The last episode of the first season starts out with Henry hunched over a servant and making loud groaning noises. It is a common theme in the show that the King has a couple of servants standing around at all times, even while he is in the mist of very loud sexual activities. I am guessing that Henry is masturbating to stay true to his one love, Anne. I am a bit baffled as to why he needs a manservant close to hand to get the job done.
This season has really been about Cardinal Wolsey and his fall from power. His death scene was powerful and Sam Neall was brilliant as asked for forgiveness, knowing he wouldn’t getting it. He did get to deliver Wolsey’s most famous line as he was dragged off by his enemies-“If I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”
It is easy to image a whole different world history if Wolsey had truly been a villain and just had Anne Boleyn killed-the time of the Sweating Sickness would have been about perfect. Wolsey was a man that liked to make money and build things-Hampton Court is still a big tourist draw today-he was just a few hundred years ahead of his time.
The fact that ‘good’ man who takes his place thinks it is a good idea to burn heretics showed that Wolsey was not such a bad sort after all.
When I first started watching the Tudors I thought it might follow the usual pattern of Henry VIII stories and count his wives as chapters in the book. But the opening of the show says You think you know the story, but you only know how it ends. So now I am thinking that it may not be a show that covers all of Henry’s live and wives. It may just be the tale of Anne Boleyn and end when she does. We will have to see.
The finial scene where Anne pushes the King away and that look on his face as he covers his smoothly shaven body-well, that was not a look of love, was it?
On a more bloggy note.
My link on Showtime has redirected a lot of people to my humble little blog. But has netted me only a couple of comments. Of course, I am not the comment hound I could be. You need to give comments to get them in the blogsphere after all. Still, it is nice to know someone is reading.
