Unlike the glossy melodrama of The Borgias (Showtime), Tom Fontana’s Borgia (Canal+/ZDF) is a gritty, political, and psychological horror show dressed in Renaissance robes. Episode 3 is where the series stops introducing characters and starts vivisecting them. The Price of the Papal Chair Logline: As Rodrigo Borgia settles into the papacy, his first diplomatic crisis—welcoming a deposed Moorish prince into Rome—becomes a crucible that tests his family's loyalty, his mistress's ambition, and his own nascent tyranny.
Parallel to the political plot, Lucrezia (Isolda Dychauk, preternaturally still) is being groomed. Her mother, the ruthless Vanozza (Assumpta Serna), forces her to spy on a Spanish diplomat. Lucrezia fumbles the seduction—she is fifteen, terrified, and recoils from the man’s touch. Vanozza slaps her. “Your body is not yours. It is the family’s bank.” It is a chilling thesis statement for the entire series. Lucrezia’s eyes go dead. We are watching a victim learn to become a predator. Act Three: The Pope’s Daughter The Ritual of Humiliation Della Rovere, seeking to destabilize Alexander, secretly offers Djem safe passage to Naples. Djem refuses. In a stunning sequence, Djem kneels before Rodrigo and asks to be baptized. Rodrigo, sweating, knows this is a trap. Baptizing a Muslim prince will enrage the Ottomans (and lose the 40,000 ducats). Refusing will make him look faithless. borgia 1x03
It is the first time Rodrigo is silent.
(Subtract half a star only because the Juan subplot—drinking, whoring, being dull—feels like filler.) Unlike the glossy melodrama of The Borgias (Showtime),
The episode opens not in Vatican splendor, but in the muddy streets of Rome. A leper approaches the Vatican gates. While guards recoil, Cardinal Borgia (now Pope Alexander VI, played with reptilian weariness by John Doman) dismounts and kisses the man’s stumps. It is a calculated act of humilitas . The camera lingers on Cesare’s face—fascinated, disgusted, learning. This is power as performance. Act One: The Viper’s Nest The New Pope, The Old Problems Rodrigo has been Pope for three weeks. The Vatican is bankrupt. The College of Cardinals, led by the venomous Giuliano della Rovere (Colm Feore, chewing marble), refuses to fund his crusade against the Ottoman Turks. Della Rovere’s logic is icy: “You bought the chair, Alexander. Now sit in it and starve.” Parallel to the political plot, Lucrezia (Isolda Dychauk,
The Godfather Part II , The Name of the Rose , I, Claudius .
Rodrigo’s solution is pure Borgia: leverage. He invites (the eponymous "Moor"), the exiled brother of Sultan Bayezid II, to Rome. Djem is a golden hostage—Bayezid will pay 40,000 ducats per year for his captivity. It’s extortion as statecraft.