Summary
“Judas” is a really good episode of The Serpent Queen, with a ton of deft political manoeuvring that kicks the drama into higher gear.
One of the appeals of historical fiction is that knowledge of real-world events can do a lot of dramatic heavy lifting. It’s easy to fret for a character, say, when you know that they’re due to die soon. The Serpent Queen turns this expectation on its head. Here, knowledge of what happened to figures like Catherine de Medici’s son, Hercule, will only cause you problems, since he dies about five minutes in Episode 4 of Season 2, over a decade earlier than expected.
This is one of the outgrowths of the climactic events of the previous episode when Hercule was hit in the head by a rock after Anjou drowned a Protestant peasant for no reason at all. What happens to Anjou as a result of this, not to mention the religious tension the event exacerbates, powers the narrative of “Judas”.
Hercule Is Dead, Catherine Is Back
Thanks to Hercule’s head injury, Catherine has teleported back to France, and while the Duke of Florence, Alessandro, will shortly follow her to oversee the palace-building efforts, it does feel like we skipped a good chunk of possible characterization between episodes. No matter, though, since Hercule unfortunately succumbs to his injuries in short order.
Despite Hercule ostensibly being her favorite, Catherine takes the loss rather lightly, at least in part because she has already resigned herself to losing all of her children at the cost of securing her power. Another kid popping his clogs is kind of last season, in that regard.
But the death leaves Catherine with a host of problems. In the half an episode she was gone, Hercule was fatally wounded, the Duke of Guise was imprisoned, a trade agreement with England was signed, and the Holy Roman Emperor was invited, all under Charles’s watch.
Charles, needless to say, is an idiot, and when Catherine tells him as much, he finally grows a backbone and insists that he’s King and will ask for her opinion when he desires it. Of course, it isn’t very Kingly of him not to realize that now is precisely when he needs his mother’s input since as we’ve just established, he’s a moron.
Holy Moly
The arrival of the Holy Roman Emperor – played with a world-weary cynicism by Rupert Everett – is very significant, since Charles de Guise is convinced he’ll back a plan to have Anjou slaughter Sister Edith and her followers. Anjou has gone from “deviant” to a local hero for his impulsive religious terror, and he has started a trend of Catholics drowning Protestants.
Instead, the Emperor tells Catherine about the plan. Since everyone wants to kill Edith for one reason or another, her demise is virtually inevitable, but it has to be done the right way, and making a martyr of her isn’t it. The Emperor is ready to retire, but he can’t quite yet since his son and successor, Phillip II of Spain, is a nutcase sadist, so he has become a dab hand at quiet scheming, which is right up Catherine’s street.
But it’s easier said than done to upend this plan and requires a lot of deft maneuvering from Catherine. Her first order of business is to see Ruggieri and tell him about the recurring dream she keeps having symbolizing the deaths of her children, but he reinterprets it to mean that maybe she just needs to kill one of her children so he doesn’t taint the rest, and it has to be Anjou since he’s the worst.
Catherine cooks up a scheme to have the Duke of Guise released from captivity and Anjou placed under house arrest at Charles’s orders, and she manipulates him into doing it by using Margot, whom he has a thing for. This is news to me, but it’s implied that Margot not only knows about this but has egged it on for years to control him. Okay, if you say so!
Elizabeth Is Saucy
The Serpent Queen | Image via STARZ
I said earlier that everyone wants Sister Edith dead, but I missed someone out. Minnie Driver’s Elizabeth I would instead rather use her to usurp the French crown with Louis de Bourbon, who has shown up to negotiate the trade deal, as a convenient avatar.
Louis is hilariously stupid, which Elizabeth picks up on immediately, so in the couple of scenes she has in “Judas” she manages to completely rattle and manipulate him. After laying out her plan in no uncertain terms after quizzing Louis about the strength of his faith, she later shows up in his chambers with a pact he would prefer to have his solicitors give a once-over before he commits to signing. She strips off and he signs it immediately.
Elizabeth I was pretty famously a virgin, but to be fair the real-life version didn’t look like Minnie Driver, so I’m not mad at this particular swerve.
Miracles Do Happen
The end of The Serpent Queen Season 2, Episode 4 sees the tables turning in Sister Edith’s favour once again. Aabis tries to poison her with a tincture provided to her by Angelica. Edith catches her in the act and forces her to “toast” first, but luckily the poison’s non-lethal. However, Edith, who also drinks from the cup, takes their mutual survival as a miracle, and Aabis is carried away to be baptized in the new religion.
Oh, and Phillip II gets kicked, possibly fatally, by a horse. Someone might have to answer for that.
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