Crystal Clear

Hey everyone!

I've been on FanForum for years, but took a break and this is my first time on The Borgias board. I absolutely love the show, here's some of my thoughts:

It was a great follow-up to The Tudors without being a second-rate copy of it (and, unlike The Tudors, never became boring)

The acting of the main cast was SUBLIME (Jeremy Irons' voice is so appropriately creepy & commanding)

David Oakes stole every scene he was in throughout Season 2 and I think Neil Jordan killed Juan way too soon (I always felt his syphillis disease explained a LOT about his cruel behavior towards others and that secret should have been discovered by his family, so they could begin to understand why he took such a turn for the worse)

Joanne Whalley was criminally underused throughout the show, I preferred her to Lotte Verbeek but then again I wasn't a fan of the whole mistress subplot

And that leads me to the most gripping aspect of The Borgias and probably the best direction the show could have gone in - Cesare and Lucrezia

Because WOW!!! The chemistry between Francois and Holly was on fire from their very first scene together and I would have been furious had Neil Jordan cowardly strayed away from the forbidden lovers story for them.

It was like watching Heathcliff and Cathy in a Shakespearean backdrop. They just screamed soulmates. You could tell that Francois and Holly were deliberately playing the dynamic as though Cesare and Lucrezia were destined for each other, and that love (in their case) was not bound by the formality of marriage.

I know a lot of fans of the show felt disappointed that it was cancelled after Season 3. However, having read THE BORGIA APOCALYPSE (which is Neil Jordan's so-called 2 hour finale), I for one am relieved and ecstatic about how the show ended with The Prince. Was Neil actually serious with The Borgia Apocalypse? Did he just not care anymore about the characters having dignity? Because that was NOT the Lucrezia we knew and admired throughout the show. I was deeply disappointed, and choose to pretend that The Borgia Apocalypse does not exist. The Prince is actually a satisfying finale, and is not irritatingly open-ended - instead, it respects the characters and wraps up the love story by continuing it in a fittingly gothic and erotic way (I mean, the final words being "AND MINE..." Just... Says it all about their everlasting love)


Please can I be added to the shippers' list?

PhoenixRising

Hello, 4brathan&brucas! Welcome to the board! I'm Alex, and it's nice to meet you! Thanks for visiting our board and the Cesare/Lucrezia thread! And yes, I just added you to the shipper's list! I hope you can visit more often whenever you can!

Wow, I totally agree with everything you said! Although I do think that killing Juan off at the end of season 2 might not have been too soon, as Juan was killed prior to Cesare's ascent to becoming a military leader. And at least Juan made it to the end of season 2. On the other Borgia series, they killed him off at the end of season 1.

I agree, Jeremy Irons was the heart and soul of the show, and his acting was perfect. And David Oakes was sorely missed in season 3, but it was fascinating to see Juan's slow descent into self destruction. And while his syphilis probably contributed a lot to his erratic behavior near the end of his life, he killed Paolo before he contracted the disease, so he was already pretty cruel to begin with. Remember that scene where Lucrezia dropped that chandelier on him and his lover while they were in bed? That was before he left for Spain, which is where he contracted syphilis. But he only got progressively worse from that point on, especially when he began taking opium. But you're right, I do wish his syphilis had been discovered by his family, but I'm not sure if it would've even made a difference by then. Cesare and Lucrezia both pretty much wanted him dead either way.

Thank you so much for stating how terribly underused Vanozza and Joanne Whalley was on this show. While I do think she was a valuable character, she could've been used a lot more than she was. I didn't mind Giulia all that much, though, mostly because I'm a fan of Lotte. The mistress subplot was important in that it did in fact happen, but I agree that it needn't have taken up so much of the plot. Giulia could've been handled a lot worse, to be honest.

