The Snake Queen
Time with the family
Season 2
Episode 5
Editor’s Rating
Photo: Starz
What’s going on this season? I know we’ve had a long break, but aside from Minnie Driver bringing Elizabeth I to life through sheer force of will, it feels half-hearted and weird. I thought I had my sights set on Elisabeth and Margot in the first episode, where Elisabeth is vain and sassy and Margot is quiet and charitable. Now here Elisabeth is being called the most generous of Catherine’s children and Margot is being a real bitch to the Holy Roman Emperor’s grandniece for no reason. Did they forget how they wrote her in the first episode? Or did they accidentally switch the names in the script? This season had one task: to show that Catherine de’ Medici is funny and devious, and instead she worries about her garbage children and ignores Rahima, Who is funny and sneaky and still needs more screen time.
Catherine’s half-brother Alessandro follows her to Paris to build her palace. He immediately asks her to sponsor a colony in America, more specifically in Florida. If you think so: oh sure, since Florida is so strongly associated with the French language, that’s fair. The French are not doing a great job colonizing Florida. They tried, but the Spanish said “no” and quickly put a stop to it. “WE WILL be the ones to destroy civilizations, thank you,” the Spanish soldiers probably said. Catherine wants to put the doomed colony of Florida on hold anyway, because France remains torn by religious conflict.
Your children are all busy with their own things this week, and maybe The Righteous Gems actually ruined the whole adult sibling relationship dynamic on TV for me, but it’s really boring when you have spoiled adult children living together and none of them even punch each other in the balls. If they’re not acting like ten-year-olds, why are they here? Charles is boring, Anjou makes us gays look bad, Elisabeth has done a U-turn and is an inconsistent mystery, Margot is whatever the writers want her to be in a certain scene, and Hercule is dead.
Speaking of Margot, when the aforementioned great-niece shows up with Charles, Margot accuses her of wanting to marry Charles (okay?), and Charles replies that Margot thinks it makes her brave to say things no one else would say, but Really nobody else says it because what it says is boring and uninteresting. It’s not, Charles, but good that you tried. Nobody says it because most people aren’t assholes. Accusing someone of wanting to marry another woman is clearly interesting. But if the person is zero percent deserving, then you’re just an asshole.
Charles is stalling this week and Anjou is still under house arrest. Or at least he will be until Montmorency helps Charles get Catherine at the private council meeting (what?). Angelica the poisoner shows up and testifies that Catherine wanted her to poison Sister Edith, Montmorency’s absolute favorite. Catherine admits it and says it’s probably best if she resigns from the council (gasp!) but asks Charles to release Anjou and add him in her place. This is due to advice from Ruggieri about pitting their children against each other, etc., but unless she’s doing this for an early version of George Bluth’s Boy fights series, I’m not interested. Charles releases Anjou, but not before Catherine goes to Anjou and gets him to falsely sign his best friend’s confession, which says that Anjou’s best friend Lemur (known as Bowl Cut in my house) misled Anjou about the very gruesome murder by drowning of a Protestant. Anjou says okay, and Lemur is beheaded. Damn. Lemur also reads like queer, by the way, so now we have two Queer people are responsible for the death of another queer person in their inner circle. NOT A GREAT OPTION, SHOW.
Speaking of Sister Edith, she remains a zealous nightmare. Antoine and Louis de Bourbon deign to pay her a secret visit and offer her the support of Queen Elisabeth. Edith, it turns out, has more information about Elisabeth’s whereabouts than they do, and she tells them that Elisabeth landed in Flanders a day ago, along with weapons to help the rebels. This is Bananasby the way; Elizabeth never left England during her 45-year reign, but we know that anything is possible here, and I want to see Elizabeth’s dealings with other monarchs, so, fine. Louis and Antoine are surprised, especially when Edith asks Antoine if he is a true believer, and Aabis hold a flame to his arm until he confesses his sins. We have to watch his arm burn. It’s really disgusting. Edith says something about how we’ll all be purified in the flames eventually, etc. etc., the stuff religious zealots say, and dismisses the Bourbons. Someone has to stop Sister Edith. Who? I honestly don’t know at this point. If they gave Rahima the job, she’d be done in five minutes, but Rahima continues to only get three lines per episode. What a WASTE. A waste!! The whole season could revolve around her and her army of sexy ladies-in-waiting. Bah!
Remember when Philip of Spain got kicked by a horse last week? Well, he’s alive but unresponsive. He’s just sitting there, which is clearly an improvement over the horse torture he attempted when he was kicked across the courtyard. Elizabeth, now kind and caring, begins visiting and reading to Philip, which makes his father, Charles V, very happy. Catherine convinces Elizabeth to marry Philip (safely) in order to forge an alliance between France and the Holy Roman Empire. The marriage requires a surrogate for the consummation part. Said surrogate touches Elizabeth’s foot with his foot and the marriage is declared consummated. Okey dokey.
How, you ask, did Catherine pull off this marriage without a full discussion between the king and the council and anyone else who surely wanted to have a say? She had Rahima use her sexy army of ladies to drug the wine of all the relevant members of the royal family, and when everyone woke up, Elizabeth was in a carriage with Philip and Charles V, whisked away to her new home. The mood of her siblings is basically, “Hm. Okay.” They’ll probably never see her sister again. Never mind! As Elizabeth’s carriage leaves, another carriage arrives. It is Charles’ bride-to-be. Anjou says, “Fuck me” as Queen Elizabeth steps out of the carriage. OK, bonus points for that very last scene because it’s very good. Scenes with Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici coming next week, I assume! Exciting!
