TV Review: The Tudors: Season 4, Ep.10: Death of a Monarchy

The Tudors season 4, episode 10 – entitled Death of a Monarchy – has aired. This episode is also the series finale. The king commissions a painting of himself, like his father before me. Unfortunately, he is painted exactly as he is at that moment in time: a lunger and old. The two most memorable moments in the episode were the dead wife flashes and the king (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)’s dream sequences. The most notable of the king’s dead wives show up and lay diatribes at his feet – both light and harsh – about his conduct with his children and them. The most gratifying of these visitations was Queen Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) – who bore Princess Elizabeth (Claire Macaulay) – and how the future queen was described during these waking dreams. Queen Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis) telling the king that his son would die young was something I wish the show producers had shown in an additional season of the show instead of in a parental admonishment.

The king seeing himself as he was when he was young was extremely well shot as was death in a knights armor riding up behind him to take his head.

That the king wanted to be away from her children and wife when he dies was an odd move but perhaps he wanted to be remembered as he was and not dying or dead. His voice and walk had already been altered by age, which everyone was privy to. He probably did not want them to see any more of his degradation.

I really wish Showtime had picked up the series for another two seasons. I would love to see Mary Tudor (Sarah Bolger)’s reign and the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. At least the series had four seasons, unlike Rome.