“We’re all born to certain roles. Our destiny is set,” a character explains in an early episode of My Lady Jane, Prime Video’s new take on an old tale of historical upheaval, palace intrigue, and social evolution. It’s the kind of thing that always gets said in stories like this, where women are pawns in the man’s game of thrones, dominated and married off and exiled and executed to suit the whims of the power players, doomed to the life of subservience fated to them by their birth. What the rest of My Lady Jane questions is: What if that didn’t happen? And also: What if some people could magically transform into animals?
The show is based on the books by author trio Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows, whose series, beginning with the 2016 novel of the same name, reimagines the life of Lady Jane Grey, the noblewoman who assumed the throne of England after the deaths of her uncle King Henry VIII and her young cousin King Edward VI. Edward VI had presided over the Protestant Reformation of the Church of England, and as she was a Protestant he knew Jane would keep his work going after his death. In reality, Queen Jane reigned for a total of nine days before she was executed as a heretic and her half-sister Mary (a Catholic) was made queen instead. “Fuck that,” the show’s narrator quips in the opening episode. “What if history were different?”
My Lady Jane, the show, exists in an alternate reality to ours, populated by a similar aristocratic nobility that dominates society, and an underclass of magical shapeshifters called “Ethians” who, in an unsubtle racism/homophobia/apartheid metaphor, are persecuted by the government if their ability is found out. Think Wicked by way of Carnival Row. Jane Grey (Emily Bader, sharp-eyed and commanding), botany enthusiast, and relative of the ailing king, is not one of these people; her problems are more straightforward. Her tyrant mother Lady Frances (a terrifying Anna Chancellor) is hell-bent on marrying her off to secure the livelihood of their family after the death of Jane’s father. Jane’s reluctant marriage to Lord Guildford Dudley (a smoldering Edward Bluemel), son of the scheming Lord Dudley (Rob Brydon in a little pearl earring), unwittingly sets her on a path of deadly secrets and palace intrigue as she uncovers a plot to assassinate the king.
My Lady Jane feels like a spiritual sibling of shows like Dickinson and The Great, rattling a new narrative from the bare bones of historical fact, with an impish modern tone that brushes off the bonds of reality. This Lady Jane is (maybe) not doomed, because this world has animal-people in it, and we the viewers have a much more evolved view of a woman’s place in society. The show’s events are slyly observed by an only slightly irritating narrator who interjects plot context where it’s needed (and often where it’s not) and mutters “Oh, shit” whenever anything bad is about to happen. In the introduction of the first episode, he quotes the mantra from the Broadway musical Six: “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” Each episode features riot grrrl covers of male-fronted rock songs like The Beatles’ “Come Together” and Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” and characters routinely shirk their “thees” and “thous” to spit contemporary slang like “Fuck that.”
Despite this, the show does go by the book, as far as a vague historical outline. Jane marries Guildford Dudley, the country is shaken by the death of King Edward, and Jane eventually faces off against Bloody Mary Tudor (portrayed in shrill caricature by Kate O’Flynn). The sets and costumes are opulent and detailed, faithful reproductions of what the time period would have looked like, white face powder and high collars and all. The cinematography is glazed with a soft-focus sheen that emphasizes the glittering jewels on a royal crown and the licking flames of an executioner’s pyre. But that’s where the similarities end and the fantasy elements take over.
It’s one thing to do a “yas queen” alternate history where female empowerment (the very modern social media version of it) is placed above historical accuracy, but it’s quite another to ask audiences to accept that in this alternate history the main political issue is whether or not the people who can transform into animals should be executed as witches or not. The Ethian subplot seems to take the place of the Catholic-Protestant conflict that existed at the time—there’s not really any reference to religion in the show at all—but beyond a few “So-and-so was an animal the whole time!” twists, it’s only rarely used to its full potential.
Ultimately, My Lady Jane is a weird one, somewhere between the swords and sorcery of Game of Thrones and the historical drama of The Tudors, part of the current wave of period-set comedies but with elements that place it in a more earnest fantasy realm. It’s fun for the sort of viewer who likes their historical fiction gilded with a bit of magic, and the instant chemistry between its two leads is enough to keep the attention of even those who might be skeptical of its fantastical parts. For those weary of 1:1 history shows, My Lady Jane invites you to expect the unexpected.
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