ding ding ding! And the winner is...

Cymbeline as Molly's favorite Shakespearean play as of yet. This is one I would totally buy on DVD, for the record. While not critically acclaimed, it had a plot and ending that I could genuinely buy and care about. Plus, finally a fabulously strong female lead (unfortunately named Imogen) who is neither dumb nor insane and carries the bulk of lines in the entire show.

We begin the play by finding out that Imogen (the king's daughter and only heir--due to his sons being stolen away when they were but tots) has married a poor man when it was widely known she was intended for the queen's son Cloten (yep, her stepbrother). Her husband is banished and she is imprisoned, so really her little act of rebellion didn't pan out so well.

Plus now the queen is pissed off because the poor guy (hysterically named Posthumus) was preferred over her darling Cloten. Cloten sucks, by the way, very self absorbed Adonis type, and Imogen quite rightfully scorns him. But unfortunately he won't take no for an answer.

Meanwhile, Imogen's beloved makes a bet that she is the most pure woman EVA, and sends his new buddy back to Imogen's kingdom to try and seduce her. He fails, but in typical fashion he can't admit this, so he hides in her room until she falls asleep and then "observes" her body so he knows details of moles and such to prove to Posthumus that he did bag her--so to speak.

Then there's the whole subplot about the king's sons being raised by a shepard and discovered by Imogen, and them decapitating Prince Cloten. There are misunderstandings galore, and the Queen partially poisons Imogen...yada yada yada.

But all of these intrigues pale in comparison to Act V Scene IV. This, I think, it my favorite bit in all of Shakespeare, thrown in completely randomly in a dream sequence:

Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The Apparitions fall on their knees.

Jupiter: No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts
Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt, you know,
Sky-planted batters all rebelling coasts?
Poor shadows of Elysium, hence, and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers:
Be not with mortal accidents opprest;
No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours.
Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;
Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift:
His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in
Our temple was he married. Rise, and fade.
He shall be lord of lady Imogen,
And happier much by his affliction made.
This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine:
and so, away: no further with your din
Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.

Ascends

Sicilius Leonatus: He came in thunder; his celestial breath
Was sulphurous to smell: the holy eagle
Stoop'd as to foot us: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleased.

All: Thanks, Jupiter!

So, basically, Zeus, the big man himself, flies in and tells them how to work out all their problems for a happy ending in the next scene. This is as literal as the deus ex machina gets, my friends. And I like it.

Molly