As someone who is currently watching Borgia: Faith and Fear, I fell in love with Isolda and her Lucrezia and wanted to hear you opinions about her portrayal!
i grew to adore isolda's lucrezia after my second watch which i did recently. i have to confess though i was a bit turned off by faith and fear at first since i was an extreme showtime's the borgias fan !! but now i'm a fan of faith and fear as well and i believe their characters were portrayed more authentically and raw. holliday's lucrezia will always be my favorite, but i love how isolda's lucrezia is more explored in faith and fear because she's more agentive and takes a more active role in political campaigns. her appearance is endearing as well, and she looks exactly like the lucrezia in pintoricchio's painting…so yeah, i think isolda did a tremendous job with lucrezia, exploring even darker aspects of the character, etc.
juan has always been my fav borgia brother in every borgia media but in faith and fear he's the older brother and an overconfident chad and a brute which i didn't really vibe with much (not that he wasn't good but i prefer david oakes's version !! the younger brother who's the pariah among the borgia family, vulnerable and weak, yet hiding behind a bravado facade with a cruel streak to mask his inferiority, going to extreme lengths and does terrible stuff to prove himself to his family and gain their love). though i do love how faith and fear juan's storylines revolve around him and lucrezia more than around him and cesare since the shift in making juan older than cesare made me less interested in the brothers' rivalry.
mark ryder's cesare is the younger brother and he's fascinating and real which makes him my fav borgia brother in faith and fear. his depiction is more historically accurate and distinctly machiavellian, just like his appearance, he looks exactly like cesare in altobello melone's portrait. his characterization is also far more interesting than showtime's version. (don't get me wrong because i do prefer françois arnaud as an actor for cesare and i believe he would have done much more if he had been given the material from faith and fear) but mark's cesare? he was such an entertaining loose cannon through and through without any justifications.
tom fontana was brave enough to make all the characters more realistic without having the narrative backing them up. he's not pushing you to root for anyone, and certainly not for cesare !! unlike showtime's version, where his misdeeds are somehow portrayed as "justified" despite being a selfish megalomaniac who is sly and only serves the family in ways that benefit him, he stands almost at the pinnacle of everyone, with no rivals to challenge him (except for his younger brother who eventually gets nerfed) neil jordan hyped cesare up at juan's expense (throwing all of cesare's negative traits onto him.) he made cesare too competent because he needed him to seem likable and gain the audience's sympathy, trying to fit him into the "conventionally heroic" category but inadvertently making him a sociopath (thank you françois for embracing this unintentional aspect of him). whereas faith and fear's cesare had so many epic twists and turns, he doesn't lie to himself that he's the family's protector, and certainly not lucrezia's protector either, considering how he's inflicting pain on her yet still remains twistedly codependent. there was a moment where he intimidates his own deserting army by shouting to them all the atrocities and murders he committed in his life, then asking them if they can expect any better now that they are betraying him…brilliant !! i would have loved to see showtime's cesare scrambling and reflecting with self-awareness.
in terms of lucrezia and cesare's chemistry…no one is ever beating holliday and françois' portrayal of their relationship that is laced with both twistedness and innocence. they're perfect at the little physical touches and intimacies that they improvised together, and how they built up strong sexual chemistry between cesare and lucrezia from the very beginning, and how their affair caused doom for everyone around them. chemistry like that will never be replicated on screen ever again and that's on that !!
where things have been toned down in showtime's the borgias, such as sex, blood, and violence...faith and fear is more brutal, sleazy, bloody, and sexified. that's why showtime's the borgias is more approachable and comfortable for some viewers; they took a more straightforward route and depicted a simpler perception of the borgia family. personally, what gripped me about showtime's the borgias were the actors' performances, their enthusiasm, the dynamics between cesare/lucrezia/juan and the sensuality laced into the trio's sinister incestuous web. the codependency between cesare and lucrezia, the cain and abel arc between cesare and juan, as well as the costumes, music, and cinematography, all contributed to my investment in the show.
borgia: faith and fear has accents that are all over the place, and the costumes are very questionable, as are the actors' performances and chemistry. but they absolutely knock it out of the park in terms of characterizations and overall creativity in storylines
