Tony Hale in Netflix’s Black Plague Comedy 5

As Netflix’s The Decameron begins, nearly all of our characters are retreating. They might not put it in quite those terms, but it’s exactly what these characters are doing: flocking to the “beautiful, not-infected countryside,” as one character puts it, in hopes of waiting out the Black Plague currently tearing through the continent.

But it doesn’t matter how hard they try to get into “the holiday state of mind,” or how desperately some of them might hope to reorient their fortunes while away. It almost doesn’t even matter how insistently real life intrudes on their getaway. The Decameron is a fitfully funny, occasionally poignant testament to the truism that no matter the circumstances, people will always find a way to be people, in all our petty or horny or heroic glory.

From the moment The Decameron‘s nobles and attendants arrive at the Villa Santa, at the invitation of the mysterious Visconte Leonardo, they’re sucked into a web of sex and secrets that would be the envy of any reality show producer. Pious Neifile (Lou Gala) and her ambitious husband Panfilo (Karan Gill) lust, separately, after studly doctor Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel). He, in turn, only has eyes for the free-spirited lady Filomena, who is actually the servant Licisca (Tanya Reynolds) appropriating her mistress’ identity. Leonardo himself remains suspiciously absent, for reasons known by few but Sirisco (the reliably hilarious Tony Hale), his steward, and Stratilia (Leila Farzad), his cook — to the aggravation of Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), the wealthy fiancée he’s never met. And so on, and so forth.

The Decameron takes none of this very seriously to start. Even as corpses are being dumped by the wagonload into the rivers of Florence, our characters are enjoying their own featherlight romp in Tuscany — or at least trying to, when they’re not under threat from robbers or disease. (On that note, the series enjoys poking fun at medieval preventative measures, like sticking flowers in one’s nose or rubbing raw onions across pulse points.) Like Prime Video’s My Lady Jane or Starz’s Mary & George, Kathleen Jordan’s loose Giovanni Boccaccio adaptation is pointedly irreverent in its approach to history. The setting might look more or less as we’d expect of a medieval costume drama — give or take Pampinea’s penchant for Euphoria face jewels — but the dialogue is bitchy and bawdy, and delivered in unapologetically modern accents.

Some of its most savage jokes lie in the dynamics between master and servant — and none of those are more toxic than the one between Pampinea and her loyal handmaiden Misia (Derry Girls‘ Saoirse-Monica Jackson). Mamet is the series’ comic highlight, ping-ponging between tantrums, whines and sickly-sweet pleas with the volatility of an overgrown toddler; Jackson’s Misia receives these outbursts with an obeisance that is eventually pushed to the point of breaking. Pampinea is the sort of employer who cheerfully instructs Misia to let herself get taken should they be stopped by highway bandits, “to make it easier.” Misia is the sort of employee who agrees without a second’s hesitation.

Despite the cast’s best efforts, the comedy suffers from quite a bit of shagginess in early chapters. With eight hours to fill, jokes that were only ever sort of funny, like Neifile’s longing gazes at every shirtless man God throws in her path, repeat themselves with diminishing returns. Meanwhile, characters like Panfilo or the real Filomena (Jessica Plummer) take too long to distinguish themselves as anything other than generically awful rich folks, and too many relationships seem propelled more by the show’s need for maximum drama than by palpable attractions or animosities on the characters’ parts.

But The Decameron improves as it digs deeper, toward the pain and sorrow underneath the hijinks. Though the series never gives up on humor, it allows a sincerity to seep in. Death is a frequent visitor at Villa Santa from the jump — the Michael Uppendahl-directed premiere ends in a bloodbath, as the guests fend off a roving band of thieves — but it gains weight as it begins to claim characters we’ve come to care about. In the face of such stark truths, relationships that had previously seemed defined by contempt reveal surprising reservoirs of love. While a few of these jerks remain rotten to the end, others find layers of heroism and compassion buried within. Even Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin), Dioneo’s misogynistic buffoon of a master, reveals himself to have a sweet side, in the series’ most disarming act of character rehabilitation.

As the stakes rise for the characters, so does our investment in their stories. The second half of The Decameron circles in earnest the tension between the human desire for freedom — from social hierarchies, from dark pasts, from toxic bosses or frenemies — and our equally relatable need for connection. Love is a burden, one character observes as the walls close in late in the season, and his words ring true; not long after, another will observe that the only thing any of them have left to fight for is each other, and that will sound right too. The Decameron‘s true darkness, when it arrives, is persuasive enough to make you wish the series had been striking that balance better the entire time. Instead, it makes the same mistake its heroes and villains do. It allows itself to pretend nothing matters, until it’s almost too late.