Everything to Remember for 'The Serpent Queen' Season 2

The Serpent Queen initially aired in the fall of 2022, and though it was originally hinted to be a limited series, it was a big enough hit that Season 2 was confirmed toward the end of its run. Continuing the story of Catherine de Medici with verve, humor, and a delightful cast led by Samantha Morton in the title role, the series picks and chooses when to be historically correct. Based on Leonie Frieda’s book Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, it fearlessly inserts modern dialogue and sentiments into the story of a queen we don’t know much about.

Her contemporaries considered her at best a vulgar upstart, at worst a dangerous poisoner and dabbler in dark arts, and a threat to the male powerbrokers of Europe. Thrown into the ruthless atmosphere of the French court, Catherine had no choice but to play the power game to survive. She not only survived, she triumphed, and by the end of Season 1, was the Regent of France, although her ambition came with a heavy price. But let’s go back to the beginning of the story, where we met the young Catherine de Medici (breakout star Liv Hill), the surviving daughter of a not particularly pleasant or aristocratic family, whose appeal lay mostly in her dowry, negotiated by her sleazy uncle the Pope (Charles Dance).

The orphaned Catherine was sent to a nunnery, where she was bullied and made to perform menial tasks; her only other option to marriage. Catherine escaped harm despite being captured during a French invasion and realized for the first time that if she were to survive, she needed to be proactive in the marriage negotiations with the French king’s second son, Henri (Alex Heath/Lee Ingleby). Catherine upped the budget and the wow factor and learned the elegant use of that new-fangled item, the fork, plus manners and dancing. She made an unforgettable arrival in France, emerging from an egg-shaped carriage and wearing elaborate Chinese-inspired clothes.