1.4 The Magician I’m not sure if sunglasses were a thing in Italy in 1476, but the pseudo-pork pie hat is a very nice touch. Those little touches, along with things like a syringe well before syringes were common and Leonardo’s more outlandish experiments, are kind of beneficial to the show because it changes it from a historical drama to the more fantastical historical fiction that Da Vinci’s Demons is trying to be. It’s not clock punk, but it’s edging very close to that. Even as the show throws in tidbits from Leonardo’s life to keep things grounded, it keeps indulging in fanciful elements to create separation from more reality-centric competition. This combination of real and fictional becomes something of a theme in this week’s episode, as Leonardo seems to be increasingly losing his grasp on reality as the stress of being the lynchpin of Florence’s survival, the Sons of Mithras, the quest for the Book of Leaves, and all the other stuff he’s got going on seems to be driving him to crack. Rather than getting his usual rotoscope creation sequences, we get some pretty brutal hallucinations, and several of them. Does it work? Well, kind of. It works in the universe of the show, in the sense that it all fits into the show’s timely untimeliness, but it’s also kind of distracting. The show has enough going on with its multiple intrigues, plots, and subplots and it doesn’t need to throw any real-world symbolism into things. I spend enough time looking up potential Da Vinci references/looking up character name spellings and don’t need to know where Verrocchio got his joke on jealousy from and whom Churchill said it to (Bessie Braddock). The script seemed a bit too clever this week for its own good, though it did contain some good moments where Leonardo shows off the power of perception and why bluffing can be more important than a truly big gun (though if he was really worried about antagonizing Rome, a giant fake weapon will only encourage the Pope to build a bigger real weapon and skew the balance of power further in Rome’s favor). Still, it’s a bit bland, in spite of some continued great special effects and one really effective visual. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, The Prisoner, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan would love to see more of Leonardo’s inventions show up on display in this show. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
