with a stratagem. Oh wait, just that he has a stratagem. When Rodrigo suggests he spit it out already, Juan draws a blank and tries to demand a bit of brainstorming time, which Rodrigo angrily grants him because he doesn't have a choice. Everyone storms out of the armoury, leaving Juan and the condottieri in kind of an awkward silence.

Somewhere in the countryside, King Charles takes a probably well-deserved whiz in a stream while Della Rovere talks legality. Dellaro is like so used to mixing urine and politics at this point.

Rodrigo asks Cesare where he ended up finding Juan, but when Cesare answers honestly he pulls him aside to yell at him about always making Juan look bad. "What can I say, it's a gift," says Cesare. There's a council coming up; Rodrigo orders Cesare to be his yes-man and then compares his allies' fickleness to Jesus' disciples' behaviour on that fateful Thursday so long ago. And this is now the second time that Rodrigo has compared himself to Jesus and we're not even fifteen minutes in. I think it makes a good case for the atheists that a holy hand did not manifest itself to give Rodrigo a sound spanking.

Rabblerabblerabble - it's the College of Cardinals! They all shut up right quick when Rodrigo walks in. Someone tattles that the Colonna armies are rushing to join the French. Colonna counter-tattles that the Sforza armies are rushing even faster. And the kicker: Cardinal Sforza suggests/insists they abandon Rome. And then, like the voice of Gawd, Cesare shuts everyone up with "The Holy Father forbids any talk of abandonment." As he speaks, Rodrigo sinks to his knees, perhaps because he was terrified up 'til now that Cesare would (rightly) screw him over and he'd be in an "Et Tu" situation. Cesare lies that they're all pretty sure the Papal armies can hold the city and the Cardinals take their seats glumly. Rodrigo goes down the line and, with all the pleasantness he can muster, reminds them that they've all been chosen by God, and suggests that this coming broohaha is going to be their divine test.

Giulia and Lucrezia trot through the woods and nearly run smack into a wall of Frenchmen coming right at them. They're surrounded. They try to act all innocuous, but their finery gives them away and they're taken hostage. They don't put up a fight and merge seamlessly into the French line. The horsemanship alone makes this scene superlatively cool.

Scheming room. Juan presents while Rodrigo sits behind a strategy map. "What is cannon for, Holy Father?" Everyone's like aw hell, our gonfalonieri doesn't even know what a damn cannon is. Anyway, Juan reveals that his "brilliant strategy" is to meet the French in an open field so their cannons have no effect, except that doesn't sound right since we all saw what the chained cannonballs did to the battalion of straw men and HOLY SHIT HE DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT CHAINED CANNONBALLS! Oh, honey. Juan self-congratulates a bit more while the audience gets more and more nervous for him. Finally he gives Cesare a big eff-you in asking him what he thinks. Cesare pissily and mock-humbly replies that he "knows little of the art of war." Juan doesn't catch it and says all sinister-like, "Thank god someone in this family does." "And LIKE Julius Caesar, like Marc Antony - " Rodrigo's a bit taken-aback by the grandstanding comparison. "We will chase those Barbarian invaders back across the Alps, dragging their cannon with them." I think Juan's mixing up like six or seven historical events there, but Rodrigo loudly proclaims his relief and kisses his son on the cheeks, eliciting a morbid eye-roll from Cesare in the peanut gallery. He leaves and Juan smashes a baton across the table in either victory, frustration, or morbid morbid fear.

Cesare rides out through the crowd all bedecked in red and gold with the Borgia bull slapped across his chest, also in gold. The crowd sound effects sounds kind of weeny, like South Park. Cesare and his awesome jaunty hat watches from the balcony with Michelotto, who now sports a weird bowl cut. Yo, where the hell has that guy been!? I know he's a terrible assassin but he's like the most interesting. He and Alfonso need to have their own spinoff in which they just say fucked up things to each other all the time. Cesare wonders whether God will forgive him - why oh why is he still concerned about that? At this point he's either going to heaven or hell and there's not much more he could do to change that. And then, boom, the megaquote, courtesy of our dear Red, our Rosso, our Mick, Mickey, Michelotto: "Where warfare is concerned, Your Eminence, our good Lord will take a holiday." EAT YOUR HEART OUT, SUN TZU.

