'The New Pope' Episode 7 sees Pope Pius XIII wake up and grapple with his miracle-bestowing sainthood
'The New Pope' Episode 7 gives Jude Law his Ursula Andress moment, or since we are talking about the Vatican, Botticelli's Venus, arriving on the shore after his "re-birth".
His Speedo swimming trunks are resplendently, gloriously white. His earthly handmaidens, Esther (Ludivine Sagnier), waits for him with a cigarette cleverly disguised inside a cross pendant and Sofia (Cecile de France), drink in hand, lingers among a bevy of beauties who breathlessly follow Pope Pius XIII aka Lenny (Jude Law) with their eyes as he walks among them, before he winks at the camera.
However, that crisp, refreshing cold open is a complete antithesis to the rest of this gloomy episode. The Vatican stops all broadcasts from Pope Pius XIII's hospital room. So when he wakes up from his coma, only the doctor and the attending nurse-nun know. The nun has been praying (and sinning) in his room, asking God to bring him back. The nun owns up to only the praying part but Pope Pius XIII seems to know about her sinning too after giving him his daily sponge baths. Or so his smile suggests.
The doctor whisks him away to his mansion in Venice that is a wonder of set design and lighting. The doctor's wife is a "grieving Madonna" who gave birth to a sickly child 10 years ago who still hangs on to life, but barely.
Since Lenny's miraculous awakening, he looks uneasy about being called a saint or when people discuss his "miracles". He still thinks that his "miracles" were merely a confluence of improbable but not impossible coincidences. That the miracles, like Esther's pregnancy, would have happened regardless. He just happened to be around when they did. He takes zero responsibility for his sainthood and also smokes constantly, telling the doctor's wife "smoking is not nice; it is right".
He is, however, moved by the plight of the sickly boy and whispers in his ear the first night he sees him. When the boy's mother/Madonna asks him what he said, Lenny says he described heaven to him in detail. A tear rolls down the invalid boy's eyes.
Meanwhile, the Vatican is attacked and the Pieta statue is damaged. It is like the real Pieta was by Lenny's side (the mother and child), while the facsimile was crumbling. In a parallel thread, while Lenny bides his time in Venice before his eventual return, the replacement pope John Paul III (John Malkovich) is also crumbling.
The attack leaves his beloved dog, dead — the one he had brought all the way from England. The pooch's death destroys his "fragile like porcelain" self. He confesses to Gutierrez that the theological book he wrote, 'The Middle Way' (the reason why he was given the pope job) was actually written by his brother Adam, completed just before he died. He published it under his own name, rather than Adam's. In a rather self-aware way, he then also goes on to say that he is vain, pompous, a thief and an addict.
Gutierrez comforts him saying that God does not stop us from sinning, only promises that he will save us in the end. But as he is propping up with John Paul III's shattered self, he gets a call from Pope Pius's doctor saying Lenny is returning. And his delighted face shows he is a Lenny fan. And so the battle of the Popes begins.
'The New Pope' airs on HBO on Mondays.
