There are three reasons that
Shardlake, a four-episode tv series on Hulu, gives me bad vibes.
1. It is set during the reign of Henry VIII. Maybe in British schools you get lectured on this every year, but all I know about Henry VIII is that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, married a lot -- I'm related to Ann Bolyn -- and was played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, William Cecil, and William Paulet straight.
2. Do you know what a "shard" is in America?
3. It stars Sean Bean, who I thought was Mr. Bean, the annoying Borat-like character. Actually Rowan Atkinson plays Mr. Bean. Sean Bean played Boromir in
The Lord of the Rings and Ned Stark in
Game of Thrones, and he plays a minor character, Thomas Cromwell. Might as well give it a try.
Prologue: Crows cawing at a gloomy looking monastery. Sinister looking guy goes down the stairs, crosses the courtyard, unlocks a door, and heads down to the basement -- where a knight slices off his head!
Scene 1: Hunky guy with a upper-body limb difference washes, shows a little chest, gets dressed. He tells an off-camera Matthew, no doubt his boyfriend, that he's "ready for whatever the day brings."
No boyfriend: he's Matthew Shardlake, talking to himself.
Shardlake is played by Arthur Hughes, left, who is limb-different in real life. He has appeared in a lot of Doctor Who movies, starred in the soap The Archers, and played Richard III.
Meanwhile, a young guy gallops across the countryside for five minutes. You assume that he's going to be a main character, but he delivers a letter and vanishes from the story.
It's for Lord Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded. Bad news: "My representative! My voice! This cannot go unpunished!" They must have murdered his representative in the monastery.
Scene 2: Shardlake snarls through town. People jump out of his way and cross themselves in fear. He stops to watch a magical parrot say "God save King Harry," but condemns it as a trick. Harry is Henry VIII.
A guy tries to pick him up. After substantial flirtation, he admits that he's actually summoning him to see Lord Cromwell.
He
seems to like-like Shardlake. Maybe a gay-subtext is brewing.
He's Jack Barak, played by Anthony Boyle, left, the one with the bulge.
There's been a murder, "a friend of yours. Poor Lord Singleton." Robin Singleton, fictional, sent by Lord Cromwell to investigate the Monastery of St. Donatus, also fictional.
Scene 3: Their meeting. Lord Cromwell is in a mood. Back story: Ann Bolyn was executed a few months ago. This is the fall of 1536. He shows Shardlake two skulls of Saint Barbara confiscated from monasteries to demonstrate how monks lie about everything, and has him read the letter revealing the murder.
His assignment: They're going to start closing monasteries, confiscating their wealth, and passing it out to the nobility. But you can only close them if you can prove that the monks are "papists, thieves, or sodomites." Aren't monks all Roman Catholics, so papists by definition? That's what Robin Singleton was researching. So Shardlake must discover who killed him, hopefully a monk, and get on with the investigation of monastic evil.
Jack is assigned to accompany Shardlake. Being a misanthrope, he doesn't want any traveling companions, but it's an order from Lord Cromwell. Maybe they'll fall in love.
Scene 6: While snarling through town, Shardlake encounters a tough, who tells him to go into that house and up the stairs, then disappears from the story.
Grr.
He meets with Lord Norfolk, Thomas Howard, the uncle of Ann Bolyn. He's my great-great-great, etc. grandfather!
An opponent of Lord Cromwell, Norfolk wants to know why Shardlake was cozying up to him. "I'm to investigate a murder at St. Donatus, and then close the monastery so Lord Cromwell can confiscate its wealth." Norfolk disapproves: "It is theft in the name of God."
Norfolk is played by Peter Firth, left, who showed us his dick in Equus, but is now 70 and a bit crotchety.
More crotchety guys and dicks after the break
