The Young Pope: Episode Seven

February 5, 2017 11:47 PM - Season 1, Episode 7

Cardinal Voiello schemes, and frets. Cardinal Dussolier goes to an absurd party, and goes swimming. Cardinal Spencer expounds on Lenny's plan, and makes a speech. Sister Mary visits the jungle and prays. Pope Pius XIII gets an astonishing gift

I have some questions:
How did Cardinal Caltanissetta (Cardinal COPD) make it up the stairs to that meeting? And what's his relationship to Spencer - mentor?
What's with all the Venetian imagery? Was Lenny Belardo abandoned in Venice?

Is Hallelujah one of the most over-covered songs, or the most over-covered song?

posted by the man of twists and turns (7 comments total)

The Young Pope Episode 7 Recap: It's a Hard Knock Life

Though Lenny was thoroughly boring this episode, I’m beginning to think that he might be more hero than antihero. Tonight, he experienced two very important revelations. The first he expressed to both Spencer and Sister Mary: that his papacy is a failure. Everyone knew it wasn’t in the Church or the Lord’s best interest for him to impose such a strict doctrine, one so lacking forgiveness, on Catholics across the world. He’s finally realized this himself, and knows that something has to change.

The Young Pope Recap: A Hard-Knock Life

The flaw in Pius’ armor this episode will be exploited by a very surprising source — two of them, really. First, Tomasso goes to see Sister Mary (in what he believes to be a cloak-and-dagger fashion, bless his pure heart) to report with the shock and horror we’ve come to expect of him that Pius is having a profound crisis of faith and no longer believes in God.

This. Is. When. Something. Amazing. Happens.

You may or may not be familiar with the hit Broadway musical Annie — and its subsequent film adaptations Annie (1982) and Annie (2014) — in which a plucky young red-haired orphan uses the power of positive thinking and her natural hustle to eventually move on up to riches and a family. Here’s what you need to know at this particular moment: 1) IT’S THE BEST, and 2) This episode on The Young Pope exactly recreates a major plotline.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:52 PM on February 5, 2017

Is Hallelujah one of the most over-covered songs, or the most over-covered song?

At May 1st 2011 at 00.01 GMT we know of at least 41,915 public performances, of which 33,345 have been recorded. Of these we have 25,998 full recordings in our collection. Far more than Lennon/McCartney's "Yesterday" which has http://wzlx.cbslocal.com/2015/03/11/the-beatles-yesterday-covers/.(Summertime Connection info via this Quora answer, second part via Google search.)

For comparison, Wikipedia currently claims there are over 300 covers of "Hallelujah," but that's based on a now-dead Leonard Cohen fansite that was last updated in 2008. Second Hand Songs lists a scant 177.

Enough music facts, back to the episode in full: What's with all the Venetian imagery? Was Lenny Belardo abandoned in Venice?

He wasn't abandoned, so much as he was "deposited" at the orphanage, though I'm still not sure where that is supposed to be located, and my online searches are failing to fill in that detail.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:33 AM on February 6, 2017

What's with all the Venetian imagery? Was Lenny Belardo abandoned in Venice?

I think they told Sister Mary they were going to Venice after they deposited Lenny at the orphanage. It's the only thing he knows about them, aside I guess from how his mother smells.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:40 AM on February 6, 2017

Did they really have to kill Andy? Yeah, I suppose they did.

Other than that disappointment, I like where this is going.

Favorite lines:
Pius: Why don't they want to be tracked down?
Sister Mary: Because they're afraid of you, your Holiness. Everyone is afraid of you. You've got to cut it out with the fear, your Holiness.

For a brief second, I imagined Conway as Mary and Trump as Pius.

I liked the smell test. As if he doesn't trust any of his other senses, just that primal one that always has the most reliable memory.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:20 PM on February 6, 2017

I think they told Sister Mary they were going to Venice after they deposited Lenny at the orphanage.

See but this has been bothering me - if a couple of American hippies, in America, are dropping off their kid at an orphanage and say they're heading to Venice, wouldn't you assume Venice Beach, California? Or am I being dense?
posted by aiglet at 1:52 PM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

You're not dense. Other parts of Lenny's backstory don't really add up -- like I don't understand how he didn't know his parents' names by the age of 8. Or how Sister Mary can have told him his parents were going to Venice when his abandonment flashback shows them leaving him at the front gate and not speaking with Sister Mary at all. If that conversation did happen, they must have specified Venice in Italy, or maybe they talked about their plan with Lenny before leaving him behind.

My guess is that either this fuzziness is intentional, because memories are unreliable, or it betrays something that will be revealed later about his parents' motives and/or Sister Mary's.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 3:44 PM on February 8, 2017

The thing about not knowing his parents' names is absurdly confusing. I do think they must have talked to Sister Mary ahead of time (otherwise she wouldn't have just stood there when they dropped him off).

That said, I think there is something we aren't being told about this. I can't imagine that dropping a healthy non-infant child at an orphanage during the '60s was common.

And the Annie reference was just great.
posted by radioamy at 12:20 PM on February 22, 2017