Regarded as a daring TV show because it touches on a very sensitive subject, HBO’s new drama “The Young Pope” premiered to a blazing start a few days ago and critics are one in saying that it is indeed an unparalleled and extraordinary pulp-prestige TV drama. The show already premiered on Sky Atlantic in Italy in October last year.
It kicked off with a killer episode that has placed the agony and the ecstasy of TV’s most daring show on full display.
Created by Paolo Sorrentino, the Jude Law-starrer does not have anything like it on TV, cable, or streaming service so “The Young Pope” is quite in a league of its own.
It is a combination of tightly-controlled tone with beautifully bizarre flights of fancy and absolutely colossal camp stands alone that some critics actually described it as “Hannibal” for lapsed Catholics, reports Vulture.
All about intrigues in the Vatican
It is obvious that “The Young Pope” is controversial because it tackles Vatican intrigues highlighted by Jude Law’s impeccable American accent and bare ass, and creating as many Twitter jokes as possible.
However, Rolling Stone believes that the TV series is actually about hats. There are more headgears sprinkled on the heads of people on the show than if a tornado ripped through a convention of milliners.
There are red hats, black hats, round hats, and square hats. There are men hats, lady hats, and hats that only the most divine among people can wear.
There are more hats than Tony Soprano had panic attacks in “Soprano” or Carrie Bradshaw had outfits that haven’t really aged that well in “Sex in the City.”
All about hats too
The magazine actually enumerated some of the hats found in the first episode of “The Young Pope,” and their significance in the Catholic Church.
There is the zucchetto, the small skullcap worn by high-ranking members of the clergy. Basically, it’s a yarmulke with an Italian name, like a Matzo Meatball. The name comes from the Italian word for pumpkin because it looks like half a gourd. It was created in the Middle Ages for the most typical of reasons which is to keep the head warm.
There is the morion of the Swiss Guard, the pope’s personal army of bodyguards. It originated in the 16th century but today is worn for ceremonial purposes only. It is defined as a helmet without visor or beaver.
There is the biretta, a three-peaked collapsible headpiece that the cardinal wears when entering mass. It comes in other colors, but red or black are the most typical. The Spanish prefer a style with four peaks because, if a person has ever seen the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Spanish Catholics certainly prefer a whole lot extra.
The purple zucchetto Lenny wears in this flashback doesn’t just mean that he has a flair for color. Purple is the color worn by bishops, so the scene took place some time when the Young Pope was younger and less of a pope.
Cardinals wear the red zucchetto, and even when they wear a biretta or another hat, they still have then on underneath, like Mormon underwear for the scalp. The red symbolizes the fact that they would spill their blood for the survival of the church.
There is also the galero, a flat-brimmed round hat that was the official headgear of the cardinal until it was replaced by the less-fancy biretta in 1965 when the church tried to modernize itself. Some older cardinals still wear it, like emo teens who refuse to take off their Hot Topic clothing when visiting the White House.
And there is also the classic fedora. It is the hat one wears when he or she is doing shady things in the middle of the night.
In terms of storyline, there is indeed nothing like “The Young Pope” both on TV and on film thus far so it comes out as something quite fresh.
Young and charming, newly elected Pius XIII, aka Lenny Belardo, is the first American Pope in history.
His ascension appears to be the result of a simple, effective media strategy implemented by the College of Cardinals.