The Decameron's Finale Is a Fight for Survival

Spoilers ahead.

For a goofy show set against the backdrop of the Black Plague of the 14th century, it’s only sensible that the story wraps up in a goofy way. The final episode of The Decameron, “We’ve Had a Good Cry,” does exactly that as the motley crew of Villa Santa—a mix of higher class royals and their obedient servants who have haphazardly quarantined to live out their final days in the face of a deadly pandemic—battles with the group of mercenaries that two of their crew, Licisca (Tanya Reynolds) and Filomena (Jessica Plummer), encountered midway through the season. With the militant group literally banging on the gate in search of blood (and a fancy villa to rest their heads in), the surrogate family must fend for their lives, mostly by making things up as they go.

As the gang senses danger afoot, they busy themselves with a quick game of “Don’t Touch His Egg,” which is basically tag but with an egg. Like much of this show, the game portrays a sense of the deliriousness that every character on the show experiences as death nears. Then: a knock at the door. But don’t worry—it’s just Licisca coming back to the castle after her brief shot at freedom in the previous episode.

Still, the survivors aren’t safe for long. The bandits easily pull down the gate and approach the castle with a cloaked figure—who else but Pampinea (Zosia Mamet). A member of the noble class who believes she deserves the villa because of her short-lived betrothal to the now-deceased owner whom she never even met in person, Pampinea continues to show her true colors and has made a deal with the devil: a.k.a. the leading, eye-patch-wearing mercenary Eric, who definitely won’t screw her over.

She advises that the only thing she wants is her dowry—the bag of jewels that she escaped with when she was banished in the last episode, slyly handed over by her loyal servant Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson)—and she is quick to point the finger at Licisca, who took the bag from Pampinea’s greedy hands in the penultimate episode. Licisca isn’t dumb, so she hands the bag over immediately, but Eric isn’t satisfied with such a quick show of obedience. He’s out for blood. Eric pulls out a knife and quickly makes contact with Tindaro’s (Douggie McMeekin) faulty armor before Panfilo (Karan Gill) stabs his other eye, killing him.

Unfortunately the final battle is just beginning. Eric’s army spills into the villa and our core group splinters off into different factions in search of hiding places. Sirisco and the villager friends whom he met in his brief stint outside of the villa are holed up together in a cellar when he gives a speech stating that it’s better to die than to be a bootlicker. But the villagers don’t really believe his rallying cry. When his friend Calindrino (Alfredo Pea) arrives with a sword through his stomach, Sirisco takes matters into his own hands, trying (and failing) to set the stone building on fire to trap everyone inside into death.

Filomena winds up with Pampinea and Misia, and she’s genuinely upset when Misia (whom she is in love with) harshly declares that Filomena is selfish and that a few weeks of cosplaying as a servant doesn’t make her one of them. Misia grabs Pampinea’s hand and drags her to the cellar, while Filomena hides behind a pillar all by herself, broken and upset.

Misia seems to be short-sighted initially, but quickly realizes the mistake she’s made once Pampinea confidently states that Misia will never leave her side. In one of the few truly interesting moments of the finale, Misia coaxes Pampinea to hide in a barrel and then promptly hammers it shut and lights it on fire. Bye, girl.

But Filomena isn’t faring well on her own; in fact, a mercenary finds her almost immediately and drags her hair-first up the stairs. She seems like a goner until none other than her former servant turned half-sister Licisca comes to her defense and kicks the intruder down the stairs to his death. Licisca’s decision to save her half-sister is one that defines her character: the front door was open without anyone guarding her escape, but she chose to risk her life for Filomena instead.

The biggest risk-taker, however, is Panfilo, who doesn’t see a reason to live after the death of his wife Neifile (Lou Gala) earlier in the season—he is steadfastly in love with her and her corpse, even though we saw him pleasuring himself to Dioneo’s (Amar Chadha-Patel) six-pack at the beginning of The Decameron. (Alas, the show never goes back to that detail, so never mind all of that.) Panfilo creates a diversion in the main lobby, drawing attention away from his fellow comrades. Holding Neifile’s dead body, the two bear the brunt of hundreds of arrows, killing him in a spectacular show of martyrdom.

Once the group closes the doors behind them, they’re free. No one comes after them, and they don’t have anywhere to go. Sirisco’s villager friends part ways with the group, unhappy with the version of him that they saw in the villa. Sirisco, Filomena, Licisca, Misia, Stratilia, and Jacopo experience a range of emotions: despair, fear, giddiness, and joy. They’re a family now, telling stories to each other to pass the time in their new cave home, with neither the Black Plague nor the mercenaries threatening their lives.

But perhaps even more importantly, their previous status as either nobleman or servant is expunged. The Decameron’s underlying thesis spoke to the struggle between one’s social status and one’s true self—earlier in the season, Licisca assumes Filomena’s noble identity after leaving her for dead during their journey to the villa, knowing that white lie would forever change her destiny; Pampinea used her status to constantly manipulate Misia, while Misia only lived to serve her master, feeling guilty late in the season when she found she had feelings of her own.

A pandemic, in theory, should level the playing field for everyone (we know that’s not the case in real life due to our current socio political and economic systems, but stay with me here). In The Decameron, that’s exactly what it does: Heroes rise up from anywhere, and pompous nobles are brought down a peg. Class is no longer the defining characteristic of one’s identity. Survival is. And in the new world order, everyone is equal.