The Young Pope Season 1 Episodes 4-8 Review

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel, and today we will be reviewing The Young Pope episodes 4 through 8. This will be a recap, and guys, I just want to apologize. My, my review schedule of The Young Pope has been off. Some of that's been due to how HBO airs The Young Pope and they do an episode on Sunday and Monday, kind of threw off my review schedule. But not only that, there has to me been a dramatic change in the series of The Young Pope. And I still think it's a good show, guys, but it's just kind of the story of the young pope Episodes 1 through 3, I just thought were awesome, just dynamic writing. But episodes 4 through 8, they kind of dropped off a bit for me. And I don't think that's— it could just be a taste thing. I know a lot of series sometimes have to have fillers, you know, mid-season fillers until they get to the you know, to the end of the season and do what they have their cliffhangers and various things. But I think, again, it may just be a taste thing. I think what intrigued me the most about the series is, you know, originally I was thinking, I don't know if I'd like a series about just the Vatican because they've done that before with the Borgias and different, you know, series based on popes and the Vatican. And I didn't think it would be for me, but the first 3 episodes of this really changed my mind and went in a direction I thought was brilliant. But episodes 4 through 8 kind of, for me, settled into the politics of the papacy and the Vatican, you know, where the They seemingly dealt with a lot of incidents with the Vatican, like the investigation they had with the pedophilia and the constant focus on homosexuality in the Catholic Church, which understanding the politics of the Catholic Church in our real life, we kind of understood all of that. But I was intrigued by the series because of how it just danced around all of these mysteries, like is he a saint? You know, the mysteries of, you know, is he touched by God or is he just some scoundrel who's gotten into the papacy? And I really like that focus and that mystery on that. And then it kind of went away from that And, um, I don't know what kind of— it— I kind of really dropped off from the series a bit there. But even so, this is still a good, a good show. Um, you know, is it must— is it must-watch TV for me? Um, you know what, my test for that has been basically, uh, you know, if I just have to watch an episode then for me that means it's must-watch TV. But if it's, you know, I kind of miss an episode here or there, you know, because it just isn't pulling me in, you know, then it could still be a good show, but may not be just must-watch TV. Now, should this show, I believe, be on your TV schedule? Absolutely. I still think this show is Even these last few episodes have been better than 80% of the TV shows that I watch on TV. But I had it like in my top 5, and I think it's kind of went outside of my top 5 with these last 4 episodes. And I know they're getting a season 2, and maybe they're saving some of the things I like most about the show to continue on for season 2. But anyway, that was my thoughts about why I've been kind of not jumping into these reviews like I— on The Young Pope, like I started off. The first 3 episodes I thought were awesome, but episodes 4 through 8, they kind of threw me. But I want to go over just some of the highlights of some of the things that happened throughout episodes 4 and 8, some of the things I did like, uh, through episodes 4 and 8, give that a little bit of setup. And then I think I'm gonna let the, uh, the season of this show finish out, and, uh, I will be coming back with my thoughts on the season finale because there are only 2 remaining episodes, and I will do some coverage of episode 9, and then I will finish it off with my thoughts on episode 10. But anyway, I'm just gonna hit some of the highlights. One of the stories we had going on was that Esther, the wife of the Swiss Guard, you know, who, you know, a lot of things happened with Esther throughout the throughout these episodes. And, you know, first, you know, in episode 4, you know, it was basically she was being used by Cardinal Voitello to frame the Pope, to put him in a compromising situation where it looked like he's done something inappropriate with her because of his fondness for her. They were basically thinking that the Pope was having an inappropriate affair or relationship with her. And so basically, he sets it up, Voiello sets it up to have Pope Pius XIII, or Lenny, to touch her in an inappropriate way where he has her to take his hand and put it on her body. And he's basically, in a sense, blackmailing her to do this, to set the Pope up based on the past, you know, her past affairs with his assistant, you know, the priest, you know, as we covered in, you know, episode 3. And, uh, you know, so she's kind of forced to do this thing even though she doesn't want to. You know, she feels like the Pope is pretty much a saint, like Sister Mary and some of the other priests around, people. But, um, you know, she does this thing and they go to take pictures, but You know, the Pope, you know, almost as if he knows what's going on or that he's, you know, that he's being set up, you know, he gives this very interesting speech about how, why the reason that, you know, he won't do the things like fall in love and that he's a priest, a man of God, is because he's a coward to love people. And this somehow touches Cardinal Vello, makes her feel like he's a real saint. So Cardinal Vello decides not to use this footage. He actually turns it over to Sister Mary. And some of the important things that happen throughout the series, you know, Voyello does come clean about trying to set the Pope up. And, you know, the Pope really just shows his dominance, his power over Cardinal Voyello. Let's know that not only am I a better priest than you, but I'm a better politician than you, you know. And, you know, basically has Bo, at least has Boiello groveling at his feet. And then, you know, we finally get this, just this, wow, this amazing address to the Cardinals. He finally addresses the Cardinals, you know, as they've all been waiting there, you know, waiting to go home, go out to their various, you know, parts of the world. To head their churches. And it's just this amazing speech about, um, you know, making the church once again mysterious and accessible. You know, him basically vanquishing everybody against him by going through the small door he has brought in and saying that they're going to go through that door and into hell. And he knows what this hell is like because it's a hell that he's built for them, you know. And just, just amazing, you know. Jude Law just gives an amazing, uh, performance. And see, these— and those are the, those are the parts of the show I wanted them to stay focused around. And the show just kind of goes off, I don't know, over the course of these episodes, it just goes off to a lot of directions that