I Recommend The Tudors

I think I may have a different sensibility than a lot of other people. I was going to write a review of The Tudors on Netflix about how the writing, acting, and directing are made up of equal parts awesome and win. Then I read some other reviews and had to take a step back to reflect. I’m really surprised by the number of people who were shocked by the show. The show is grotesque – it’s about Henry VIII and his court – but it’s not gratuitous. What do people think was going on in 16th century Europe? The show is aimed at a very specific niche audience – history geeks – so there aren’t a lot of pulled punches. Everyone watching knows things don’t end well for Anne Boleyn. The only really big artistic license that’s taken is that everyone has good skin and good teeth. What people in the other reviews have a problem with, both on Netflix and IMDB, are the execution and torture scenes. It’s not Saw or Hostel, but the violence is sold by the actors. I think they’re funny because they’re so absurd. It’s ridiculous to me that there were guys on the king’s staff whose only job was to torture confessions out of people, and it seems like it was a regular, blue collar, 9 to 5 kind of thing. I also found it ridiculous that there wasn’t any kind of progression in the torture, no starting with a rap on the knuckles. It was straight to grievous bodily harm. One scene that most people have a problem with, and illustrates the cut to the chase mentality, was when the King needed “evidence” that Queen Anne had been unfaithful to him. They show up at a gay court musician’s house, wrap a rope tied to a stick with a knot around his head with the knot over his eyeball, and ask him if he’s having an affair with the Queen. When he responds “What?” the torture dude twists the stick, tightening the rope. There’s a squishing sound and the interrogator is sprayed with a little bit of blood. There was no “Say ‘What’ one more gottdam time!” just straight to maiming. This wasn’t the first guy to get brutalized. It was in the penultimate episode of season 2. We all knew where this was going, and it wasn’t graphic – other than the screams of agony. I guess not everyone has the ability to remember that it’s a television show, no actors were harmed during its filming, all these characters have been dead for 500 years, the Renaissance wasn’t all art and philosophy, and Anne Boleyn was a manipulative bitch and had it coming.