Wow, that's an excellent analogy, comparing Cesare and Lucrezia to Heathcliff and Cathy! You're right, Francois and Holly's chemistry was through the roof, and Neil Jordan might very well have shied away from their incestuous romance if it hadn't been for Francois and Holly insisting that he pursue it, pointing out that it had already been implied in the storyline that he wrote from the beginning. But at least Jordan himself admitted that Cesare and Lucrezia were two people who were perfectly suited for each other as a couple if it hadn't been for their being siblings.

Yes, we were devastated when we didn't get a fourth season like we'd been promised when the show first came on the air. Jordan had stated that he intended for the show to go four seasons, and his excuse that he didn't have enough material for a fourth season seemed like BS to me if you consider how much actual history was left following the fall of Caterina Sforza. Cesare's conquest of Italy, Lucrezia's third marriage, Rodrigo's death, della Rovere's treachery in assuming power afterwards, Cesare's imprisonment, escape, and his eventual death, etc. How can anyone say there wasn't enough material for ten more episodes? But it's true that if we had gotten Jordan's "Apocalypse," we would've gotten a story that completely contradicted everything that had been established in the first three seasons. Cesare and Lucrezia were like totally different people in that script, and I agree that Jordan just didn't seem to care anymore. While I like the way things ended in 'The Prince," I also like to imagine that if we did get a final season, it would've ended in a manner similar to the ending of the original BBC version of The Borgias back in the 1980's. That ended with scenes switching back and forth between Cesare dying on the battlefield while Lucrezia reads his final letter to her and her children, his words professing his undying love to her while in his dying moments, his final thoughts are of her.

BL.Arinna_1982

Well, hello there fellow Brucas fan! Nice to see you again after a long time and hope you enjoy posting here with us. As you may notice soon, there are no ship wares here, because in this show the main ship was Cesare and Lucrezia. And everybody kind of agreed on that.

Crystal Clear

Hello to you both! I'm Gwen, it's lovely to meet you

I had to take some time away from FanForum due to hectic real-life stuff, but I'll try to be here as much as I can I've had several re-watches of The Borgias recently, so I enjoy discussing the show and Cesare's relationship with Lucrezia, which has SO many layers.

Yes I was a HUGE Brucas fan! Always will be. I maintain that Brooke was the best thing that ever happened to Lucas, and he was only bearable with her. One Tree Hill died a fiery death when Mark Schwahn brought back the duo from hell (namely Lucas and Peyton) I used to be on the OTH board and the Dawson's Creek boards a lot, but all the fights and the shipper wars used to drive me insane

I think I'm being selfish because I missed David Oakes a lot in Season 3 I agree that Juan's death made for a great season finale, and The Confession is one of the very best episodes; Jeremy Irons' portrayal of grief is top-notch in those scenes


One thing that saddened me about the depiction of Juan's downfall in the show was how it caused friction between him and Lucrezia beyond repair. I didn't think it made sense how the show transitioned from the light-hearted scenes between Juan and Lucrezia when they walked arm-in-arm around the city in 'Paolo' to the 'she's ready to kill him' death stare in episode 3... Yes I know that what he did to Paolo was cruel, but I think Juan genuinely believed that it was his right, as a Borgia, to rid Paolo from their lives. He believed that his sister's lover brought shame to the family, and the only answer (in his eyes) was to make sure he would never return. Did he go too far? Sure, but I think his biggest mistake was actually the public hanging, which was carelessly done. Juan was always trying to preserve the family name, and the illegitimate child brought a question mark upon the longevity of their family's security at the top. Maybe I'm reaching for excuses, but Juan always struck me as someone who believed the family was at risk unless all immediate threats were eliminated, and that's clearly how he viewed Paolo.

It's a tragedy that nobody will ever know how ill Juan was before his death, they just thought he was a selfish jerk with no respect for his family And somehow, despite the terrible thing he did to Paolo, it bothers me that neither one of his siblings considered the reasons why Juan was so cold and self-destructive by the time he died. He just becomes a burden to them, and the ENEMY, which I felt was highly forced and done simply to paint him as the villain who must be stopped (similar to Fredo in The Godfather).

