François | Cesare #32: "I've been running from this for a long time. I need to man-up and just face it." - Manfred
 

Cesare Borgia was born in Rome on September 13th, 1475; the son of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lanzol y Borgia, soon to become Pope Alexander VI, and his mistress Vanozza dei Cattanei. He was made Bishop of Pamplona at the age of 15. Following school in Perugia and Pisa where Cesare studied law, along with his father's elevation to Pope, Cesare was made Cardinal three years later. After his brother Juan's death, Cesare became the first person in history to resign the cardinalate. On the same day the French King Louis XII named Cesare Duke of Valentinois, and this title, along with his former position as Cardinal of Valencia, explains the nickname "Valentino". Cesare's military career was founded upon his father's ability to distribute patronage, along with his alliance with France (reinforced by his marriage with Charlotte d'Albret, sister of John III of Navarre), in the course of the Italian Wars. At the time of his father's death in 1503, Cesare's dominons in the Romagna disintegrated without continued Papal support. In order to smooth the way to his election as pope, Giuliano Della Rovere - later Pope Julius II - made an agreement with Cesare, promising to make him captain of the papal troops again. After the conclave, Cesare surrendered the Castel Sant' Angelo and came to live with Della Rovere in the Vatican. The pope toyed with the idea of using Cesare to stem the Venetians in the Romagna, for he could still attract loyalty not only from the Spanish but also, to some degree, from the people of the province. However, the Venetians claimed that all they were doing was taking the lands of their common enemy, Cesare Boriga. Hence, Julius II asked Cesare for the countersigns of the fortresses that he held (Cesena, Bertinoro and Forlì). In return Cesare received a brief saying that he could go where he liked once the cities had been surrendered. He went to Naples and begun to try to recruit troops but when the Spanish monarchs heard of this they ordered their viceroy Gonsalvo to arrest Cesare. Exiled to Spain in 1504, he was imprisoned in the Castle of La Mota, Medina del Campo, from which he escaped and joined his brother-in-law King John III of Navarre. Subsequently, Cesare was killed in 1507 while fighting for the Navarrese king in the city of Viana, Spain.

In "The Prince", Machiavelli uses Cesare Borgia as an example to elucidate the dangers of acquiring a principality by virtue of another. Cesare also inspired many novels and was portrayed in many movies and television series based on the Borgia's rise and fall. For instance most recently:


François Arnaud (born 5 July 1985 in Québéc, Canada) is a French Canadian stage and film actor who trained at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique de Montréal in 2007. He is best known for his performances as "Cesare Borgia" in Showtime's TV series The Borgias and as "Antonin" in the critically acclaimed French Canadian movie J'ai tué ma mère. In 2009, he had a part in Sophie Lorain's Les Grandes Chaleurs. In Québéc, François is known for his role as "Théo" in the TV series Yamaska. In 2015, he had a guest part in the Canadian WWII drama X Company and later that year starred opposite Jaime Alexander on Blindspot. In 2017, François took on the role of Manfred in the supernatural drama Midnight, Texas. In 2018, François played the character of Tommy Castelli, a TV producer and love interest to Shiri Appleby's character Rachel Goldberg on the Lifetime drama UnREAL.

tftnt, Alex! :hug:

You're welcome, Arinna! :hug:

Post away, everyone! :)

I still haven't seen last week's Midnight, Texas because it isn't available on my On Demand yet. I hope it'll be there after tonight's episode.

Tftnt, Alex! The last episode was really good amd confirmed a lot of things some of us suspected, so I hope you get to watch it soon :hug:

We're gonna watch it soon.

Thanks, Lila! :hug: :wave: Arinna and I will get caught up on it soon. :nod: We were finishing up the two hour finale of Timeless.

Well that was something. Try to watch it before the spoilers are unavoidable.

Quote from a new interview with François (avoid it until you've seen ep 8).
There goes the theory that they didn't like each other.

