[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.]
Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Gentle is billed because the “epic conclusion” to this Wolf Corridor story. The PBS Masterpiece collection dramatizes Hilary Mantel’s historic guide trilogy, which consists of Wolf Corridor, Carry Up the Our bodies, and The Mirror and the Gentle. The 2015 collection, Wolf Corridor, tailored the primary two books, and guide three is roofed within the 2025 sequel collection. However how a lot time of King Henry VIII’s life, particularly his notorious marriages, does the present cowl, when Season 1 primarily centered on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn? Pictures and episode descriptions from The Mirror and the Gentle reveal some particulars on this entrance.
The Mirror and the Gentle March 23 premiere picked up the place Wolf Corridor left off: the beheading of Anne Boleyn. The Crown‘s Claire Foy appeared as soon as extra because the doomed queen in recycled footage within the first episode, which was intercut with reshoots of Thomas (Mark Rylance) and Gregory Cromwell (Tom Holland) scenes from the unique collection to exchange Holland with Charlie Rowe, who performs Gregory on this second season. The execution scene was additionally juxtaposed by Henry (Damian Lewis) and Jane Seymour‘s (Kate Phillips) wedding ceremony.
The collection description implies we’ll see Jane’s demise this season (Seymour is the “died” of the well-known “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” poem used to recollect the Tudor monarch’s six wives’ fates).
“Could, 1536. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second spouse, is lifeless,” the logline reads. “Because the axe drops, Thomas Cromwell emerges from the massacre to proceed his climb to energy and wealth, whereas his formidable grasp, Henry, settles to short-lived happiness together with his third queen, Jane Seymour. However how lengthy can anybody survive underneath Henry’s merciless and capricious gaze?”
Episode descriptions additionally reveal when Jane will die this six-episode season.
In Episode 3, airing Sunday, April 6, “Rebels within the North demand Cromwell’s head and a return to the previous Catholic methods. With King Henry VIII starting to ponder his chief adviser’s failings, Cromwell withdraws from court docket and receives surprising information from throughout the ocean.” Episode 4 appears to be the demise knell for Phillips’ Jane. The outline, beforehand offered by PBS, reads, “The beginning of a prince comes at a horrible value and Cromwell should assist the King remarry. With European politics in disarray, Cromwell sees an opportunity to type a brand new alliance.”
Like within the books, Cromwell is the central character of Wolf Corridor, so Henry’s wives aren’t the first story being instructed, though his marriages do have main impacts on the politics of the time. The final guide, and this collection, are concerning the final 4 years of Cromwell’s life, depicting how he fell out of favor with the axe-happy monarch. Cromwell dies in 1540, the identical yr of Anne of Cleves’ short-lived marriage to Henry. Anne makes her debut in Episode 5, and the Episode 6 finale exhibits Cromwell in Henry’s crosshairs. It is going to take a “masterstroke of political maneuvering” to save lots of him from the axe’s edge, PBS teases.
Scroll by means of the picture gallery under to get a glimpse contained in the upcoming episodes. We’ll proceed to replace this as new pictures come out.
Wolf Corridor: The Mirror and the Gentle, Sundays, 9/8c, PBS