Well, this escalated quickly. Additionally: although this final episode was, I thought, VERY strong and easily the most compelling of the series, I also felt like we were missing some connective tissue in the story. I know that Masterpiece has a way of trimming scenes between the original and the US airings — which drives me bonkers — but I rather felt like this particular episode was counting on the viewer’s knowledge of basic history to fill in the blanks. Obviously, everyone who wasn’t in a coma throughout history class knows that Anne Boleyn loses her head — there is no historical tale used more often to wake up high school students after lunch than Henry VIII and his many wives, and for extremely good reason — but it seemed weird to me from a narrative perspective that we never got a scene where Anne was specifically told it was OVER, for example. That doesn’t take away from how great this episode was, but: LET’S DISCUSS.

Tags: Wolf Hall
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