The Musketeers Marathon - S1E5: The Homecoming

 

The weather's not great today. But it's not raining musketeers outside. In a bid to mix up the usual swashbuckling, today's episode takes the form of a murder mystery.

After a wild night celebrating his birthday, Porthos wakes up in the street next to a dead body. Unable to recall how he got there, he's promptly arrested by the Red Guards and sentenced to death. On the way to his execution, he's kidnapped and taken to the Court of Miracles, one of the most notorious Parisian slums. There, he re-unites with his old comrade Charon, played by Ashley Walters, who leads one of the Court's most prominent gangs. Although counselled to leave Paris, he tries to recall the events of that night. Meanwhile, d'Artagnan and the other Musketeers are unable to enter the Court, and decide to carry out their own investigation. They learn that the victim was the son of an impoverished aristocrat, who was connected to a Protestant church and the illegal purchase of gunpowder. Something sinister is afoot, and they must find out what.

I love the mystery aspect of this episode (again, I don't want to spoil too much). The opening with Porthos waking up next to the body (along with a melon) is interspersed with flashbacks to the previous evening when he and the other Musketeers were celebrating at the Garrison. During the festivities, Porthos shoots a melon off Aramis' head (according to Athos, it's a shot he's never made sober), and it's set up that the body he found was killed in a botched trick shot.

This episode also delves deeper into the backstory of this version of Porthos. It was previously mentioned in an earlier episode that his mother was a freed slave who died in poverty. Porthos himself is now established to have grown up in the Court of Miracles, and was in a gang with Charon, while also being romantically involved with a thief named Flea. He later left to join the army, and from there received a commission in the Musketeers.

One person who also gets a moment to shine is Treville. This episode shows just how much he truly cares for his men: He defends Porthos as a character witness during the trial; when Porthos is being taken to the gallows by the Red Guards, he tells the Musketeers to delay them while he appeals to the king for a stay of execution; and when Charon tells Athos that Porthos thinks his friends abandoned him, he immediately recognises that Charon is trying to drive a wedge between them. Although I do have questions about his actions at the end of the episode. I don't think it's something a nobleman in 17th Century France would do.