just— I just didn't— some— a lot of things I just didn't think were necessary. And, uh, you know, they said they felt like a lot of filler, you know, a lot of filler, and like it could have went off in too many directions. So then too much, you know, you know, like the fact it did that. But that the Cardinals address was excellent. And then we did get another, as you know, throughout the episodes as it moved, you know, as it moved on, as we moved on from Episodes 4 through 6, and we got up around episode 7, which dealt with the death of his foster brother, or I believe his name is pronounced Cardinal, uh, uh, Ducielo or something like that. And we find out this was Lenny's, uh, foster brother who he grew up with, who was very close with. And, um, you know, basically He wanted to go back to Honduras because, you know, of course Lenny's conservative rules are, you know, getting tougher. He wants to create investigations to see if priests are homosexuals and do various types of tests. And, you know, as addressed earlier by Cardinal Boello in early episodes, that him trying to stamp out every homosexual priest he believed would cause the whole institution prostitution to come crashing down, you know. So I guess it's just, you know, that rampant, you know, in the, in the, in Catholicism. And so a lot of them are against that, and very much so his foster brother. And we find out why his foster brother is very much against that, because in his, in the opening scene with him, he, he's having these, just this, these sexual orgies, and he's down in, in Honduras, and he's engaging in all of these his vices and, you know, uh, you know, his orgy— having orgies with men and women and just, um, you know, very, um, you know, uh, you know, he's very much against that, I imagine, for those reasons. But it just so happens that one of the women he's having sex with down in Honduras happens to be the wife of a, uh, a large-scale drug dealer, like a drug kingpin or narco, you know, the high level, like we talking like Pablo Escobar status. And he gets all in a triangle. I mean, you know, it's pretty crazy stuff. He gets in this triangle with the, with the wife and, and, and, you know, this, this drug kingpin. And the drug kingpin goes, you know, you're a priest And, you know, so on one end, my mind's telling me to not harm you, but on the other end, you know, based on what you've done, you know, it's almost like it's even worse that it's been done by you as a priest. So he ends up killing, you know, the Pope's foster brother, Cardinal Duciello. Again, I could be saying his name wrong. But the show, of course the Pope, he takes that really, really hard, and Sister Mary, because they've all been so close growing up. And so we move on like 9 months later throughout the series, and Pope Pius XIII finally is convinced you know, by his staff, by the marketing director, that, you know, hey, he should, you know, he should go to take a vacation. He ends up going to Africa. I can't remember the sister's name, but she's heading up these schools over there and various things. And, you know, we come to find out that, you know, he's supposed to be going there to praise this sister, but As he's over there, he's in one of his confessionals. He believes, you know, it's a priest who speaks English who's listening to his confession. We find out that the priest doesn't speak any English, but he slips him a note letting him know that the sister who he's coming to praise is not who she seems to be, that she's basically— they don't have a clean water supply. But she has clean water accessible through her facilities and she gives it to them, but it comes at a cost. And it comes at a cost of them having to perform sexual perversions for her to get favors and various things like that. So, you know, it turns out that this sister is a really, really just evil, you know, person. And you know, the Pope is, you know, is— this is brought to the Pope's attention. And so, you know, and so what the Pope does is the Pope basically, when he leaves there, you know, it didn't— the show goes back to some of those mysterious things I loved about the first 3 episodes. And this is where I wish it would have stayed on track with the series. Basically, he's with his entourage as they're heading back home to the Vatican. He just tells them he needs to stop. He just stops in the middle of the road and he starts to pray. I mean, he's really, really praying. He's like saying, "God, we have to have a talk about this sister back in Africa." He's just praying and praying. And when he gets through praying, this sister just falls out dead like she's been struck down by God. We don't know if it's coincidence or if it's just, you know, part of his, you know, uh, his abilities, or if he's really a saint. And so that's what we get with that. And, you know, those to me were the highlights of episodes 4 through 8. Now again, Those are the things that made me really like this show, all the mystery around it. I think what kind of shut me down a little bit about it was as it dealt with too much, a little bit, with the politics of the Vatican. And, you know, going into this show, I kind of expected it was gonna, you know, deal with a lot of that. And, you know, I didn't know if I was gonna really be interested in that, but You know, I come to find out the way they did it in the first 3 episodes, I thought it was done excellently. It went in a direction, and I love when a lot of it is unpredictable, when the show is unpredictable and I have to guess a bit, and I'm surprised by things. And that's how it was in the beginning, but then it just went into these Vatican investigations of pedophilia and homosexuality and, you know, just, you know, the typical things we, you know, we you know, hear every— all the time on the news about the Catholic Church. And, you know, it just became like one of those type situations, and, uh, kind of just kind of made me, you know, uh, it didn't feel like, you know, must-see TV anymore. But, uh, like I said before, guys, still an awesome show, still has to be— definitely will remain on my TV lineup. And I think when they— I hope when they go into season season 2 that they really pushed this mystery, these, uh, these mysteries about the, about the Pope being a saint and really played in that. I really enjoyed that. I could, I could enjoy that show just based on that part of it without, you know, all of the other, you know, filler, you know, things that were happening. But, uh, we do have 2 more episodes, guys, and, uh, maybe these 2 episodes will be, uh, you know, go back to how the first 3 were. Uh, but, uh, guys, if you're still watching The Young Pope, and, um, I hope you, you know, enjoyed some of the highlights at least that I, I liked on the show. But if you've enjoyed it up to now and you enjoyed all the other things that happened in the fillers, please comment below. Uh, let me know what you thought about it, what you liked about it, what you didn't like. Uh, don't forget to like and subscribe, guys. Take care.