'The Decameron' is Fabulously Fun, Featuring Class Commentary & Pandemic Parallels

Leave your literature degree behind, and don’t fret over what you don’t remember reading in the 8th grade. The Decameron is a Netflix limited series (very) (loosely) based on the 14th-century Italian anthology of tales, full of lust, fun, dark humor, and unexpected heart. In 1348, Firenze, Italy, was ravaged by the Black Death, and chaos ruled the streets. The highborn families in town are invited to escape to Villa Santa, a nobleman’s estate in the “not-infected” countryside. What ensues is a sometimes uneven journey where the privileged hide in luxury and distract themselves from worldly horrors with food, fashion, wine, and sex, and the three remaining servants desperately try to keep up with their demands. 

Although the humor is generally dark, it is also often silly, which occasionally falls flat. The series has a particular Monty Python/sketch comedy feel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the dialogue was improvised. If you don’t like your period pieces to feature modern, anachronistic music, please exit stage right, as this is not for you. But let me assure you the soundtrack is flawless and meticulously thought through. When Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant” begins after handmaiden Licisca (Tanya Reynolds from Sex Education) pushes her insufferable lady Filomena (Jessica Plummer of EastEnders) into a river, it’s pitch perfect. 

As with the music, the dialogue is contemporary, which could be a nod to the source material’s use of vernacular Italian speech. More jarring is the actors speaking in their natural accents, be it English, American, Irish, or Italian, in a melting pot of civilization that may be more representative of the modern-day than the series’ medieval setting.

Period accuracy is not the point. The framework of the pandemic in the Middle Ages is a jumping-off point for explorations of class, religion, God’s wrath, and commonly held misbeliefs. There are parallels to COVID-19: this population would totally drink bleach if it were suggested as a cure. The breakdown of society reveals the worst of human nature – but also provides the freedom to cast off expectations as rules shift and inhibitions fall away. The idea that the rich can party while the rest of the world burns is maddening; seeing it challenged through the series is a balm.

The Decameron’s ensemble cast features ten leading players who give us incredible performances by delivering comedy and invoking pathos by turns. Of special mention are actors Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls) as handmaiden Misia and Zosia Mamet (Girls) as her lady Pampinea, who play off each other exquisitely. Jackson practically steals the show as the excessively devoted servant in a toxic, codependent relationship with her lady; Mamet is the second coming of Christine Baranski, playing up the self-centered, unreasonable noble as one you love to hate – and sometimes pity. (The only sticking point is Misia’s hair: why in God’s name did they give her the Velma ‘do?) 

Everyone is scheming to survive, and some are craftier than others. The villa’s steward Sirisco (Tony Hale) and the cook Stratilia (Leila Farzad) are the only servants left to keep the whole place running. Kind and compassionate, Licisca suffers in service to the selfish and wicked Filomena and seizes the opportunity to assume her identity when Filomena doesn’t surface from the water. As what we might now call “new money” behavior, Licisca does not act like a typical noblewoman. After overcoming her initial fears of discovery, she revels in the freedom of her newfound status, doing and acting as she pleases. She entertains the affections of two competing men: the buffoonish and sickness-prone lord Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin), and his personal doctor Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel), who is suave and sexy and utterly entranced by Licisca, the manic pixie dream girl. (He even speaks those magic words: “You’re not like other girls; you’re different.")

Competing for Dioneo’s attention are married couple Panfilo (Karan Gill) and Neifile (Lou Gala), who practice celibacy and are equally sexually frustrated. Panfilo is chipper and forgiving of his wife’s extreme faith in exchange for her acting as his beard, though she doesn’t realize it. Neifile is devout, praying constantly and wondering why God sent pestilence to end the world, all the while wrestling with the “sin” of her lustful thoughts. 

This series successfully features affirming queer representation as well as sex positivity, with a side of kink normalization. In addition to Panfilo’s fluid but male-centric sexuality, Misia’s lesbian relationship with her unfortunately plague-ridden lover Parmena (Tazmyn-May Gebbett) is given gravity and sentiment. Although Parmena believes she is dying as a result of God’s judgment, the show doesn’t agree or impart that. 

However, it does believe that you will laugh at these characters but ultimately come to care about them. The Decameron achieves this and more in its eight-episode run, though it may still prove too ludicrous for some. 

Catch all episodes of The Decameron, premiering on July 25, 2024, on Netflix.