Episode #1.1

Gunpowder follows the story of Robert Catesby (Kit Harington) who in 1605 plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James I.

The first episode of Gunpowder had a gruelling first half as Sir William Wade suspected that mass has taken place by papists in the household and the Catholic priests were being hidden.

It is a long segment as just as the audience things the troops has done their search and are about to leave, Wade searches again and gets closer to their hiding place.

The sequence ends up with torture porn as a woman is stripped naked and had heavy weights put on her and another younger man is hung, drawn and quartered.

The episode makes it point about the horrific way that Catholics were treated in Britain. The pace settles down as Robert Cecil (Mark Gatiss) is hoping to persuade King James that he faces imminent dangers from Catholics.

So far Kit Harington gives a haunting mournful look, probably figuring out how to pay the fines levied on him for missing all those Sunday church services.