I think Season 3 should have explored into Cesare's guilt over killing his brother. It's only really touched upon in moments with Rodrigo who misses him terribly, and that scene in episode 9 where Alfonso asks him "did you love your brother" and Cesare replies "immensely" (or something to that effect). Neil Jordan molds Cesare into such a dark Prince character that the only person who truly means anything to him in the end is Lucrezia - which, although is truthful to their love, is quite tragic in other aspects.


I always thought it was weird how they fazed her out in the middle of the show's run. However, at least she was remembered by people - unlike their younger brother, the 13 year old who was married to some undeserving woman and never heard from again after season one


I love how Francois was so committed to developing the Cesare and Lucrezia relationship, watch any Borgias interview and he's so giddy by the time it happens

I still wonder if Neil Jordan actually meant it when he said in the beginning that they didn't intend to go down the incest route, or whether he wanted to throw viewers off the scent and wait until the characters were truly ready to explore that side of themselves. Both Holly and Francois saw the undertones in his writing as much as anyone, and even Mario Puzo wrote 'The Godfather' had written a book called 'The Family' that did not shy away from making Ceare and Lucrezia lovers.

Even Cesare's obsession with Ursula screamed 'rebound' to me His anger over Lucrezia's marriage and then distracting himself with an unattainable woman, all felt very forced on Cesare's part in his effort to ignore his pain over losing Lucrezia.


That's why I'm relieved in some ways that the show ended when it did. You wonder how the writers will treat the characters if it goes on any longer. The same issue arose with 'Veronica Mars', another great show with a strong female lead, it was cancelled after Season 3 and due to how rushed it was, none of the storylines really get resolved, but it thankfully ends with a finale episode that points the way to a reunion between Veronica and her long-time love Logan that was the missing ingredient of most of that season. I often fear where Season 4 would have taken them - they had already broken up about a dozen times during the show and how often can you do that before viewers get bored and move on? Neil Jordan's treatment of Cesare and Lucrezia was so poorly handled in The Borgia Apocalypse that I think it strongly indicates how lucky we actually were to get a series finale that respected them as much as The Prince did.


I was thinking about my favorite Cesare + Lucrezia moments, it's difficult to narrow them down but here's some of the best:

1) Their love scene. I think it was extraordinary, the score and the slow motion allowed to be a TRUE LOVE scene rather than yet another sleazy sex scene and it was so erotic how they looked straight into each other's eyes and how happy they looked in the final moments

2) 'Relics' was kind of an average episode, but I think their scene together raised the standards because it was beautifully done. The visual image of just the two of them, lost amongst the crowd in the dark, standing in the backdrop of fireworks, and disclosing the honest truth that they are both in marriages of convenience and will never be truly happy or in love with anyone but each other.

3) Their reunion in season 3 episode 9, wow they're just all over each other with hugs and kisses and neither of one of them care that they're being watched by others, including her husband

4) Cesare carrying Lucrezia to her bed after she's married her first husband. Everyone else is enjoying the dinner & entertainment, but all Cesare is concerned with is a sleepy Lucrezia and taking her away from the noisy adults

5) Episode 4 of Season 3. I have such mixed feelings about how Cesare goes into denial mode about their future together, but his devastated expression when she says "I want you" at the consummation says it all, his calming kiss when she's yelling at him is so indicative of her words "God is in the room with us" and of course, the actual (awkward as hell) consummation when Alfonso doesn't even exist to Lucrezia and she only achieves orgasm when she looks into Cesare's eyes... Seriously, they are connected on every conceivable level in that scene that you just know how Cesare is lying to himself afterwards when he's like "we're in the past, let's move on" yeah whatever Cesare!!!

BL.Arinna_1982

x

PhoenixRising

Hi, Gwen! It's a pleasure to meet you too! You know, if you want you can formerly introduce yourself on our intro thread. It's just a "getting to know you" type of thing.