Funny that he would consider Sarah Ramos to be one of his "closest" friends during season 1 when they barely had any chemistry together, he has much better chemistry with Arielle Kebbel (Olivia) and Parisa Fitz-Henley (Fiji), he seems much closer to Arielle in particular, there are so many more pictures and videos of them together compared to the very few that he has with Ramos. Or maybe Francois just said that they were his "closest" friends because they left the show and he was just trying to be polite about it?

Anyway I initially really liked Patience but now after watching ep 8 I don't anymore, yes she has much better chemistry with Manfred than Creek ever did (then again Francois has better chemistry with all of his other female co-stars than Ramos), but after seeing what Patience did to Manfred and the other Midnighters in the most recent ep, I hate her now!:hammer_head: Patience can rot in hell for all I care!:mad: I never thought I would ever say this but...after watching ep 8, I admit that I now prefer Creek, yes shocking since I really disliked Creek in S1, she was my least fav character in S1, and I still dislike her now, but compared to Patience, I do prefer Creek now, ep 8 totally changed my opinion about Patience, it's funny how people could completely change their opinions about a character after just 1 episode :no:

Warning I'm about to reveal some huge spoilers from ep 8 so if you haven't seen the ep yet then don't read!

Early on I was willing to like Patience despite being a little suspicious of the way she used Manfred's loss of self-esteem and his need to be a hero (the trembling hands, telling him he's amazing, gazing at him in admiration etc). I enjoyed seeing her switch out of that character. Her english accent is actually pretty good. I might have objected at the bad guys being english (yet again) except 800 years earlier they would have been in Europe so it may as well be England.

I'm completely traumatized by the ending of this episode. I love François too much to have that nightmarish vision stuck in my head, so I hope your prediction for Manfred, Anticipation, is correct. And I agree with Linda 1000% about Patience :hammer_head:

Next week's finale will be the series finale. Sadly, NBC has cancelled the show. A bad week for Manfred all around :mad:

https://deadline.com/2018/12/midnigh...ns-1202523653/

Such a bad news...

Hi, Linda! :wave: Hi, Lila! :wave: Hi, Anticipation! :wave:

Arinna and I still aren't caught up on Midnight, Texas yet because she's traveling to see family for Christmas, so I'm gonna try to get caught up as soon as we can. :nod: Thanks for using spoiler tags, everyone. :blush:

I'm so mad at NBC for cancelling this great show! :furious: and many other fans are too, many fans are venting their frustrations on social media and have started a campaign to save the show with the hashtags #SaveMidnightTexas and #RenewMidnightTexas!:D MT has a great cast and great rating and season 2 has been even better than S1 was, it deserves more seasons! So if you want the show to be saved, then please tweet or post on other social media sites with the hashtags!

To be honest I'm not totally surprised that NBC cancelled the show because season 2 has been getting lower ratings than S1, but that's understandable since NBC had moved the show to friday nights, which is typically considered the "death timeslot" where shows are moved to before they are cancelled, which proved that NBC didn't really have much faith in the show anymore anyway, by moving it to friday nights, it's like they intentionally tried to sink the show:rolleyes:

I also read that the production studio that created & produced this show is currently trying to shop the show around to other networks and streaming companies. Fox canceled 'Lucifer' and after a huge fan campaign to save the show Netflix eventually picked it up, so I hope Netflix or another TV network will save MT!:fingers_crossed: This show has a very loyal following, and if 'Supernatural' can last 14 seasons with lousy ratings, then surely so could MT with its better ratings and equally loyal fans!:cheerleader:

I'm seeing the bright side. I'd like to see François in different roles and maybe this will open up bigger and better opportunities. His instagram post from a few weeks ago suggests that he already has something lined up (and I don't think it's playing Wolverine!) and the same seems to be true for the rest of the cast. If Universal manage to place MT with another network or service, it will have to take its place in the queue.

Oh man, is that true? :( I just heard, but I didn't believe it. :( And we just got a new show with Francois to talk about here and now we lost it. :bawl:

I do hope the show can get picked up somewhere else, although like Anticipation said, it might be a while if everyone's moved on to other stuff. I'm still waiting for Arinna to come back from visiting her sister for Christmas so we can get caught up on the last two episodes. There's a new episode this Friday, and I'm guessing it's the last one. :(