‘My Lady Jane’: The Fun New Series That Gives a Middle Finger to History
“We’re all born to certain roles. Our destiny is set,” a character explains in an early episode of My Lady Jane, Prime Video’s new take on an old tale of historical upheaval, palace intrigue, and social evolution. It’s the kind of thing that always gets said in stories like this, where women are pawns in the man’s game of thrones, dominated and married off and exiled and executed to suit the whims of the power players, doomed to the life of subservience fated to them by their birth. What the rest of My Lady Jane questions is: What if that didn’t happen? And also: What if some people could magically transform into animals?
The show is based on the books by author trio Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows, whose series, beginning with the 2016 novel of the same name, reimagines the life of Lady Jane Grey, the noblewoman who assumed the throne of England after the deaths of her uncle King Henry VIII and her young cousin King Edward VI. Edward VI had presided over the Protestant Reformation of the Church of England, and as she was a Protestant he knew Jane would keep his work going after his death. In reality, Queen Jane reigned for a total of nine days before she was executed as a heretic and her half-sister Mary (a Catholic) was made queen instead. “Fuck that,” the show’s narrator quips in the opening episode. “What if history were different?”
My Lady Jane, the show, exists in an alternate reality to ours, populated by a similar aristocratic nobility that dominates society, and an underclass of magical shapeshifters called “Ethians” who, in an unsubtle racism/homophobia/apartheid metaphor, are persecuted by the government if their ability is found out. Think Wicked by way of Carnival Row. Jane Grey (Emily Bader, sharp-eyed and commanding), botany enthusiast, and relative of the ailing king, is not one of these people; her problems are more straightforward. Her tyrant mother Lady Frances (a terrifying Anna Chancellor) is hell-bent on marrying her off to secure the livelihood of their family after the death of Jane’s father. Jane’s reluctant marriage to Lord Guildford Dudley (a smoldering Edward Bluemel), son of the scheming Lord Dudley (Rob Brydon in a little pearl earring), unwittingly sets her on a path of deadly secrets and palace intrigue as she uncovers a plot to assassinate the king.