Oh, I see. I understand. FF can be tough to keep up with when life gets in the way. But we're both glad that you decided to join us here on the board. And my co-mod, Arinna, is actually the Brucas fan. I never watched that show.

Oh, I totally understand. We do have a David/Juan thread too if you ever want to post about him there. It was a shame that we lost him in season 2, because he was such a scene stealer, but it does align with the time of his death in the history. And I don't know if the show ever really depicted Lucrezia and Juan to be all that close anyway. She and Cesare were always the team within the family, the two against the world sort of thing. Juan equally ticked both of them off. And I think that Juan was hypersensitive over any perceived threat to the family, but that may have had something to do with his own fears and insecurities about possibly not being Rodrigo's son and being the son of Vanozza's other husband. And I agree that there was a definite Michael/Fredo Corleone dynamic between Cesare and Juan as far as him killing his brother. But that's a topic for the David/Juan thread.

Well, they didn't really phase Vanozza out because she was still there in the final season. We have a thread for her as well. And I did like that she and Rodrigo briefly reconciled in season 3 after his poisoning. It is a shame that Joffre was cut out of the show after season one, though. Too bad, because Sancia was hot.

That's a good question. I don't know if Jordan ever intended to go down the incest route, but Francois and Holly certainly thought they should because, as they both mentioned, it was all over his writing. There was so much incestuous subtext between Cesare and Lucrezia I don't know how you couldn't eventually have them become romantic. And yeah, I love both their reactions to the relationship, Holly's and Francois'. And that's another good point about Mario Puzo also going the incest route with them in his novel, The Family. And I think whether it was Ursula, or Paolo, or whomever, Cesare and Lucrezia were always involving themselves with love interests who were more or less substitutes for each other. They couldn't be with each other... at least not at the time. Yes, they both did seem to suffer whenever they were apart from each other.

Ohhh, those are all awesome scenes, Gwen! My favorites! I'd add the seduction scene where a naked Lucrezia invites Cesare into her bedroom to examine her feet. And the gif that Arinna just posted of Lucrezia sneaking into Cesare's bed.

Crystal Clear

I think chemistry between two people has the potential to dictate the path that the show goes in That has been the case with many of my favorite TV couples. Chuck in Gossip Girl and Logan in Veronica Mars were originally conceived as the "villains", until they shared scenes with the female leads and the writers recognized the connection between the actors. But it definitely would have been a disservice to The Borgias if Neil Jordan had decided against it. Cesare/Lucrezia is the reason why Season 3 is so re-watchable. I certainly did not tune in for the delight of seeing wimpy Alfonso

I loved Cesare's reaction to finding out about Lucrezia meeting Paolo, it's an interesting blend of jealousy, worry and anger, yet he puts his feelings aside to make her happy

Did you think it was out of character that Cesare arranged for them to meet? It always seemed too risky, because Juan was on the warpath, but perhaps he did it just so that she'd think well of him? It just seemed rather odd to me that Cesare would risk Lucrezia meeting with Paolo at all, with all things considered.

Yes I love that scene from episode 8 when he's like, "everything?" biting her fingers
But it did bug me that Neil refrained from giving them another sex scene, and had them sexually frustrated for the rest of the season

BL.Arinna_1982

I think it was implied that they had more than one sex scenes in the last episode. When Lucrezia tells Cesare that her husband knows about them. It means more than once for me.

Crystal Clear

Good point, that was very suggestive


But she also said "You're always pulling away from me, I'm so tired of that"... She just seemed so bored with life, I got the impression that he keeps teasing her but also resisting her, like in episode 8


Neil left a lot to the imagination by the end though, so it's nice to fill in the blanks with what we prefer to have happened.


Also, Lucrezia switched from telling Cesare how bored she is with Alfonso, to screaming "noooo, how could you hurt him?" within the space of like 10 minutes, so the writing was kind of bizarre anyway.

BL.Arinna_1982

I also think that was so bizarre at the end. Once she told Cesare that she's bored from her marriage, she should've known in what he's capable to make her happy.

