meridian_rose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meridian_rose) wrote2015-11-16 08:23 pm
meridian_rose) wrote2015-11-16 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
Review: Da Vinci's Demons s3e02
Da Vinci's Demons s3e2: Abbadon
My rambling review/meta about the episode with some side conversations and a couple of pics and gifs. SPOILERS.
Abaddon; "appears in the Bible as both a place of destruction and as the name of an angel"…""Destroyer", the angel of the abyss"…" In the Hebrew Bible, abaddon is used with reference to a bottomless pit, often appearing alongside the place שאול (sheol), meaning the realm of the dead." (Abaddon)
I don't know if the title refers to Otranto, to the executions at the end of the episode, or to Leo, who is both angel (creator) and destroyer. Probably some combination of these.
I'll focus on the characters rather than working in a linear manner through the plot, starting with poor Leo.
Leo is still in Otranto, angsting over the destruction his designs have wrought on the city. He watches a woman die to underscore the personal cost and to remind us that he lost his mother last episode, albeit at a distance, where this is up close.
The survivors take shelter in a church. Zo befriends a girl named Malia and her brother, Adin. He speaks their language - though to avoid subtitling/Chillin having to learn lots of foreign dialogue they quickly switch back to English, which is standing in for the Italian dialect as spoken in Florence.
In fact the language issue is a more complex one than I realised, though it makes sense given that Italy does not truly exist as a whole yet, something the later-set The Borgias makes clear with the ongoing attempts to pacify/control the various city-states, in particular Naples. Naples is always a problem for Rome.
Anyway, that's nice character development for Zo and the way he talks to Adin makes it clear he has/had an older sibling. While Zo and the others barricade the church, Leo is having a moment.
Outside Leo's imagination was sparking, failing to ignite, and his distraction was about to get him killed. Inside the sanctuary he's fallen into a manic state, drawing on the walls as he discovers that his inventions haven't just been taken, but improved upon.
He realises the one who betrayed him is Al-Rahim/The Turk who started him on the mystical quest. Al-Rahim appears and Leo accuses him of stealing the ideas out of his head. He means this literally? Because he's never given Al-Rahim any physical copies of designs or access to them.
Al-Rahim gives some mystical bs about a new world that sounds much like the Biblical Flood rationalisation of "kill everyone and start over". Leo wants no part of such genocide, not even to create a new world based on his ideals. He screams at Al-Rahim to get out of his head.
source
Piero, Leo's father, enters and asks who Leo is talking to. Because Al-Rahim is not there. Never was.
If I hadn’t seen Al-Rahim interact with Lucrezia last season without Leo present I'd think he was entirely a figment of Leo's imagination. Leo's visions/hallucinations – and from the summaries there's more to come in episodes 3 and 4 – are regular occurrences, whether it's smoking pipes with Al-Rahim in the pilot episode, losing time when he meets Vlad in season one, or becoming the Dreamer in season two. It's the reason I say you can never put much stock in what Leo thinks has happened. If you don't like something, mentally (or write fanfic) fix it, with a "it was one of Leo's visions" handwave.
Seriously, Leo says something like "I see the world as it truly is" when arrested in season one, but the truth is more complex than that. As a genius he does see the world differently to others (which explains his obsession with detail over wider concerns like danger or the need to sleep), and his constant desire to improve things suggest to me that he sees the possibilities of the world rather than just the reality. His visions are part of this, his imaginings guiding him to sketch inventions that will not become reality for centuries
Piero basically tells Leo not to waste time studying the inventions and wallowing in self-pity when there are people out there dead and dying. The survivors have a plan; there's an underground tunnel leading outside the city, if they can just bypass the soldiers between the church and the tunnel entrance.
There's a nice moment between Piero and Leo as they develop an escape plan and an exasperated Leo calls him "father", something he rarely does. It mirrors Riario's "father" to Sixtus last episode, for they're both bastards seeking praise from their distant fathers. Leo channels Robin Hood and shoots an arrow to the building they need to get to, attaching a wire.
(Riley as Robin Hood in the Dr Who episode "Robot of Sherwood", aka what Tom Riley did on a previous DvD hiatus. One day I'll do the whole DVD/Dr Who connections post but today is not that day)
Adin bravely slides across the wire to add a second string, and the survivors begin to travel across. The soldiers spot them, however, and begin to batter at the church doors.
