How ‘The Decameron’ Became the Summer’s Weirdest Hit Show
The Decameron has all the makings of a great sleeper hit: unexpected source material, abundant quirky humor, and sneakily moving performances. Netflix’s limited series also boasts the bone structure of Gosford Park or Knives Out: a motley crew of nobles and servants converge at a luxurious country villa outside Florence during an outbreak of the Black Death in the mid-1300s. A uniquely medieval type of sexy, silly, risky hijinks ensue, and in accordance with the laws governing cheeky historical fantasias, it’s all cued to gleefully anachronistic needle drops.
The Decameron is very, very, very loosely based on—what else?—The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio’s popular 14th-century collection of satirical short stories about how people reacted to the seemingly inescapable pandemic of the time. Series creator and showrunner Kathleen Jordan (Teenage Bounty Hunters) isn’t so much adapting the original as using the source material as a leaping-off point to explore questions about morality, emergency preparedness, and bacchanalia. Typical comedy stuff.
Jordan and Tony Hale, who weaves formidable comedy chops into his performance as the increasingly beleaguered and disillusioned estate steward Sirisco, sat down with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed for a chat about the enduring appeal of stories about how extreme circumstances shape human behavior, for better and for worse.