Netflix’s The Leopard: The Prince read the wind, and adjusted his sails

The Leopard Episode 3 Recap and Review

I struggled with rating this episode, because it had some of the series’ strongest scenes so far (Don Fabrizio’s) and weakest (Tancredi’s and Angelica’s). In the end, I decided to go with the higher rating, if only for the Prince’s confession that he wanted to kill the ambitious, extremely wealthy Mayor Sedara. Don Fabrizio’s conversation with Father Pirrone was a meditation of a man struggling to stay one step ahead of a rapidly changing world, and feeling the breath of his pursuers at the back of his neck.

The Salinas have not lost their wealth. For the most part, they lived as their family had for generations. Yet on this trip to Donnafugata that Don Fabrizio insisted on, he could feel the exalted space he occupied getting crowded.

When the Salinas arrived in town in the past episode, Mayor Sedara made sure to welcome them as the most honoured of guests. He called for a band to play. He gathered the townspeople at the square. He knelt to greet the Prince. Behind the supplicant, however, was a man who had amassed eye watering wealth. There was practically no one left in town who did not owe him. Mayor Sedara paid for the repairs of the convent that Don Fabrizio had been supporting, a convent founded by one of his ancestors. The Mayor also offered to help with the costs of a festival; he initially couched the donation as money gathered by the townspeople, though it truly came from him. These were expenses that Don Fabrizio had traditionally covered. As his friend Don Ciccio told him, Mayor Sedara wanted to be him.

There laid Don Fabrizio’s anger and his guilt. Mayor Sedara represented those who would step on the Salinas so that they themselves would occupy the top of the social food chain. The mayor was part of an emerging capitalist class that was bent on replacing the old aristocratic class. Don Fabrizio wanted to annihilate them. He wanted to kill them. The desire was the sin, and it weighed on him more heavily than the immediate lust he felt for Mayor Sedara’s daughter Angelica.

Demonstrating the pragmatism that he had to prioritise over his own aristocratic impulses, Don Fabrizio accepted Tancredi’s repudiation of his daughter Concetta. He went to Mayor Sedara and asked for Angelica’s hand in marriage on behalf of his nephew. He minced no words when he declared that Tancredi had not a penny. It was unspoken but heavily in the room what Mayor Sedara was getting for his daughter – a charming penniless aristocrat, a centuries-old bloodline mixed with his new money progeny, a familial connection to the historic rulers of the island. For his part, Mayor Sedara also made clear what he and his daughter were bringing into the pact. The Mayor brought out a thick dusty book and started reading off the properties he had acquired over the years. Thousands of acres. Wealth that Tancredi simply did not have on his own. Wealth that would become partly his upon his marriage to Angelica.

That was how Don Fabrizio sold the marriage to his wife the Princess when she railed against it. She knew how deep Concetta’s feelings for Tancredi were, far more than Don Fabrizio did. The Princess pointed out how Mayor Sedara’s wife was called the Beast because she could not read or write or have a conversation, how his father was called something I would not type on this blog. That was the family they were to be joined by marriage.

Yet Don Fabrizio was adamant. He could not take down Mayor Sedara. He could not change the fact of his immense wealth and power. But, via Tancredi, he could lessen it considerably. He could facilitate the transfer of some of that wealth from the hands of a man he despised to a boy he loved. Even with Concetta on her knees begging him to put a stop to the union, he remained unmoved.

I thought I’d wait till the last episode before singing the praises of Kim Rossi Stuart as Don Fabrizio but I can’t anymore. What a performance. On that scene at the convent, when he realized that someone (the Mayor) had paid for the renovations that he meant to pay for, that slow realisation that someone was making him irrelevant in a place that his family had supported for generations, that he was no longer the sole man permitted inside, that someone else was living this part of his life, there was careful control on his face but his body appeared out of balance. I am three episodes in and it has been an absolute pleasure to watch him.