Piero confronts them, denouncing their defiling of a holy sanctuary, which buys Leo and Zo enough time to get away – barely. Leo is distraught at Piero's capture, and he wants to go back for him. Zo tries to dissuade him but Leo reminds him that he lost one father already – in the season two finale, Andrea, more of a father figure to him than Piero had ever been, was killed in a scuffle with Carlos. As soon as they reach the end of the tunnel, Leo goes back for Piero, and while Malia begs Zo to stay with her, Zo goes after him. Remember how Tom and Gregg talk about their interpretation is that Zo's in love with Leo and that's why he stays with him? Yes.
The Turks are beheading anyone who doesn't convert to Islam. I have a feeling season one Riario would glibly swear allegiance just to survive and turn on his captors later, secure in his faith that God would forgive him, but religious beliefs for most are so ingrained that many will rather die than swear against their Christ. Piero is next up, and in Leo's sight, though too far away for rescue, when Al-Rahim shows up and speaks to Piero. He wants Piero and Leo to join him on his crusade but Piero wants none of it. He makes a speech lauding his son before he's executed.
Again we have the irony of fatherly devotion coming too late (Sixtus post Riario's suicide attempt and brainwashing, Piero's wholeheartedly endorsement of and pride in Leo which is his final act.)
Despite trying to avoid spoilers, I knew Piero was going to die, but I didn't know exactly how. It was brief, unambiguous, shocking. Poor Leo saw the whole thing. He's lost every parent he's ever known now. It's probably fortunate Zo is coming for him, because he's going to be devastated. How much more can he bear?
It also brings to mind Zoe's comment in Joss Whedon's Serenity: "Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed." People drop like flies around Leo but he comes out of it relatively unscathed.
Also on that note I'll mention Make Me Feel So Alive a fanfic that posits Leo and Riario as immortal, a fact that over the centuries brings them together because each is "The only one who will not age and whither away like the others you love will."
It makes sense because to me, post their venture in the Vault, where Riario and Leo, not Leo and Ima, are The Sun and The Moon, immortality is a real possibility. They can still be hurt, clearly, but Leo survived a terrible stab wound in the season 2 finale that seems to have healed up quickly, while Riario survived a compound fracture and a rather committed suicide attempt that had him slit both his wrists and attempt to drown.
(In Highlander lore, if Riario did die in the river, he's now fully immortal, but that's by the by.)
In fact, again, at any point at which Leo has come close to death, anything afterwards could be his imagination, including dreams within dreams.
So that's Leo's story. Let's talk about Vanessa and Nico.
Season one Vanessa was my favourite female character but season 2 Vanessa was incredibly naive to think the Medici family would let her have her own way once they knew she was carrying an heir. She's not a noblewoman, and even if she were, she was nothing but a foetus carrier to them. Her hopes for peace would have been terminating the pregnancy, keeping her mouth shut about the father, or leaving Florence to birth and raise the child in secret. Once she was within the Medici's grasp her freedom was gone.
I've seen enough of The Tudors to know that Nico is right about what happens to heirs – they get shipped off to be raised with relatives for political and practical reasons, such as safety and cultural connections with other countries/city-states (having a son raised in Wales was meant to cement relations with England, for example). And even a noblewoman would have not been able to protest the removal of her child; for Vanessa, an unmarried peasant, she would have little value once the child was born. So Nico was protecting her and her son when he forged the papers and her signature declaring Giuliano to be the father of her son.
Now, with Clarice on the trail of Carlos, Vanessa is regent of Florence. It's a precarious position for anyone, and it's good she has Nico at her side.
Vanessa's ultimate triumph over the Council is a great moment. In The Borgias, Lucrezia is left in charge of the Papal Throne briefly and she too smacks down a roomful of powerful men, before she and two other women visit all the brothels, find all the corrupt cardinals' secrets, and blackmail them into giving funds back the poor where they belong. Vanessa's bartending years and the secrets she'd learnt play a similar role. These men think they are above the laws and morals they claim to uphold, but cower when their secrets are exposed. Perhaps this is the fear of women in power: they know your secrets and they are not afraid to use them against you.
(full size @ tumblr)
Ultimately Vanessa makes her case for protecting Florence rather than sending troops and supplies to Rome. I'm sure Nico will also continue to provide useful services in future episodes, increasingly seen as the Machiavelli we know him to become.
Moving on to Riario. He's concerned about Clarice Orsini and is told not to worry, she will be taken care of. Papal lapdog or servant of the Enemies of Man, brainwashed or not, Riario again shows that he's always striving to know more than is necessary and to work to his own agenda.
In fact Clarice meets up with Lucrezia and thanks her for saving her children's lives back in season one, when Lucrezia intercepted Riario long enough for Clarice to escape with her daughters. Later, Clarice, stalked by the Enemies of Man, turns on him, and demands he tell her of Carlos's whereabouts. Season two Clarice turned badass and she's following through on it here.
