What do triple toe-loops on the ice and pirates in tropical Southeast Asia have in common? Well, not much, except they were both at the top of my TV watchlist during last week's frigid winter storms.
After a long day at the keyboard, I like to chill in front of the tube at night, with a purring cat and a glass of wine, and having opted out of the news cycle to preserve what's left of my mental health, I found myself drawn into the figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics. At the same time, I happened upon Sandokan: The Pirate Prince, an 8-episode, Italian swashbuckler now streaming on Netflix.
For a week, I was madly channel-hopping between the two (although there are a thousand ways you can catch up with any Olympic events you might have missed), so that the two programs became almost inextricably linked in my brain. Both offer equal opportunities to cheer triumphs, commiserate with losses, cheer on underdogs, and explore complicated personalities. And both came loaded with plenty of drama.
But the heroine, Marianne, soon drops her attitude, and gets drawn into the larger story of colonialism, attempted genocide, rebellion, and liberation. (Indeed, while there's a decent amount of shipboard action, these pirates are less interested in plunder than in battling English invaders who would steal their resources and enslave their people.) There's also the evolving mystery of pirate Sandokan's true origin, and heroic destiny. Along the way, we meet salty pirates, exotic natives, spirited women, and a plethora of sinister antagonists, including the corrupt English consul (Marianne's father), and an opium-smoking British naval captain out to hunt pirates, and the ruthless, sybaritic local sultan, with a taste for torture, both of whom have designs on Marianne.
Meanwhile, over at the Olympics, most of the drama for Team USA centered on skaters who didn't quite live up to expectations. Champion ice dancing pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates "only" won silver, and there was some whining about a French judge whose scores might have elevated French pair Laurence Fournier and Guillaume Cizeron to the top spot. Yes, the Americans skated beautifully, but so did the French; I loved the precision of their Rhythmic category performance to Madonna's "Vogue."
But the story of the event — possibly of this entire Olympics — was 21-year-old figure skater Ilia Malinin, from Fairfax, Virginia. The son of two Russian figure skaters, Malinin, nicknamed the Quad God, is a star on the tournament circuit; he's like the Simone Biles of figure skating, doing amazing things on ice never before attempted, let alone achieved, by any other human, like the insanely difficult quadruple axel, and back flips.
But having lost the gold in penance, Malinin found redemption. The hottest ticket at the Winter Olympics is always the Exhibition Gala on the last night, where skaters present routines out of competition, with no mandatory elements, and do whatever they want. Malinin skated to the song, "Fear," by a rapper called NF; dressed in jeans and a dark gray hoodie, he confronted darkness, disillusion, and crippling self-doubt, landed every masterful jump and flip (on a single blade, fer cryin' out loud), and emerged triumphant.
And here's the thing: no one will ever remember the disappointing free skate that landed him in 8th place instead of on the podium in the men’s individual competition. But no one will ever forget his exhibition program — it may become the defining image of this year’s games.
