It's the penultimate episode of Season 2, and things are about to kick off.
Picking up immediately after the end of the previous episode, the Musketeers have been summoned to the palace by Constance. They go to report the incident to King Louis, but find that Rochefort - now sporting the eyepatch Christopher Lee made iconic for the character - is already there, along with the letter Queen Anne wrote to King Philip of Spain at the beginning of the season. Having forbade her to write to her brother, King Louis has her placed under house arrest. As the Musketeers are forced to leave the palace, they all learn that Aramis had slept with the queen. Athos decides to take up Milady's previous offer for information. She reveals that Rochefort is in the service of Vargas, the Spanish spymaster, and helps them sneak the queen out of the Louvre. But Rochefort then poisons King Louis, framing Constance and Lemay for it. The Musketeers and the Queen are forced to return to Paris upon learning this.
If there's one scene I have to dedicate time to, it's when the Musketeers and Treville learn of the liaison between Aramis and the queen. It's supposed to be dramatic, considering the magnitude of the situation, but it's also kind of hilarious. Aramis doesn't admit to sleeping with the queen; Athos tells the others he did. Porthos asks Aramis why he didn't say something sooner (prompting a funny comment from d'Artagnan to show his idealistic nature), while Treville is dumbstruck and asks why Athos didn't do anything (who nonchalantly states he would have shot him if he'd known what he was going to do). When Aramis confesses to the Dauphin being his son, Porthos gets ready to strangle him until he realises the burden he's been carrying and goes to hug him. Treville has to physically separate them, going from disbelief to fury as he shouts at Aramis for endangering the entire country. Athos - who has been almost gleeful through all this, like a kid telling on a sibling to their parents - then reveals that Rochefort knows, and Treville is despairing over it.
That scene aside, this episode is a tense one. There isn't much action, but that's because it's building up to the finale. Rochefort is basically playing his endgame by driving the queen away. He uses Marguerite to falsely accuse Constance and Lemay, and enlists Milady to work for him to implicate Aramis. But when he chokes her for making a snide remark, she ultimately sides with the Musketeers. There's plenty of teeth-clenched teamwork moments between her and Athos, with a brief diversion as Katherine de Garreville attempts to exact revenge on her. Personally, I feel that particular part doesn't add much, since Katherine doesn't appear again at any point in the story.
Ultimately, very little is resolved this episode. Porthos rides out to deliver a forged letter from Rochefort to Vargas. The Musketeers return to the Louvre with the Queen, but Rochefort is waiting for them. Aramis is arrested for treason, while the others are escorted out of the grounds. It ends with d'Artagnan trying to see an imprisoned Constance until he's beaten and dragged away by the Red Guards.
But it doesn't matter that nothing gets resolved, because it makes me excited for the next episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment