the young pope

the young pope is now in my all time top 5 of tv series.  i almost said it's my number 2 series of all time, of course DEADWOOD is the all time number 1 series in my world.  i would have made the young pope number 2 but there 's a good chance that i've watched some really good stuff that i can't remember.

the funny thing is that i almost gave up on the young pope 20 minutes into episode one but i was too lazy to get up and remove the disc.  or maybe god made me keep watching. the more i thought about it, the more i thought that the young pope closely resembled deadwood and the sopranos.

in deadwood, the series revolved around al swearengen and his crew. in the sopranos, the series revolved around tony soprano and his crew.  in the young pope, the series revolved around pope lenny and his crew of cardinals.  and the young pope had the hbo attention to little details along with extremely clever dialogue. i'll definitely be watching the young pope again this winter and just like deadwood and the sopranos, i'll be entranced with the characters so much that the plot will become secondary.

6 feet under had the best final 10 minutes of any series i've watched but the young pope is a close second and who knows, it might climb to number one.  the final 10 minutes of the young pope got me a little verkclempt and final 60 seconds were nothing short of exquisite. in contrast, deadwood and the sopranos had pretty weak final scenes.

as for religion, i found the series to be very critical of the vatican at the beginning but by the final episode, i was warming up to the vatican.  it was pretty cool watching the pope continually shaking his disposable lighter trying to spark his cigarettes. the young pope enjoyed his cherry cokes and cigarettes.

and of course like all hbo series, it has excellent opening credits.  you really need a dark room with good sound to appreciate just how cool this is.

billy loves you sons of bitches.