By Michelle Lerner
Watching THE TUDORS is like watching a chess game where the play moves very swiftly at some points then very slowly at others. As a spectator, you can never completely get in sync with the players' rhythms. Characters are just as hard to read -- with hidden motives and murky alliances, which are only kind of explained, and never clearly revealed. Some of the fun of the show is keeping up with it; trying to figure out why the pieces are moving the way in which they are. And, at least it doesn’t insult the viewers’ intelligence.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ Henry VIII is not just the king every other player is reaching for, but also the chess master of this game. He has the gimlet eyes of a particularly venomous snake, and is just as slippery. Henry, portrayed in painting and literature as more of a lusty, ruddy big fellow than Meyers’ slithery skinny figure, holds his court hostage to his whims. He is the grand manipulator, and it is the guessing of his every unexpressed wish that keeps the players moving on the board. The vague Duke of Norfolk (Henry Czerny), puppyish Duke of Suffolk (Henry Cavill) and scheming Sir Thomas Boleyn (Nick Dunning), having finally engineered the downfall of the impenetrable Cardinal Wolsey (a great Sam Neill), seemed to have the edge by the end of tonight’s episode. But the rules of Henry’s game are very changeable, and since only he knows them, it is likely those on top will not hold their spots -- or their heads -- for long.
The central drama involves the king’s absolute need for a divorce from his royally born Spanish wife, Queen Catharine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), so he can marry Anne Boleyn, (Natalie Dormer, who looks like the cat that got the cream.) Henry is willing to throw all politics out the window in order to make his divorce happen. He will do anything for Anne, including, at this point in the story, threatening a cardinal that he will break with the Pope and the Catholic Church. But we all know (and history tells us), because of the ever-changing rules of the game, even Anne can’t stay on top forever.
An issue with the chessboard approach to storytelling is that we, the viewers, have no eyes with which to watch events
unfold. There is no character that acts as our guide, as say, Vorenus and Titus Pullo do in ROME. There is so much intrigue at Henry’s court, that it takes the whole of each episode to get through it all -- without the benefit of much explanation. There are so many scenes of so many people plotting, we don’t know who to root for or who to trust. The scenes that are meant to be emotional feel very forced, since we don’t really get to know anybody very well. In this episode, we are supposed to mourn the death of the king’s sister, Margaret. But I didn’t. I just wanted to get back to court, so I could figure out what was going on.
Even Anne’s devotion to the king seems to be a scheme, part of a rather unsavory plot hatched by her father. In this episode, her attempt to get him to read some heretical books feels obvious. When he agrees to it, perhaps out of vanity, I wanted to smack myself on the forehead. But, like the show and all its vagaries, I’m not sure why. I just want to know, once and for all, does she really love him, or is she just using him? It doesn’t even have to be that clear-cut, but give me something!
THE TUDORS is a beautiful show. Beautifully lit, beautifully acted, beautifully dressed and beautifully written. I just wish it was less like chess, and more like life.