People like their drama in hour-long doses, or else BBC One or HBO might have run this Kit Harrington three-parter as a one-night three-hour epic movie. Harrington, HBO's beloved Jon Snow, is star and producer of this thriller based on the 1605 Gunpowder Plot that made conspirator Guy Fawkes the focus of an informal British holiday. Fawkes (Tom Cullen) is not the protagonist of Ronan Bennett's teleplay, which rightly spotlights Harrington's distant ancestor, Robert Catesby, the instigator of the plot. Harrington's Catesby is a Catholic embittered by the persecution of his kind under Elizabeth I and her successor, James I (Derek Riddell). Already an unhappy widower who can't help blaming his young son for his wife's death in childbirth, Catesby is taken over the edge when a raid on a clandestine Catholic service on his family estate leads to the brutal execution of his mother (pressed) and younger brother (drawn and quartered). The King is actually less enthusiastic about the persecution than his paranoid secretary of state, Robert Cecil (Peter Mullan) and Cecil's henchman Sir William Wade (Shaun Dooley), the man who led the Catesby raid. Robert's downward spiral is inescapably evocative of modern Islamic extremism as he rejects all advice to find safety in a Catholic country in favor of destroying his homeland's Protestant tyranny. While James believes that rank-and-file Catholics present no real threat to his country or his throne, Catesby is like Cecil's dream or nightmare come true, and historians have long suspected Cecil of egging on the plot in order to justify the larger crackdown he desired. Catesby is rebuffed by Spain, which claims a protectorate over English Catholics but sees no good coming from his schemes. Indeed, that country's "Catholic Majesty" ends up selling Catesby out when it's in Spain's national interest to do King James a favor. Nevertheless, Catesby persists in building a ragtag team, with more powerful support promised from exiles in France and dissidents in Northumberland should the plan to blow up the King in Parliament succeed. The famous Fawkes is introduced as a super badass who sees through and runs through a fake conspirator sent by Cecil before joining forces in Catesby's real plot. Throughout, Fawkes is shown as a more formidable fighter than history allows, but despite his prowess the deck is stacked against the plotters. Gunpowder has a moment of tragic irony when Catesby is accidentally ratted out by a frail but brave priest who survived torture and was rescued from prison by our hero. He didn't crack on the rack -- mentally, that is; the soundtrack gives a sickening snap when he suffers one ratchet too many -- but he proves all too trusting of the Spanish diplomats who claim to support Catesby's cause but plan to give him up to Cecil. Fawkes' arrest -- he might at least have taken out Cecil and the Parliament building had his fuse not been so slow -- leaves Catesby himself with a final fight-or-flight choice. Despite desperate advice from his cousin Anne Vaux (a dramatically deglamourized Liv Tyler), Catesby and a handful of followers decide to make a last stand, hoping form martyrdom despite Sir William's order to take the plotters alive....
By modern "Prime TV" standards Gunpowder is no more than an anecdote with no real other purpose than to invite the parallel with modern Islam or express Harrington's filial piety. Acknowledging that, it's still a solid entertainment with strong performances throughout. Harrington himself is appropriately intense and stubborn while Tyler is a modest revelation in her relatively minor role and Tom Cullen acquits himself more admirably as Fawkes than in his current main gig on The History Channel's silly Templar drama, Knightfall. Strange to say, I was especially impressed by Shaun Dooley as Sir William. I'd last seen him as a henchman on The White Queen and Gunpowder confirms that he's very good as an enforcer-style villain. He seems to radiate menace as his character can walk the walk while talking the talk, more than holding his own against the fearsome Fawkes. Someone needs to make Dooley the big bad on a genre show sometime, if that wouldn't be beneath his dignity. The acting and overall production make Gunpowder easily worth the modest three hours it asks of us. I suspect that short-form serials along this line will find a receptive audience with the right performers or subject matter. And someone just might get the idea someday to serve such a show up in one serving. People could get used to such things and come to expect them on a regular basis. At some point, if they catch on, you might even start calling each of them a Movie of the Week....
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