The Decameron

"The Decameron" on Netflix is BONKERS in the most delightful of ways.

It’s a group of people escaping from the Black Plague in Firenze by going to a villa in the country where they expect to have a wonderful time and instead everything goes WILDLY out of control.

They are ALL terrible ppl, but for most of them it’s the madness caused by having to deal with what’s going on around them.

Everyone is dying.

Society is breaking down.

They’re trying to push away the fear, the guilt, the utter HORROR of living through what seems to be the End Times. It’s a lot.

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Notes

There’s a lot that happens and I HAVE to gush about it.

If I don’t, I will explode.

• That the well is open and full of leaves and whatever might fall in is disgusting and metaphoric. That all the servants wash their hands in one giant basin of standing water. And then later Pampinea has Misia "brush her teeth," which she does by rubbing her fingers over Pampinea’s teeth. DURING A FUCKING PLAGUE!
• The eye-fucking between Panfilo and the delivery guy… I expected him to invite the guy to stay. And then later when Andreoli comes back and they tryst in the barn…
• Neifile, who was honestly my favorite along with Panfilo, who I disregarded at first because she seemed so ditzy and unaware and actually she was the wisest out of everyone. You could see her feelings being hurt that Panfilo would lie to her. After everything that he doesn’t say, she accepted his secrets with silent grace, and it was his actual lies that hurt her the most.
• Ruggerio, who hangs out with a group of wild thuggish murderers, but who came across as an urbane gentleman.
• The sex dungeon!

I don’t know why, but it was hard for me to grasp the idea that everyone is there trying to please Pampinea so they can stay in the country villa. Because the city is FULL of plague. And the plague has changed EVERYTHING for all of them.

They reek of desperation, and she takes advantage of that because she’s awful. Just a terrible human being.

I get a bit fanficcy:

Filomena once had two sisters, a mother, a father, and a houseful of servants she knew her whole life. And now they’re all dead.

All she has left is Licisca. Her maid and "friend" that she hasn’t treated as well as she should have. And it’s not like she has regrets about that, because while she’s changed from the person she used to be, that person was the one that toyed with Licisca’s emotions and chopped off her hair when they were 12 years old and she came to the realization that everything was different between them. Forever.

She is watching everyone around her having sex, and she’s not part of it but she’s forced to see it happening. It’s debauchery because they are all falling apart and "We’re going to die anyway. Why not?"

And it’s interesting, because if she’d been able to be there under her own identity, she would have wholeheartedly fallen into that lifestyle. Not because she wanted to. But because she would be desperately trying to stay there. Straining to fit in amongst a group of vapid people trying their best to ignore the death surrounding them.

She was drawn closer and closer to Misia. Experiences the life of a servant and the unpleasantness of serving a terrible lady. But she holds on. Not wanting to be sent away to face the horrors of which she’d already tasted on her journey to the villa.

She watches Licisca playing at emotions and she’s by turns disgusted and amused. Because Tiranado is an insufferable bore and the most annoying sort of misogynist (the kind that won’t shut up!) but Dineo isn’t any better, and not just because of the poisoning.

She watches Licisca pretending to be her, and it is insulting and eye-opening and she hates it. Because she actually sees herself there. A person she doesn’t want to be but fears she really is.

And Misia gives her a sense of warmth, of acceptance and belonging when Licisca turns her away.

More than anything, Filomena wants to be different. Not as horrid as she used to be. But it’s hard when the world is burning down and death is everywhere.

And Licisca says mean words and refuses to be her friend again. Her sister. Her childhood companion she thought she’d always have. Forever.

~Harper Kingsley

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