Minnie Driver is a striking addition to Series 2 of The Serpent Queen but sadly not enough to save it from being cancelled
“One day you will understand why I have done the things I have”
It’s tempting to see The Serpent Queen as a victim of there being just too much content and too many ways to access that content in this bold new world of streaming – it having been cancelled a couple of months after the release of its second season. Available in the UK on MGM+ via Amazon Prime Video and playing on Starz in the US, creator Justin Haythe’s adaptation of Leonie Frieda’s book Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France has been a fiercely contemporary retelling of Catherine de’ Medici’s life as she rises to dominate the French court.
This second series picks up 10 years after the end of the first, Catherine having crowned her 11-year-old son Charles IX acting as regent after the death of her elder son Francis II. Charles is now an adult but still very much in the shadow of his manipulative mother who remains addicted to the power she holds as de facto ruler. Across these 8 episodes, that rule is severely challenged by the religious conflict in the nation, signified by the constant battle between the rival Guise and Bourbon houses, Catholic and Protestant respectively but both as hungry for power as Catherine.
It’s all very entertainingly done, with a suitably loose approach to actual historical events, allowing for Minnie Driver to play a wonderfully ghastly take on Elizabeth I (they never met in real life) and a fictional Protestant folk hero (ร la Jeanne d’Arc) Edith to rise to prominence. These provide strong throughlines across the internecine squabbling, although I did miss the playfulness of the first series’ framing of Catherine’s narrating of the story to her maid Rahima. She’s now risen to lady-in-waiting status in the show but relegated in status to just another character.
Samantha Morton clearly relishes every twist and turn of playing Catherine, whether travelling to Italy to secure funds, negotiating with frenemies Diane de Poitiers (a brief but welcome return for Ludivine Sagnier) and Jeanne d’Albret (Rosalie Craig), bargaining with the Holy Roman Emperor (Rupert Everett no less) or inducting her children into the harsh realities of political life. It all culminates beautifully and bloodily in the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre which is a fitting finale even if it would have been good to see the show continue.
