\tSPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the first season of \u201cThe Decameron,\u201d now streaming on Netflix. \tWhen the Black Plague is no longer the most lethal threat in the land, that\u2019s when you know that things have gone off the rails. And that\u2019s exactly where Netflix\u2019s new series \u201cThe Decameron\u201d ends, with its privileged pandemic refugees struggling to survive a storm of egotism, greed and a touch of late-stage heroism. \tThe dark comedy from creator Kathleen Jordan is loosely inspired by the 14th century short-story collection by Giovanni Boccaccio, and follows an increasingly desperate group of wealthy Italian citizens who hole up in an isolated villa in Florence to escape the scourge of bubonic plague gripping Europe in the 1340s. In the finale, the group haphazardly take up arms against mercenaries hellbent on laying siege to their safe haven to force them out into the sickness-infested countryside. \t \tIn defense of their communal home, the group suffers a few losses. Mustering some eleventh-hour courage to defend his lover Stratilia (Leila Farzad) and her son, the once-offish Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin) is cut down after an impressive bit of sword play. In an attempt to help his friends escape the chaos, a grief-stricken Panfilo (Karan Gill) wields the body of his dead fianc\u00e9 Neifile (Lou Gala) like shield of pestilence to deter the intruders, only to be turned into a pin cushion of arrows. Elsewhere, a few of Sirisco\u2019s (Tony Hale) new peasant friends succumb to the violence, and the one-eyed leader of the mercenaries loses his good eye \u2014 and his life. \t\t\t \t\t\tPopular on Variety\t\t \t \t\t \t \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t \t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\tLeila Farzad as Stratilia, Douggie McMeekin as Tindaro, Zosia Mamet as Pampinea, Saoirse-Monica Jackson as Misia and Tony Hale as Sirisco. \t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Giulia Parmigiani\/Netflix \t\t \t \t\t\t \tBut they all pale in comparison to the most shocking death of the finale, which happens in a quieter scene in the bowels of the wine cellar. All season, Misia (\u201cDerry Girls\u201d star Saoirse-Monica Jackson), the devoted servant of Pampinea (Zosia Mamet, of \u201cGirls\u201d), has bent to the will of her mercilessly selfish boss, who came to the villa to marry its lord and live happily ever after \u2013\u2013 unaware he had already died of the plague. Desperate to maintain her status despite that hiccup, Pampinea has undermined the group at every turn in favor of her own interests, and was cast out in the penultimate episode only to bring the mercenaries to their front door in a misguided attempt to reclaim the villa. \t \tRecognizing her mistress will never change, Misia lures Pampinea to the cellar and convinces her to hide in an empty barrel until Misia comes back to get her when the fighting is over. But after Misia seals her in, she sets the barrel and the cellar on fire, killing her boss and severing the toxic ties of her servitude. \t\u201cThis was such an inflection point in the writers\u2019 room,\u201d Jordan tells Variety. \u201cWe called it \u2018barreling Pampinea.\u2019 We talked constantly about whether Misia could actually barrel her? We were still asking ourselves that question along the way, as we were shooting and editing scripts. \u2018Are we really going to barrel Pampinea? Have we earned it?\u2019 \t\u201cAnd I think we did because Misia can\u2019t be free until she is free of this woman, who is, like, a succubus.\u201d \tPampinea\u2019s fate was batted around in the writers\u2019 room so long that Mamet says she and Jackson didn\u2019t learn about it until midway through the production. \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t \t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Giulia Parmigiani\/Netflix \t\t \t \t\t\t \t\u201cWe talked to Kathleen about it, and we talked about it a lot with each other,\u201d Mamet says. \u201cBut what we inevitably came to was this idea that Misia realizes that there really isn\u2019t room for both of them to exist in the world in a healthy way. If they are in each other\u2019s proximity, they will never break out of this toxic mold. They are too cemented in that dynamic.\u201d \tBut with the toxicity between Misia and Pampinea, Mamet notes there was love there, too. \u201cWe talked a lot about their history, and we realized they\u2019ve probably been in each other\u2019s lives since they were young,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are each other\u2019s most consistent relationship. I don\u2019t think you spend that much time with someone without having a modicum of love for them.\u201d \tYet the question remains: Was it murder or mercy? Pampinea proves time and again that she was immovable even during a global pandemic, but did Misia need to burn her alive to rid herself of her mistress? \tAccording to Jackson, Misia is devastated by how much Pampinea has taken from her. She killed a potential heir to the villa to protect Pampinea\u2019s claim, and discarded her burgeoning romance with Filomena (Jessica Plummer) to remain faithful to her mistress. When she takes Pampinea down to the cellar, Jackson says Misia has already made up her mind. \t\u201cI\u2019ve been heartbroken many times in my life, for sure \u2014 but I think my biggest heartbreak has definitely been from friendships, not something romantic,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cThere are wounds we carry on with us, and while theirs is not a friendship per se, I could really feel that gaslighting between them.