Henry Cavill Has an Awesome Butt, and Everything Else I Learned from "The Tudors"

You know how I'm always a few years behind the curve? Well, I recently "discovered" the Showtime series The Tudors on Netflix. Man, I've never seen anything quite as awesome as The Tudors. I'm only at the beginning of Season Two, and I've never been so entertained. (No spoilers, please, I really want to know if those Henry and Anne kids can work things out.)

I think the dirty little joke here is that the whole series is a joke, but nobody bothered to tell the audience. Instead, because there are actual historic figures involved, and everyone is wearing sumptuous costumes which get ripped off a lot, the audience feels like it's getting a marginally educational experience. It's like Masterpiece Theatre by way of Zalman King.

Personally, I've learned nothing, aside from the fact that Henry Cavill has a bare ass for the ages.

I'm not one of those tiresome people who squawk over every historical inaccuracy. It's nerdy and picky, like that guy from my college dorm who would count bullets during action movies and complain bitterly whenever anyone popped any extra shots.

I don't care about Henry's magically disappearing older sister, or that everyone dies in the wrong sequence and Anne Boleyn was by most accounts not half as hubba-hubba as Natalie Dormer. I don't even care that the costumes are often centuries off target, not to mention a bit skanky. People, it's entertainment involving boiling people to death like so much human ramen! Scads of nudity! And thuddingly bad dialogue interspersed with awkward pauses. (Really. It's pretty obvious the actors are waiting politely for the P.A. to turn over their cue card.) And it's hilarious that everyone goes commando for every occasion, like a RenFaire Lindsay Lohan.

Plus, all those inaccuracies open the door for further entertainment. In this world, the strapping (not to mention ginger) Henry VIII is a skinny brunette man-bitch who whines a lot. And, to show age, the costumers just sort of add a bit of extra padding and some unfortunate facial hair.

However, the finest moment of all, the second I realized that the writers hadn't even cracked open Wikipedia, let alone a book, came up over the weekend. They showed Henry VIII composing Greensleeves. Yes, I know there's a legend that he wrote it for Anne Boleyn, but sheesh. It's a style of music that didn't even exist yet. Henry would have needed prodigous musical talent, a time machine, and a magical compositional leprechaun to whisper the tune into his ear. And even then he probably would just come up with "Chopsticks."

At that point, I decided The Tudors is taking place in that purgatorial sideways place all my Lostie friends are complaining about. Next, I fully expect a scene where Henry VIII invents the hot-air balloon, meets some space people, founds a rock band, and then fakes his own death so he can retire with a robot Anne Boleyn, complete with pop-off head and detachable polydactyly. I bet they'll even set up household with a vampiric Catherine of Aragon (played by Jessica Rabbit).

In the comments, tell me if you nitpick inaccuracies in TV, and whether that makes you a doink. Or tell me what happens next on The Tudors, and be as inaccurate as you'd like. Or admit that you know who Zalman King is. I won't judge you, I promise.