The party escorting Lucrezia and Giulia crests a hill and gazes down on the sprawling French camp below. Giulia breaths, "Has there ever been such an army?" Could there be a bigger army, says Chandler. "That is what my brother faces," says Lucrezia out loud for some reason. The only French soldier with lines grins in surprise. Giulia shoots her a "we're fucked" look and requests to speak with "their Hannibal"; when he asks for their names, she seems to consider withholding them, but I guess she figures that their status could save them and gives up all the goods.

While Charles washes his hands, General Blond comes to him with the news that they've got both the Pope's bastard daughter and mistress. Charles seems genuinely shocked and affronted that the Pope has a mistress. Oh, you poor naïve frog, would I could regain your innocence. "Then he must surely be done away with," he decides as he bends over the water barrel to wash his face. He pauses, staring at his oogly reflection in the impossibly reflective surface. "Why... have I no meestress, General?" Why is Michel Muller ROCKING MY WORLD? He's actually playing Charles as a big, weirdly sinister baby and it totally works.

In the ladies' tent, Lucrezia's ready to get down to stratagem. "How to achieve our freedom," Giulia agrees, but Lucrezia's thinking bigger. "We are quite uniquely situated to use what... weapons we have in our Father's cause." What the hell are you on about, says Giulia. "As you told me when I first met you: our beauty..." "Our wit," smiles Giulia. "I've created a monster." And talking of monsters, who should walk in but... Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere. Oooh awkward times, considering Lucrezia's probably known him all her life. But she shrugs this off and proceeds to OWN him six ways to Sunday, passive-aggressively insinuating how pissed off her father "the Pope" would be were she actually being held captive instead of "for her own protection" as he so vehemently insists, and how "sad" it is that he's "no longer a man of God, but a soldier." Dellaro shrugs off this verbal ass-massacring and invites them to dinner with le Roi. Giulia tries to end the exchange, throwing all sorts of pointed looks at Lucrezia, but our dear little baby is so beyond your tutelage. Resisting the urge to mock him for his new job as the King's errand boy, she presses him for his goal. "I am travelling with the French king to institute the deposition of your father as Pope of Rome." She keeps her shit together admirably and asks on what grounds. What could it be but Simony and Public Lechery? Can we get that on a T-shirt? "Public lechery?" says Giulia all shocked-like. "With whom?" "With your good self, my lady," says Della Rovere super-coolly. While Giulia Farnese hides a smile, Lucrezia accepts the King's invitation in the following super-awesome way: "Is a Pope's daughter allowed to be hungry? If so, I would gladly accept the King's invitation, because this Pope's daughter could eat a horse." Ba-DANG. Write that down, y'all, I'm using it next time someone asks if I want to chip in for pizza.

Din-dins! Giulia's got her "beauty and wit" dialed up to full. Problem is, she's not that good at "wit". Her idea of charm is to talk lazily about how cool it is that Charles is a King while touching his shoulder at random. He's bored. "I have novelty value then," he cracks, and everyone laughs. Lucrezia decides she's given Giulia a fair turn and it's time for her to save the day. When Charles holds out his goblet, she stop the waiter from refilling it and snatches the cup to "tell his fortune". "I see... one great army meet another." "Is there a winner?" "There. And I see his face!" "Is it handsome, this face?" "No, I would not call it handsome." "Is it oogly?" "No... But there is a great blemish upon it." "What is this blemish?" "Come closer, my liege, I would have you see it too." Charles leans in. "It looks alarmingly like... a nose!" she crows, and straight up GRABS his nose! Everyone laughs! It's awesome! She concedes that yes, the nose is super oogly, but moreso than Charles'. Then she gets straight down into ass-kissing, talking about how much awesomer the King's face is than the dude's in the cup. "And now..." she says, raising the goblet again, "PAH! It is gone! More wine for his Highness!" Shit, I want to jump into bed with Lucrezia after that little show. She rocks. Giulia's just sitting there like, "I guess she's got this from here on in." Then Lucrezia tries to play her ace by revealing that she "saw" no winner and no loser, but realizes with some surprise that Charles likes battle. (To put it lightly.) Somehow, he's forgotten that she's on the other side and "graciously" offers her a front-row seat to tomorrow's proceedings. She leaves it at that because Lucrezia Borgia knows when to shut up. Cardinal Della Rovere is like damn, I should have had a vagina, that would have expedited this whole process.