PhoenixRising

Hi, Gwen! Yes, I was interested in Cesare's reaction to meeting Paolo, as opposed to his feelings about Alfonso. You'll notice how different Cesare reacts to the two men. He goes out of his way to allow Lucrezia to spend time with the father of her son, yet Cesare has nothing but contempt for Alfonso. This could be partially because he saw Alfonso as being weak and not standing up to his uncle and standing up for his own wife, Lucrezia. But it could also be because Cesare and Lucrezia's love had grown considerably since Paolo's death, and while Cesare may have felt a slight amount of jealousy when Paolo was around, by the time Alfonso was in the picture Lucrezia had already given herself to Cesare, so Cesare felt that she was now "his" in every sense of the word. And maybe Cesare was trying to look good in Lucrezia's eyes when he let her spend time with Paolo, knowing that it would only be temporary and that they would never be able to be together.


Yeah, that scene where Lucrezia snuck into Cesare's bed(for the second time) was hot. I liked the way he grabbed her neck, thinking she was an assassin, and when she said, "peace, brother," she smiled even has his hand was around her neck, and then when he kissed her neck she closed her eyes and tilted her head, as if she were in ecstasy. I really wanted that to be a "morning after" scene when I saw it in the previews, because I thought they needed at least one more sex scene. I was disappointed when we didn't get one. Yeah, they did seem sexually frustrated... much like the audience.

Crystal Clear

I agree that there's a notable difference of how reserved Cesare attempts to be when she tells him about Paolo's visit, compared to how possessive Cesare becomes over Lucrezia by the time she's with Alfonso


I mean when they're holding hands on the bed in The Confession, Cesare suddenly rambles on about how he pictures the two of them on a romantic escape to a fishing village to live out the rest of their lives together (and then pretends he was joking when she mentions Alfonso )


and then in Siblings, he's ripping Alfonso's name off the wedding board and refuses to dance in public with Lucrezia, which I always saw as a clear sign that Cesare is growing more aware of other people gossiping about them



I suppose foreplay is better than Cesare continuing the pretense of ~nothing more can happen~ like he stupidly claimed in episode 4


I think subtle moments are just as important, like the fortune teller saying "you love another" and Alfonso being so bold as to confront Cesare about the rumors. I'm still bitter about Neil Jordan's work on The Borgia Apocalypse, but I have to hand it to him that his work on the Cesare and Lucrezia relationship in Season 3 was surprisingly well done. They never lost the sexual tension after the lovemaking episode, and even though they technically broke up, their marriages to other people were stated to be insignificant compared to their love for each other (again, thank you to Guy for that Relics fireworks scene)

PhoenixRising

Oh, yeah... Cesare definitely felt better about letting Lucrezia be with some stable boy than her being married to a Prince of Naples.

Oh, yeah... Cesare telling Lucrezia they can run off together after she asks him to marry her... to Alfonso, of course. He was just kidding around with her, but there was probably something half serious about it. And did you notice how both Alfonso and Vanozza looked at Cesare and Lucrezia dancing together? Alfonso could already tell that something was up between them, and I suspected that even Vanozza had her own suspicions. I would've loved to have seen Vanozza ask Lucrezia about it in season 3, but that never happened, sadly. Kudos to Juan, though, for suspecting that Cesare "had congress with his angelic sister" before anyone else did. Even though they hadn't yet.

Yeah, I always thought that scene in siblings was a bit much. It made Alfonso seem really petulant when he freaked out about Cesare putting a question mark next to his name. And as for Cesare not wanting to dance with Lucrezia... well, he might have heard some rumors swirling around Rome, but I think it was more that he just simply wasn't in the mood at the time. He was already dealing with having to fend off the Orsini brothers, with whom he nearly got into a fight with after suggesting they have more of his wine, stroll through his garden, and spend some time with some of the young ladies... or young men. And then he had to deal with Caterina Sforza at the party as well, both threatening him and coming on to him at the same time, telling him that he could "sink his steel into her... to the hilt, if he wished." Why do I get the feeling she wasn't talking about a sword? Cesare's codpiece was probably getting a bit tight there. Anyway, he had a lot on his plate already, so I suspect he just didn't feel like dancing at all. It's a good thing that Lucrezia came by Cesare's bedroom later to relieve him of all of that stress and tension he was feeling earlier.