Also the "down the rabbit hole" line is out of place, even for Da Vinci's Demons. Pretty sure it didn't come about until "Alice in Wonderland". (Didn't stop me using it in a fic but to be fair it was a modern au so…)
Back to Riario and the Pope. Sixtus seems to be spending a lot of time in the prison cell for some reason? Maybe studying his brother's plans? It's finally made clear to me that he's not trapped down there when he and Riario go to greet Laura Cereta, who I knew nothing about, but googling to check on who she is, I find she is a female humanist and feminist writer. Her "brother" was the man killed last week and hung up for Riario to find, but she scoffs that he was no more her brother than Sixtus is Riario's uncle. The man was her husband and she doesn't seem to mourn him.
Laura is taken with the idea of a crusade that Riario seems to have convinced Sixtus into, and in assisting with it, but not with Sixtus himself. She's got his number as a corrupt leader.
Riario tries to pray, slamming his hand down in frustration.
source
Again, it's not clear if he's trying pray without faith, or if his doubts mean he's regaining his faith – which might break the hold the Enemies of Man have over him. Laura joins him which seems awkward, but as Riario watches her pray, he is moved to ask her a question about doubt which impresses her. Laura is far more taken with Riario than Sixtus, seeing him (ironically at this given moment) as truly pious. With the notion of him leading the crusade raised, Riario begins to recite prayers in Latin once more.
source (Simone Lahbib's FB, Laura's not (yet?) that popular and there aren't any major screencapping sites featuring s3 yet.)
Also, is that potential Laura/Riario I see hinted at? Because I'm Leario all the way but I can be persuaded to multiship. I like Laura already and I can get behind some temporary/canonical Laura/Riario given it will probably help free him from the clutches of the Enemies of Man and soothe his grief over Zita, leaving him more ready for other romance.
It's probably good I'm spacing the episodes out. There's a lot to take in and these reviews are fairly time consuming especially with finding gifs/making pics and finally reblogging/queuing all the relevant tumblr posts from each episode as I watch it!
My rambling review/meta about the episode with some side conversations and a couple of pics and gifs. SPOILERS.
Abaddon; "appears in the Bible as both a place of destruction and as the name of an angel"…""Destroyer", the angel of the abyss"…" In the Hebrew Bible, abaddon is used with reference to a bottomless pit, often appearing alongside the place שאול (sheol), meaning the realm of the dead." (Abaddon)
I don't know if the title refers to Otranto, to the executions at the end of the episode, or to Leo, who is both angel (creator) and destroyer. Probably some combination of these.
I'll focus on the characters rather than working in a linear manner through the plot, starting with poor Leo.
Leo is still in Otranto, angsting over the destruction his designs have wrought on the city. He watches a woman die to underscore the personal cost and to remind us that he lost his mother last episode, albeit at a distance, where this is up close.
The survivors take shelter in a church. Zo befriends a girl named Malia and her brother, Adin. He speaks their language - though to avoid subtitling/Chillin having to learn lots of foreign dialogue they quickly switch back to English, which is standing in for the Italian dialect as spoken in Florence.
In fact the language issue is a more complex one than I realised, though it makes sense given that Italy does not truly exist as a whole yet, something the later-set The Borgias makes clear with the ongoing attempts to pacify/control the various city-states, in particular Naples. Naples is always a problem for Rome.
Anyway, that's nice character development for Zo and the way he talks to Adin makes it clear he has/had an older sibling. While Zo and the others barricade the church, Leo is having a moment.
Outside Leo's imagination was sparking, failing to ignite, and his distraction was about to get him killed. Inside the sanctuary he's fallen into a manic state, drawing on the walls as he discovers that his inventions haven't just been taken, but improved upon.
He realises the one who betrayed him is Al-Rahim/The Turk who started him on the mystical quest. Al-Rahim appears and Leo accuses him of stealing the ideas out of his head. He means this literally? Because he's never given Al-Rahim any physical copies of designs or access to them.
Al-Rahim gives some mystical bs about a new world that sounds much like the Biblical Flood rationalisation of "kill everyone and start over". Leo wants no part of such genocide, not even to create a new world based on his ideals. He screams at Al-Rahim to get out of his head.
sourcePiero, Leo's father, enters and asks who Leo is talking to. Because Al-Rahim is not there. Never was.
