If I were to use one word to describe this play, it would be "disgusting". Concretely, abstractly, physically, and spiritually disgusting.
We start off with Somerset immediately having his head chopped off. By a peasant no less. He was dying anyway, so he asked the peasant to let him die by nobler hands. To no avail. He was not a great guy to the end.
Margaret Anjou is devastated. By now, Henry VI does have a clue about their affair and pathetically observes that she wouldn't mourn as much for him. Sigh.
In all of this, some random noble is killed. This random noble's son vows revenge against the Plantagenets.
But meanwhile, Henry VI agrees to give up his throne to Plantagenets after he dies, disinheriting his son. It was pathetic, I agree, the way he did it but Margaret Anjou, in what I would presume is an act of treason rounds up her own people, goes over to the Plantagenets home, kills the the Duke of York, burns the house. Random noble's son kills the youngest son. Richard Plantagenet, who has a crooked back, a disabled arm, and a limp (not in real life it turns out) watches selfishly and cowardly from behind a wall while his brother dies.
Ok, now Plantagenets round up, to supposedly fight Henry VI, but really it's Margaret Anjou. Henry VI hides from the fighting and descends conveniently into madness at this moment.
Richard stabs random noble's son who did get a little cocky because of the bad arm and then to make it a hard death, doesn't chop off his head. That was a bad scene.
Margaret Anjou is routed and runs off with her son to France. Henry VI runs around in naked ecstasy for a while and then is thrown into the Tower of London.
The eldest York son, Edward becomes king.
Then falls inconveniently in love with some random woman just when Warwick Kingmaker has promised an alliance between Edward and the French king's sister. The French king:
French king's sister who hasn't even met Edward is heartbroken and Margaret Anjou takes this moment to stir up a fight between the two countries.
Warwick sensing that he's in trouble here immediately switches allegiances to Margaret Anjou and her son. That was pretty pathetic too. And I think bad writing because except for this scene, he's a good character and well-written. It was much too abrupt.
Richard and George are pretty disgusted by their brother and his loose pants but George takes it a step further and says he's siding with Warwick and Margaret Anjou. Warwick agrees to let George marry his daughter. I thought for a second here Henry VI would conveniently regain his sanity in time to try and reclaim his crown but he doesn't. Instead he gives his son his blessings to go and try to get it for himself.
Edward:
Off they go to face off the Plantagenets and George sees his brothers and then immediately turns again. He changes his mind as fast as that guy from Katy Perry's song. Sadly, he's already married to Warwick's daughter and Warwick is really worried about this.
Warwick dies, asking his daughter be taken care of. Margaret Anjou is captured. Her son killed. Richard goes off and kills Henry VI in the Tower of London, deciding that since women don't even like him, he's just going to become king even if it's by killing everyone. (Seriously he says this. He was the original incel, I found him.) Edward and the random lady everyone hates have a son. Richard laughs villainously into the camera as he plans on how he's going to kill the babe.
The end.
If you're not sure what happened, it's ok. I don't think words are the right way to keep track of this. So far it was: Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI and now Edward. Richard line, Henry line, Henry line, Henry line (red rose), Richard line (white rose). Remember they're all cousins, so really this is too much family drama the public has to put up with.
They went hard on the rose imagery.
They did some Jesus imagery which, since this is the York guy, nicely ties back to Richard II and his original Jesus imagery.
They tossed around heads and desecrated them quite a bit in this show. It was unamusing. If I'd gone on this play alone, I'd say the whole lot of the English were barbaric savages. Ugh.
And with this, we've gotten through half of the Shakespeare plays! I think we're going to finish the whole list in two years instead of one, but we're still going at a steady if slower pace than in the beginning.
The Winter's Tale, next.
