So… did anyone watch?
I liked this episode better, the french/english rivalry was done well IMHO. I liked JRM as Henry a bit more (although he is glaringly small), you can see him becoming a monster in the future but still very human. The singer who impressed the king, is that person of historical relevance or just a fictional character (can’t remember his name…sorry!)?
It bothers me that they picked JRM to play Henry at this point in his life. He was married to Catherine for 24 years when he divorced her for Anne. The actress who plays Catherine looks vaguely the right age, but JRM looks like 30 at the most (on checking IMDB, yes, he’s 30), when he’s supposed to be in his 40s and starting to pork out. I know they’re going for rock star dead sexy rather than historically realistic, but the whole thing doesn’t work as well when it seems like his marriage to Catherine was a short-term political marriage rather than a decades-long marriage.
This is what JRM said about his casting over realism, on imdb.com
Sad but true, though I don’t think Henry VIII is a hero so much as a protagonist. Casting John Goodman rather than JRM would have put all those women dropping their drawers in a different light though, eh?
That said, it’s a pretty good soap opera, better than The L-Word, not as good as Dexter.
My main beef with the series is that H8 looks so young. But I’ll keep watching, for as said before, it doesn’t cost me anything and the costumes are good.
I do like the characters of More and Wolsey, as they have been portrayed. I’d wondered if they would show Wolsey handing over Hampton Court to the king. And that smarmy look on Wolsey’s face as he decided to take Henry’s hint was perfect.
I thought I heard the king address the singer by the name Tallis, from which I concluded he was meant to be Thomas Tallis, a 16th century English composer at the courts of Henry VIII and his children. There’s a modern singing group called IIRC The Tallis Singers who record the music of the period.
I liked the scenery at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Henry and Francis didn’t really get into a wrestling match, did they? The part where they both refused to take precedence when entering is true, if I remember correctly.
It looks like they’re going to portray Anne as entering the game willingly, and without a chip on her shoulder about Henry Percy.
I really like Jeremy Northam as Thomas More.
Most accounts I’ve read do include the wrestling match.