User Reviews

Why is it that if some bigwig was sent to the Ottoman Empire, said bigwig must fit into THEIR criteria, but when it's the other way around, the host is supposed to fit into THEIR criteria. See the problem...?

There was nothing insulting. There was supposed to be, but then I wondered: Would THEY dance around for someone coming to them...? No.

So no dancing on anyone's part is an insult? Typical view. I had bully childhood friends that were like this. At their house, we did things their way. At my house, we had to do things their way. Guess what? It's a deal breaker.

Anyway, about the show: I full expected a Devil's Lunch to take place AS lunch. That would have been hilarious!!

I love how this show is incredibly silly but quite serious at times. Normally I dislike rewriting history (to appease color, yet cities are still being looted so it's for naught), but this show manages to make the series very Stage Acting in a play. It WORKS for this show.

Anyway, going to ask for some Devil's Lunch for Hanukkah this year. Lol

This is an entertaining episode, I think you'll love it if you love the show.

I absolutely loved the first season. Writing, acting, combination of ridiculous humor, reasonable drama with high production. Amazing.

But this has to be one of the worst episodes of tv television I have seen in a context of a good show. Everything is fake, all drama completely made up. Previously, within the over the top theme of the show, all characters choices are understandable and make sense. Yet in this episode Catherine, who we were being convinced that is, albeit young and naive, very smart and intelligent character, turns into complete moron.

She is finally empress, but keeps literally all opposition in the court, let's other insult her and behaves like moron, just for cheap jokes and fake drama. Everyone watching this understands, that those characters only exist in the show, because writers needed them to create fake drama in the court. Any reasonable character in her position would get rid of everyone, if not kill them, exile them or move them out of court and get on with it.

The jokes are absolutely unbearable and for some reason Elle Fanning acting as empress is absolutely awful, overplaying and bad. I dont understand what she was going for here, except trying to make the character completely annoying. She was mostly great in first season.

I looked up writers and Tami Sagher was a writer on this episode. I didn't see her write any other episode, so I will put full blame on her. I am sorry, but this is realy awful writing. I understand it has a lot to do with the fact that the whole narrative is in shambles, since in reality the emperor was killed one month after being in jail after the coup, so this is in general complete nonsense story as Catherine did not keep him around and most likely never would. Again completely made up narrative to keep a character, because it's a great character, but makes the show narrative completely unbelievable. The suspense of disbelief is completely broken here as you can see how literaly all important choices by main character were made only so that writers can use existing characters for more drama instead of getting rid of old ones as that's where story would naturally progress and bring in new characters instead.

The winning combination is Catherine and Peter interactions. If you don't have exciting narrative after the coup, then just make all the season work towards the coup or after that own it and go with believable storyline.

Still, given the difficult situation, this writing is absolutely awful. I am going to continue only because I can see other episodes have regular writers, but this is actually painful to watch and I am going to continue only because I like first season so much and hope this one gets better. And Nicholas Hoult is amazing in the show. I bet this episode is where most people drop off.