Well, I think Cesare told her that "nothing more could happen" mostly because he knew they both had to fulfill their obligations, he marrying Charlotte and her marring Alfonso, and that anything more between them was unrealistic. I think it wasn't until later that Cesare realized he could have something with Lucrezia. Charlotte was just cool as hell, being totally okay with staying in Paris because she preferred the weather there, as long as she had a title and a home, and could bear Cesare's children. She was even cool with him being in love with someone else, and told him that she "loved him" for trying to spare her feelings and then proceeded to have even more sex with him. Where are women like this? So with Charlotte being so accommodating, and Alfonso slowly becoming more and more irrelevant, I think Cesare was setting his sights on a possible "arrangement," where he and Lucrezia would be married to their respective others, but they would be each other's consorts, like Rodrigo and Vanozza.

Yeah, I liked how the witch read Lucrezia's palm and could tell that she was in love with her own brother. That's what the "too close" line was about. Although I was a bit confused by that fireworks scene in Relics, because I thought Cesare was far away from Naples at the time. He was sure able to cover a hell of a lot of distance to be able to visit Lucrezia in Naples and then be back in Rome, and intercept the "shroud" that Caterina had rigged as a trap.

Crystal Clear

I thought Francois played that scene really well. He had a twinkle in his eye but a tender expression, where you could tell that Cesare was half-joking but also half-serious.

I mean, listen to how detailed he is about the whole fishing village scenario. I truly think he had often thought about them sneaking off together when things got tough.



Yes, and also that scene in Siblings where Lucrezia is freaking out about Cesare going away, and Vanozza is like, "why are you so upset about this...?" I think she was giving her an opportunity to unburden her heart in that scene.

Trust Juan to be miles ahead of everyone on the suspicion trail, even when under the influence of opium


I honestly wonder what Juan is really thinking in that opium scene. The way he says it, almost comes across as a twisted sexual jealousy of Cesare/Lucrezia. That would definitely explain his resentment towards the both of them. I honestly think that, on some level, he was jealous of their intimacy.

Read into that what you will but do you remember when Lucrezia walked in on Juan having sex and it didn't bother him at all? I think that spoke volumes.




To be honest, I thought Alfonso's reaction was completely in character. He's totally insecure about his place in the Borgia family. He's "frightened" of Cesare, as Lucrezia said; and yes, I think the seeds of jealousy about Cesare/Lucrezia were already sown in the Season 2 finale. It's something that grows in Alfonso until he can't take it anymore and resorts to alcoholism.



Hmm I don't know, I think there was more to it than him not being in the mood. He's never turned down a dance with her in the past. This time, he rejected her in front of a watching audience. It was very awkward, and you can tell how devastated and confused Lucrezia is when she goes to find another dance partner.

I honestly think Cesare was being nervous around her in that scene. Think about it - the two of them had just kissed. He panicked and left, thinking he had upset her. It's that moment where he's beginning to realize how he truly feels about her. So, I definitely think there's more to it than Cesare simply being hot and bothered after Caterina's taunts.



Oh yeah, I definitely agree that Cesare's restraint from pursuing Lucrezia was all about his bid to be careful in public and he was planning on raising an army, so he had to keep up appearances, for the sake of the family's image.

But you can tell by the end of the show that Cesare is already backing down and cannot keep away from Lucrezia. His delight in being reunited with her in 'The Gunpowder Plot' is one my favorite moments. They can't keep their hands off each other.

BL.Arinna_1982

Does she love me - as she loves her brother?


Look what I found on Tumblr! I think it's gorgeous!