\u201d \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t \t \t \t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t \t\t\t\t\tKaran Gill as Panfilo, Saoirse-Monica Jackson as Misia, Douggie McMeekin as Tindaro and Tony Hale as Sirisco. \t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Giulia Parmigiani\/Netflix \t\t \t \t\t\t \tIt\u2019s also no coincidence where Misia chooses to, effectively, quit her job. When she and Pampinea first arrived at the villa, Misia smuggled her plague-infected girlfriend hidden in a barrel into this very wine cellar, only for her quickly to succumb to the sickness. One could read the fiery end for Pampinea as a cleansing moment for Misia, who sings a song with her boss as she entombs her, before quite literally setting fire to what ails her. \t \t\u201cI think there is some kind of closure,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cThat\u2019s a nice way of looking at it. Even her singing when she\u2019s walking up the stairs is nice, because she is normally singing for everybody else or Pampinea\u2019s benefit. But Pampinea isn\u2019t listening to that by the end. So as she sings for herself and the music plays over the fire, it was all a bit chilling!\u201d \tUltimately, Jordan, Mamet and Jackson all agree Misia\u2019s motives were not as cut and dry as either murder or mercy. Why can\u2019t it be all of the above? \t\u201cSaoirse said something that resonated with me, that this ending is probably nigh for Pampinea no matter what,\u201d Mamet says. \u201cSo she feels like the most compassionate thing for her to do is to kill Pampinea herself. So that it is done, in a truly dysfunctional way, from a place of love \u2014 as opposed to leaving her to the hands of someone else.\u201d \tBy the moment, the two women switch roles. Pampinea has been so coddled her whole life that she doesn\u2019t know how to function as an adult. \u201cShe is stuck in an arrested development,\u201d Mamet says. \u201cShe is very much a child, and I think that\u2019s where we leave her. I don\u2019t think she understands what is even happening. She thinks that Misia is doing what she always does. She is fixing a problem, and then she will be back with some snacks.\u201d \tConversely, Misia finds a youthful glow once she leaves Pampinea behind. \t\u201cI said when we were filming that she ages backwards through the show,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cTo leave her in that really youthful and hopeful, wistful and ethereal place, I think that is her true soul. It was a nice way to leave her.\u201d \tJordan says the guiding principle in the writers\u2019 room for whether a character lived or died was if they grew and adapted to their situation. Some valiantly fell on the sword of that growth for the greater good (i.e. Tindaro and Panfilo), while others like Pampinea paid the steeper price for not evolving as much. But Misia almost didn\u2019t escape the undertow of Pampinea\u2019s influence. \t\u201cThe Misia-Pampenia scene, there were about 17 different ways we entertained that scene going down,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cOne of them was where Misia dies too, because she wants to rid the world of Pampinea, and she will even sacrifice herself to do it. But I think through her love story with Filomenia, she earned survival \u2014 because she learned how to stand on her own two feet and be her own person. Plus, it is fun to think about her and Filomenia going and sharing a peasant life together as medieval lesbians.\u201d \tAudiences will have to speculate wildly on whether that actually happens, because the season ends with the survivors gathered in a hollow of ruins and weeds, entertaining each other with belly-achingly hilarious stories to pass the time and avoid thoughts of their grim outlook in the wilderness. Do they survive the plague, at least? Though \u201cThe Decameron\u201d is billed as a limited series, Jordan says she is open to exploring that question, or possibly jumping ahead in time \u2014 should Netflix want more of this medieval romp. \t \t\u201cThere is a world in which the survivors\u2019 story continues, and there is a world in which we jump to the 1500s, and we are talking about sex, shame and syphilis in France,\u201d Jordan says. \u201cThere is a world where this becomes an anthology to talk about all these things. But it is all up to the metrics, and the Powers That Be.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the first season of \u201cThe Decameron,\u201d now streaming on Netflix. When the Black Plague is no longer the most lethal threat in the land, that\u2019s when you know that things have gone off the rails. And that\u2019s exactly where Netflix\u2019s new series \u201cThe Decameron\u201d ends, with its privileged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-serie-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieetv.com\/ita\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}