It's Tomorrow! The red Papal armies are arrayed on the battlefield, staring down a blue French army the size of Liechtenstein. With growing dread, Juan and his condottieri (who seems super annoyed) realize that their strategy of feinting around their opponents' left sort of hinged on them being able to see the left. (I'm having trouble understanding how a general can control an army that's out of his eyeline, but whatever - that's why I'm not a Renaissance-era general.)

Charles' accent is standing at full attention as he talks up his awesome twelve-foot pikes, designed especially to "rip out de guts". But first, the cannons! Lucrezia's also under the impression that cannons are for walls not people, but the Charles drops the bomb (excuse the metaphor) of chained cannonballs right on her head! "Chained cannonballs," she says, trying to a) sound enthused and b) not to vom. The cannoniers pack the cannonballs and Lucrezia tries to figure shit out. She asks if cannons are loud. He advises her to cover her ears. She musters up a smile and does so.

The Romans know what's up; they start scattering seconds before the chained monstrosities slice through the front line in the most literal way possible. Know how I was saying that the greesliness in Lucca was kind of disappointing? THIS IS NOT. This is pure torsos flying, guts unspooling, CG and mannequins and pure pure awesome. This is where it's at. This wins.

On the other side of the field, Lucrezia hysterically (but politely) asks if Charles could halt the cannons for a moment. When he asks why, she manages to calm herself down enough to smile sweetly and agree that "they are exceedingly loud." Then she CHARGES down the battlefield while everyone acts confused. Charles accordingly halts the cannon. She's dressed in blue, so it's understandable that the condottieri assumes she's an emissary, but Juan recognizes her and rides out to meet her.

General Blond tries to talk Charles into lettin' loose some more chainyballs, but Charles "will not harm her". Someone's got a crush! Which was the plan the whole time! Go Lucrezia! (Although I wonder if she'll have to deliver on that promise at some point... meh. Nothing can be grosser than Sforza the Rapist.)

Juan's almost crying when he meets Lucrezia. I don't think they've ever had a scene alone together which probably compounds the heart-wrenchingness of this little mini parlay. Lucrezia tries to talk Juan out of fighting, to which Juan desperately wants to agree. Because the cannons are one thing, and Lucrezia's seen the pikes. She suggests Juan offer him safe entry into Naples in exchange for "bloodless entry into Rome". Juan reminds her that he will for sure depose Rodrigo, which is the whole point of this exercise, but Lucrezia just says "Leave that to me" and turns tail.

"It was my brother, your Highness," she crows when she reaches the French line. She mentions his silly little notion that Charles meant to sack Rome like the Goth and Vandal hoards, which is silly since he's a gentleman. And then she Jedi-motherfuhing-mindtricks him. "You had no such idea, had you?" "No such idea." "Your goal is Naples" "Naples. Of course." She welcomes him to Rome, and they ride.

Vatican. A bunch of Cardinals, Sforza among them, are scurrying out with their tails between their legs. They pass Rodrigo in the halls and try to convince him that he's the only one the French king wants, and (with somewhat less gusto) that Rodrigo should fly with them to Ostia, but Rodrigo just dumps a steaming pile of guilt on them and sends them on their way. They're like "cool, smell ya later."

