epiphany_maria (epiphany_maria) wrote,
epiphany_maria
epiphany_maria

  • Music:

The White Queen (2013) 1x01 Reviewed

BBC1’s event TV of the summer begins. It is 1464 and Elizabeth Woodville is a widow, her husband died fighting for the deposed King Henry VI. So she stands by the road to appeal to the new King, Edward IV, for the return of her confiscated lands. The young King likes what he sees and marries Elizabeth in secret to the delight of her witch mother Jacquetta and the horror of his House of York. The Woodville clan supported Henry VI but switch sides as Elizabeth’s star rises.

Elizabeth has inexplicably crimped hair, exposition is dropped and Edward’s cousin/mentor Warwick (James Frain) has a 1970s pimp hairdo and is an utter arse who yells a lot. Edward who looks like Justin Bieber brings Elizabeth to his court where Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of King Henry VII) lurks and introduces her to his brothers George and Richard (yes, that Richard). Elizabeth then faces down Edward’s mother and her coal scuttle style headdress who hates her on sight and snide remarks about Edward’s rumoured illegitimacy are exchanged.

This was okay, you know what will happen to these people but it is fun to watch. Medieval England looks very clean and the idea of marrying for love as Edward IV and Jacquetta did is anathema to most nobles. Of course Edward IV’s grandson Henry VIII would change England forever to marry for love. Must be something in the bloodline. The promo for 1x02 shows Warwick doing more screaming and Elizabeth plotting and I’ll be there

Best Lines:
“You may not fall in love with a York king unless there is some profit in it for you.”

“Sometimes woman, you even scare me.”

“I am not happy about this marriage.”
“That’s a shame. We’re all delighted.”

“She is a roadside strumpet.”

“Edward of York is not the King. He killed our father.”
“He is King now and we must show our loyalty to him.”

“That whore would get her hooks into you when she lured you into her hovel.”

“Baron Rivers, a hastily made up title to cover red faces when a high born Lancastrian lady bedded a grubby commoner as I recall.”
“He was a Squire and always twice the man you are Lord Warwick.”

“Do you want to be drowned in a ducking stool?”

“What were they?”
“Things that you will never know, children who will not be born, chances you will not take. They are lost to you.”

“He will not take her in a rosebush John.”
Tags: the white queen
Subscribe

Comments for this post were disabled by the author