If I hadn’t seen Al-Rahim interact with Lucrezia last season without Leo present I'd think he was entirely a figment of Leo's imagination. Leo's visions/hallucinations – and from the summaries there's more to come in episodes 3 and 4 – are regular occurrences, whether it's smoking pipes with Al-Rahim in the pilot episode, losing time when he meets Vlad in season one, or becoming the Dreamer in season two. It's the reason I say you can never put much stock in what Leo thinks has happened. If you don't like something, mentally (or write fanfic) fix it, with a "it was one of Leo's visions" handwave.
Seriously, Leo says something like "I see the world as it truly is" when arrested in season one, but the truth is more complex than that. As a genius he does see the world differently to others (which explains his obsession with detail over wider concerns like danger or the need to sleep), and his constant desire to improve things suggest to me that he sees the possibilities of the world rather than just the reality. His visions are part of this, his imaginings guiding him to sketch inventions that will not become reality for centuries
Piero basically tells Leo not to waste time studying the inventions and wallowing in self-pity when there are people out there dead and dying. The survivors have a plan; there's an underground tunnel leading outside the city, if they can just bypass the soldiers between the church and the tunnel entrance.
There's a nice moment between Piero and Leo as they develop an escape plan and an exasperated Leo calls him "father", something he rarely does. It mirrors Riario's "father" to Sixtus last episode, for they're both bastards seeking praise from their distant fathers. Leo channels Robin Hood and shoots an arrow to the building they need to get to, attaching a wire.
(Riley as Robin Hood in the Dr Who episode "Robot of Sherwood", aka what Tom Riley did on a previous DvD hiatus. One day I'll do the whole DVD/Dr Who connections post but today is not that day)
Adin bravely slides across the wire to add a second string, and the survivors begin to travel across. The soldiers spot them, however, and begin to batter at the church doors.
Piero confronts them, denouncing their defiling of a holy sanctuary, which buys Leo and Zo enough time to get away – barely. Leo is distraught at Piero's capture, and he wants to go back for him. Zo tries to dissuade him but Leo reminds him that he lost one father already – in the season two finale, Andrea, more of a father figure to him than Piero had ever been, was killed in a scuffle with Carlos. As soon as they reach the end of the tunnel, Leo goes back for Piero, and while Malia begs Zo to stay with her, Zo goes after him. Remember how Tom and Gregg talk about their interpretation is that Zo's in love with Leo and that's why he stays with him? Yes.
The Turks are beheading anyone who doesn't convert to Islam. I have a feeling season one Riario would glibly swear allegiance just to survive and turn on his captors later, secure in his faith that God would forgive him, but religious beliefs for most are so ingrained that many will rather die than swear against their Christ. Piero is next up, and in Leo's sight, though too far away for rescue, when Al-Rahim shows up and speaks to Piero. He wants Piero and Leo to join him on his crusade but Piero wants none of it. He makes a speech lauding his son before he's executed.
Again we have the irony of fatherly devotion coming too late (Sixtus post Riario's suicide attempt and brainwashing, Piero's wholeheartedly endorsement of and pride in Leo which is his final act.)
Despite trying to avoid spoilers, I knew Piero was going to die, but I didn't know exactly how. It was brief, unambiguous, shocking. Poor Leo saw the whole thing. He's lost every parent he's ever known now. It's probably fortunate Zo is coming for him, because he's going to be devastated. How much more can he bear?
It also brings to mind Zoe's comment in Joss Whedon's Serenity: "Do you know what the definition of a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed." People drop like flies around Leo but he comes out of it relatively unscathed.
Also on that note I'll mention Make Me Feel So Alive a fanfic that posits Leo and Riario as immortal, a fact that over the centuries brings them together because each is "The only one who will not age and whither away like the others you love will."
It makes sense because to me, post their venture in the Vault, where Riario and Leo, not Leo and Ima, are The Sun and The Moon, immortality is a real possibility. They can still be hurt, clearly, but Leo survived a terrible stab wound in the season 2 finale that seems to have healed up quickly, while Riario survived a compound fracture and a rather committed suicide attempt that had him slit both his wrists and attempt to drown.
(In Highlander lore, if Riario did die in the river, he's now fully immortal, but that's by the by.)
In fact, again, at any point at which Leo has come close to death, anything afterwards could be his imagination, including dreams within dreams.
So that's Leo's story. Let's talk about Vanessa and Nico.
Season one Vanessa was my favourite female character but season 2 Vanessa was incredibly naive to think the Medici family would let her have her own way once they knew she was carrying an heir. She's not a noblewoman, and even if she were, she was nothing but a foetus carrier to them. Her hopes for peace would have been terminating the pregnancy, keeping her mouth shut about the father, or leaving Florence to birth and raise the child in secret. Once she was within the Medici's grasp her freedom was gone.
