“Poison and Malmsey Wine,” the seventh episode of The White Queen, has become a parlor comedy without any laughs (they even blew an opportunity for a stock mother-in-law joke) as all the royal dysfunctional families continue to live under one tower. The claustrophobia causing a kind of castle fever as accusations of witchcraft, curses and the evil eye are thrown around in a deepening brew of inbred insanity. Poison is what everyone believes is in their future and Malmsey Wine is Queen Elizabeth’s favorite wine, given to her by the King of France. It’s a shame that The White Queen telegraphs everything so blatantly so often. It robs the show of any kind of suspense. This is a show that should always be holding something back, but it always shows its cards. Early on we know that George is well on his way to a tyrannical tantrum. Where does he get his balls big enough that he would think he’s entitled to anything? He’s turned against his brother twice. He keeps trying to leap frog into a throne. Michael Corleone would have given him a kiss of death episodes ago, but no, not Georgie. He is the family favorite and grew himself a wisp of a kingly beard. Of course he’s plotting with King Louis of France. Do they have to tell us? A little mystery, please, a smidgeon of suspense, something to keep the viewer on its toes, besides mounting corpses and blatant betrayals. We know George is crazy when he pushes whores away. Edward throws money at him and he uses it to buy his own sorcerer. Aha, his own sorcerer. Finally something I can latch onto. George hires a certain Mr. Bardett to counteract the magick that Elizabeth has been throwing at him: causing storms and killing babies. My head popped up. A magickal duel. Like in the Roger Corman film The Raven, where Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, royalty if ever there was in a film, threw spells at each other from across castle walls as Scarabus, Dr. Craven and Bedlo. They fooled me good. There was no magickal duel, just a downsized, well-hung wizard. And a conveniently poisoned wife, Lady Isabel Neville (Eleanor Tomlinson). Anne Neville (Juliet Aubrey) goes on the witch hunt trail. “Poison and Malmsey Wine” was directed by Colin Teague and written by Emma Frost. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
