2.3 The Voyage Of The Damned After getting thrown off the boat he was hoping to abscond with after doing a pretty good Riario impersonation (complete with hipster hat and Renaissance sunglasses) and getting in a sword fight with the boat’s rightful owner Duke Alfonso, Da Vinci, Amerigo and Zoroaster swim back to shore and try to put together a secondary plan. Fortunately, there is a budding fish market in Florence and that’s where Leonardo derives the inspiration for his next mad invention, a submarine with grappling hook grippers to secretly sneak out to where the ship is moored and use the ship’s cargo of slaves to overthrow the crew, kick off Alfonso, and make for the New World. However, there’s a problem. Da Vinci’s Demons keeps staging sword fights between Da Vinci and Alfonso, but they’re really not shot very well. There’s some clashing of swords and dancing around, but most of the action is shot really close up and really mangled in the editing room. The fights are practically incomprehensible at some points, and really good at other points. It’s bothersome, especially in an episode that features two sword clashes that should be great (and one that has a very satisfying endgame). They’re too cluttered, too busy, when two ambidextrous guys are fighting with swords in both hands, it should be an epic event, not a muddle. This was just a bit too unclear. Blade choreography aside, it was a fairly solid episode. There was a good balance between Leonardo and the fallout in Florence from the Pazzi Conspiracy (with a funny bit where kids used dead Francesco Pazzi as a battering ram) and the next step in Lorenzo’s attempt to keep the Papacy from crushing Florence in its iron grip. The confrontation between Lorenzo and Claire was good stuff courtesy of Brian Nelson, as was the episode’s overall arc involving Lucrezia Donati, Cardinal Lupo, Sixtus, and the other Sixtus, AKA Dungeon Pope. That’s the sort of intrigue that will keep folks interested in Florence’s politics when Leonardo is off building submarines and traveling to Machu Picchu. Or I guess it won’t be Florence, since Lorenzo is going to be heading to Naples to be a hostage. It seems that the show is running into a problem. The boat voyages are going to take forever, and they haven’t even really left Italy yet. However, the other stuff on the peninsula seems to be flying by. It’s a series pacing problem, and it feels either slow or rushed, depending on who we’re talking about. It’s also tough to engage with, since it feels like the characters we’re used to seeing together are all dashing off in different directions and are all going to be completely disconnected from one another. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, The Blood Of Brothers, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan is glad to see that more actual history and invention is making its way into David S. Goyer’s version of Renaissance Italy, even if it’s also full of weirdness. 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.