I've seen enough of The Tudors to know that Nico is right about what happens to heirs – they get shipped off to be raised with relatives for political and practical reasons, such as safety and cultural connections with other countries/city-states (having a son raised in Wales was meant to cement relations with England, for example). And even a noblewoman would have not been able to protest the removal of her child; for Vanessa, an unmarried peasant, she would have little value once the child was born. So Nico was protecting her and her son when he forged the papers and her signature declaring Giuliano to be the father of her son.
Now, with Clarice on the trail of Carlos, Vanessa is regent of Florence. It's a precarious position for anyone, and it's good she has Nico at her side.
Vanessa's ultimate triumph over the Council is a great moment. In The Borgias, Lucrezia is left in charge of the Papal Throne briefly and she too smacks down a roomful of powerful men, before she and two other women visit all the brothels, find all the corrupt cardinals' secrets, and blackmail them into giving funds back the poor where they belong. Vanessa's bartending years and the secrets she'd learnt play a similar role. These men think they are above the laws and morals they claim to uphold, but cower when their secrets are exposed. Perhaps this is the fear of women in power: they know your secrets and they are not afraid to use them against you.
(full size @ tumblr)Ultimately Vanessa makes her case for protecting Florence rather than sending troops and supplies to Rome. I'm sure Nico will also continue to provide useful services in future episodes, increasingly seen as the Machiavelli we know him to become.
Moving on to Riario. He's concerned about Clarice Orsini and is told not to worry, she will be taken care of. Papal lapdog or servant of the Enemies of Man, brainwashed or not, Riario again shows that he's always striving to know more than is necessary and to work to his own agenda.
In fact Clarice meets up with Lucrezia and thanks her for saving her children's lives back in season one, when Lucrezia intercepted Riario long enough for Clarice to escape with her daughters. Later, Clarice, stalked by the Enemies of Man, turns on him, and demands he tell her of Carlos's whereabouts. Season two Clarice turned badass and she's following through on it here.
Also the "down the rabbit hole" line is out of place, even for Da Vinci's Demons. Pretty sure it didn't come about until "Alice in Wonderland". (
Back to Riario and the Pope. Sixtus seems to be spending a lot of time in the prison cell for some reason? Maybe studying his brother's plans? It's finally made clear to me that he's not trapped down there when he and Riario go to greet Laura Cereta, who I knew nothing about, but googling to check on who she is, I find she is a female humanist and feminist writer. Her "brother" was the man killed last week and hung up for Riario to find, but she scoffs that he was no more her brother than Sixtus is Riario's uncle. The man was her husband and she doesn't seem to mourn him.
Laura is taken with the idea of a crusade that Riario seems to have convinced Sixtus into, and in assisting with it, but not with Sixtus himself. She's got his number as a corrupt leader.
Riario tries to pray, slamming his hand down in frustration.
sourceAgain, it's not clear if he's trying pray without faith, or if his doubts mean he's regaining his faith – which might break the hold the Enemies of Man have over him. Laura joins him which seems awkward, but as Riario watches her pray, he is moved to ask her a question about doubt which impresses her. Laura is far more taken with Riario than Sixtus, seeing him (ironically at this given moment) as truly pious. With the notion of him leading the crusade raised, Riario begins to recite prayers in Latin once more.
source (Simone Lahbib's FB, Laura's not (yet?) that popular and there aren't any major screencapping sites featuring s3 yet.)Also, is that potential Laura/Riario I see hinted at? Because I'm Leario all the way but I can be persuaded to multiship. I like Laura already and I can get behind some temporary/canonical Laura/Riario given it will probably help free him from the clutches of the Enemies of Man and soothe his grief over Zita, leaving him more ready for other romance.
It's probably good I'm spacing the episodes out. There's a lot to take in and these reviews are fairly time consuming especially with finding gifs/making pics and finally reblogging/queuing all the relevant tumblr posts from each episode as I watch it!
no subject
I don't want to say anything else yet, but I love your analyses of the eps! It's exciting to find someone else who thinks about these things too! :D
And thanks to your link on Tumblr and here, I got to read that immortal fic! Thank you! It was short and sweet and opened up an entirely different world I never considered. I love when fic does that!
no subject
I'm hoping kissthemgoodbye will put s3 caps eventually as that's one of my favourite for DvD screencaps.
Glad you enjoyed the fic :) I thought it matched your head canon in fic, their reticence to label it love, despite the complete devotion they share :)