As for Tancredi and Angelica, well, Tancredi desired Angelica from the moment he saw her. Concetta was beautiful, but she had an innocence and dignity that he teased. Angelica looked a woman of the world, one who could meet his desires on equal footing rather than shy from them, a fellow adventurer, not someone he would have to lead. But, there was something that felt forced in the scenes of seduction between Tancredi and Angelica. I wonder if there would be something to this in later episodes, or if what I was seeing as somehow off was simply due to the youth and inexperience of the actors. 

Regardless, this is a phenomenally strong period piece episode that for me cements The Leopard as one of the best in the genre. On to the next! 

Strays

👑The episode began 20 years earlier, when a young Don Calogero Sedara used a couple of goats and some coins as dowry for his young lovely bride Bastiana. Even back then, he knew how to bargain. When they had their daughter, it was clear he immediately saw how that child could be of use in his rise. Angelica was raised to act a lady, even using the tried and tested technique of making her walk with a book on her head to train her posture.  

👑It looked like Don Calogero had been telling his wife that the Salinas were not inviting her all these years. Jerk.

👑Don Calogero wanted to know how Don Fabrizio intended to vote. Don Fabrizio said he has never voted in his life and would not start now. He would later change his mind. 

👑Major props to Francesco Colella for his portrayal of the smarmy Mayor Don Calogero Sedara. The squaring of the shoulders, the quick darting of the eyes, the snorts as he tried to gain information from Don Fabrizio at the dinner table – I obviously don’t like the character but the performance is excellent. 

👑Tancredi had previously refused to tell Concetta how he injured his eye. One question from Angelica, and he told the tale. A horrific act of war, and he told a vulgar r joke as a way to compliment Angelica. Angelica laughed, so did her father to support her, but Concetta was not amused, and told Tancredi so.  

👑Don Fabrizio finally asked Tancredi what was happening between him and Concetta. Tancredi said he did not know. He insisted on leaving the palace that night.

👑Concetta told her father she did not wish to return to the convent, she wanted to marry Tancredi, and declared that she loved him. Yes, that much is obvious, Concetta, but does he love you? Notice how Concetta told her father how she felt and what she wanted straight to his face, whilst Tancredi, pre-Angelica, wanted to elope when there really was no good reason for them to elope.

👑At church, Angelica knelt in front of Princess Stella and Concetta and asked forgiveness for her behaviour at dinner. Her learned lady-ing is very good. Concetta, true to her character, forgave her.  

👑Don Ciccio explained a couple of Don Calogero’s business schemes to Don Fabrizio, that allowed him to amass the capital to become a major moneylender, so that nearly everyone in town owed him. Don Calogero bought all the wheat reserves in the province when the redshirts arrived from Genoa, then sold them at triple the price a month later once the invasion started. He bought worthless land at a very low price, then all of a sudden, people would find out there was a sulfur mine beneath it. Don Cicci described Don Calogero as richer than the devil.  

👑Tancredi’s friend Cavriaghi liked Concetta whilst Tassani preferred Angelica.

👑Tancredi told Cavriaghi to court Concetta. Major jerk.

👑The way Don Fabrizio took Father Pirrone with him to ask for Angelica’s hand on behalf of Tancredi, so he could have a priest lie for him, is another example of the show’s subtle humour and biting critique at how religious leaders could find themselves under the thumb of the aristocracy. Father Pirrone confirmed the lie that there was no understanding that Tancredi and Concetta were to marry. 

👑Don Fabrizio voted in the election he had previously claimed he would not vote on. He voted for the unification under King Victor Emmanuel, and allowed everyone to see his vote. He knew where the wind was blowing and decided it was better to be seen leading than forcefully dragged into the new world. 

👑Mayor Sedara rigged the election to make it seem as though the town voted unanimously for the unification. He was called out by a townsfolk for this, who denounced the mayor as corrupt.

Rating: A

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