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- Starz
- Mar 5, 2024
- Starz
- Mar 5, 2024
- Starz
- Mar 5, 2024
- Starz
- Mar 5, 2024
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
72
70% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
30% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
72
70% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
30% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The stakes increase with every episode as the family climbs higher up the rungs of the social and court ladder and the whole thing remains tremendous. Propulsive but grounded. Plotty but never messy. Exuberant and sumptuous without becoming bananas (The Tudors, I love you, but come on). And that rarest treat: bitingly witty, just when it needs to be.
The king alone seems to hope he’s living in a fairy tale, or a star-crossed romance, or a grand historical epic. The fun of Mary & George is that it recognizes all along that he’s just been a pawn in a particularly vicious soap.
The seven-episode limited series zips along with all manner of surprising plot turns.
Mostly, though, there’s Julianne Moore. What a performance! Mary is arguably the most vicious and intimidating figure in the entire, sprawling story, yet Moore never shies away from showing us how Mary is often clueless and puts herself in humiliating situations — only to get back on her feet, dust herself off and get back in the game, more tenacious and dangerous than ever.
Galitzine is doing what he’s known for: playing an omnisexual noble whose beauty determines his path. Or at least that’s where we start. .... In the season’s back half, its talented actors and specific setting reveal something dark but essential about the human condition, beauty, and bravado.
While the series can sometimes feel like you're seeing out the long game with our protagonists, there's no denying this is a totally moreish watch that'll leave you suitably obsessed with (or fearful of) the Villers in no time.
But just as George does, the series eventually becomes too grandiose in its ambitions. Midway through, Mary & George eschews the carnal intrigue and begins plodding through Jacobean history, darkening itself into a moody recitation of the downfall of Walter Raleigh and other events leading to George’s end.
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