With Jane away for the first half of the week, I found myself with a couple of hours free and Napoleon freshly set free on Apple TV. I was a bit worried that the period costume drama stuff would fry my brain, but I had read that the battle scenes were all marvellously done. So I gave it a spin.
It was pretty good, and I didn’t even mind the costume fluff and ballroom scenes. The battles were appropriately brutal, and it was nice to finally put some imagery to historical touch points like Austerlitz and Borodino. I even found myself pausing the vid to go read the Wikipedia articles to find out just how much license the producers took with the historical record. (A bit, if you’re wondering).
Two things that surprised me. I didn’t realise Napoleon’s relationship with Josephine was so tempestuous. She was a weapon! And it was a hoot to see the Brits portrayed as the villains for once. Perfidious Albion was extra perfidious because the whole story is told from the French PoV.
Finally, I really liked his big grey coat. I thought it looked awesome.