Dr. Nerdo McPious (YAY!) is lagging, what with all his legal crap he needs to lug around. Rodrigo catches him and suggests that maybe he's packing up all the heavy tomes so he can study up for the deposition trial and not, and Dr. McP weakly insists, to preserve them for posterity. Rodrigo doesn't even need to open the book to the sticky-noted page to figure out which argument Dr. McP is prepping; namely, that a College that elected a certain Pope can depose him with a unanimous vote, or some shit, frankly I don't care enough about holy law to go back and see if that's right.

Cesare and Michelotto step out to watch the gonfalonieri and Papal armies re-enter the city. Michelotto uses his creepy killer psychic powers to deduce exactly what happened. Cesare's like you're useful, where have you been these past episodes? Then, "Rome is like an old whore, waiting once more for her ravishment." Michelotto doesn't bother asking what he means because he just don't care, and neither do I.

Rodrigo is praying. Well, he is Pope. He asks Cesare to please not be too hard on Juan. Cesare is all, "Juan is like sooo far from my mind right now, didya hear they have your daughter and the love of my life hostage?" They don't show Rodrigo's reaction because how many "oh shit" faces can you really cram into an episode before it gets boring?

Juan storms in against the tide of monks and nuns getting their holy asses the hell out of there, screaming "cowards" and something about rats and sinking ships (well, good for the rats) and lemmings running off a cliff (thought that was a myth...?) and then he takes personal issue with the fact that someone chose to save a chalice.

Rodrigo is drinking. As is his right. And he admits that it's not Cesare's fault, but his, since he's the one who gave him the job... blinded, as he was, by paternal affection. Then he institutes the pity party with all this talk of "no friends" and "alone", and Cesare resists the urge of the biggest I Told You So ever to kneel and promise that he won't leave his father alone. You know what, Cesare acts like a textbook abuse victim. Rodrigo kisses Cesare's hand and embraces him, but he's done that so many times that as a gesture it's starting to ring a little hollow.

In walks Juan. Awkward. Or not? Yeah, a little. Juan tries to convince Rodrigo to hustle, but Rodrigo's going down with the ship, and almost manages to get through the entire conversation without yelling at Juan once - but it is a struggle.

That boring monk Raphael is again sitting, and reading, but lays aside the Bible and stands when Rodrigo enters the church. Raphael makes him feel better by saying that Rodrigo's presence at the Vatican "attests" to his ability to stand in the face of adversity. Rodrigo latches onto that word "attest" and riffs on it for a minute or so, coming once again to the conclusion that he is awesome. Then he decides that if he's going to meet the hoards, he wants to be comfy, so he's going to steal the poor old man's clothes. "I would face this trial that approaches, against which the entirety of Rome has fled, without the trappings of this Holy office." So he's finally realized his fancy white blockprint evening gown makes him look stupid.

Cesare's sitting in a chapel when Ennui Personified swings around the corner and down the aisle. "Why are you here?" Ursula snaps. Why indeed. Let's make this an exercise in wrapping a scene up in under ten seconds, shall we, writers? No? Fuck you. Cesare tries to convince her to run. She won't because she's a zealot. But actually she won't because she can't trust herself around him. Whatever, neither can any of us. That's not news. But he finds it so cool that she has finally said his name, and at that moment, when he says "You said my name", François Arnaud manages to save almost this entire scene - I don't know what it is about that delivery but it's really, really cute. She agrees to let him station guards around the abbey (whatever, like it's up to her). And she almost smiles. Like I care.

Now Rodrigo's undressing his own damn self, possibly for the first time ever. He slips into the cassock and Birkenstocks - cry me a river, do you know how much those things cost? - and regards himself in the mirror. "Well."

Cred--

Wait, that's it? What about Raphael? What's he wearing? He's naked, isn't he? And you call "Well" a poignant line? You call "Well" a cliffhanger? This officially marks the moment when Rodrigo goes from being such a surprisingly cool character to simply a shadow of the awesomeness of Jeremy Irons.

Credits.