![]() ![]() This may or may not be historically accurate, but it at least gives Delaney the kind of heartless, all-powerful antagonist his character deserves, led by the marvelously (or Marvel-ously) named Sir Stuart Strange (Jonathan Pryce). Taboo presents the East India Company as a kind of pre-industrial revolution corporate juggernaut, employing espionage, murder, and boardroom threats to further its stranglehold on trade between Britain and the East. It’s a knotty plot to begin with, tangled further by vague allusions to voodoo, ghosts, and a traumatic incident on a ship that Delaney experiences in abstract flashbacks. The central conflict of the show, unlikely as it may seem, becomes Delaney’s attempts to use his ownership of Nootka Sound as a bargaining chip between the East India Company, a trade powerhouse, and the British and American governments, currently embroiled in the War of 1812. His father, now dead, was apparently an explorer who married a native woman, Delaney’s mother, in Canada, and whose only legacy to his children was a small piece of disputed land on Vancouver Island, Nootka Sound. In the show’s first episode, he returns to London after an absence of ten years, during which he was presumed dead in Africa. (The show’s title seems to refer to a number of his more subversive habits, including the aforementioned flesh-eating and a sexual relationship with his half-sister.) Hardy’s performance includes a distinctly odd vocal affect that sometimes comes across as half-Bane, half-BBC World Service, but it at least (if unintentionally) provides some moments of levity in an otherwise grim universe.ĭelaney as a character was created by Hardy and his father, the writer Edward “Chips” Hardy, and shepherded into existence by Steven Knight, the veteran British writer and director (he created the similarly violent Peaky Blinders, and directed Hardy in the critically acclaimed 2013 drama Locke). Hardy, though, does the lion’s share of keeping the audience intrigued, with Delaney coming across as a kind of Regency-era Jason Bourne, equipped with improbable super-strength, maniacal cunning, and a general disdain for the mores even of impolite society. Taboo is infinitely gruesomer than most of the 19th-century dramas that arrive by way of the BBC, but it’s respectably ambitious, and studded with luminaries from both sides of the Atlantic. And, this being a costume drama, he does it all while stalking through cobbled streets in a beaver-fur top hat. In one scene, he rips out the jugular of an enemy with his teeth. So John Delaney, the focal character in FX’s new drama Taboo, feels a bit like the apotheosis of Hardyian roles: He’s the distillation of machismo, a terrifying hulk of a man who returns to London seemingly from death, intent on salvaging his father’s squandered shipping business. Highlights of his performances from the last ten years include an infamously violent felon with an unexpected passion for drawing in Bronson, a brutal mixed-martial arts fighter estranged from his abusive father in Warrior, and a terrifying supervillain devoted to a small child in The Dark Knight Rises. So grab some ale and start your next binge with any of these ten historical dramas.Nobody excels at playing ferocious psychopaths with a sensitive side quite like Tom Hardy. The shows on this list will help you fill the void and stay in the blanket fort longer. Once you emerge from your dire wolf fur blanket fort, you may be feeling empty and sad but never fear there are many other shows to fill your need for epic battles, plotting intrigue, and steamy love scenes. Uhtred Ragnarsson of Bebbanburg, played by the dreamy Alexander Dreymon, quietly vows to someday reclaim his birthright. Uhtred Ragnarsson’s Uncle Aelfric claims Bebbanburg for himself. Earl Ragnar eventually adopts Uhtred, making him Uhtred Ragnarsson. When Uhtred’s father is killed by the Danes, he is taken prisoner and made a slave to the Earl Ragnar. Young Osbert is renamed Uhtred when his older brother is killed by the Danes making him the heir of Bebbanburg. Poor Osbert goes through many names and is constantly conflicted between his birthplace and the culture that raised him. It is based on The Saxon Stories, a series of novels written by Bernard Cornwell, and follows the Saxon-born Osbert of Bebbanburg. This show started as a BBC production but was acquired by Netflix. If you made yourself a dire wolf fur blanket fort and binged all five seasons of the British historical drama The Last Kingdom, you are not alone. ![]()
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