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The Musketeers 2.01.
They're back!
So the show solved its absent Capaldi problem by killing off Richelieu decades ahead of schedule, which had been one of my guesses, but instead of promoting Mazarin equally decades ahead of schedule, it belatedly introduces Rochefort and promotes him to new chief antagonist. It also gives him a Spooks season 6 like backstory. Take it from me now: Rochefort actually is a triple agent, i.e. the Spaniards think he's working for them but he's actually looking out both for himself and France and playing them false. Why do I think that? Because he gets to fill the Richelieu left gap in this show, and this version of the Cardinal was a For The Good Of France type villain, not a Muwahhaa One Dimensional Evil type of villain; also, we got the scene with the torture scars and all the emphasis on Rochefort having been Richelieu's best agent. Mind you, that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been all too happy to let Our Heroes die.
Other Rochefort thoughts: the last time I've seen Marc Warren on my tv, he played Kalinda's unmissed husband in everyone's least favourite Good Wife storyline, but he's got much more presence and a more interesting character here, fortunately. The show also gave him a friendship with Anne which already means a new dynamic. (And makes me wonder whether they hadn't originally meant to use Mazarin after all, given that Mazarin/Anne actually is history.) While Dumas!Rochefort was primarily D'Artagnan's arch nemesis in the first novel and his frenemy in the sequel, this one seems to have picked Athos as his Musketeer of choice, though I wonder if that will change if/when he finds out about Aramis and Anne.
Which brings me to: Aramis, starting out this season with repeated prayers for the dead, which looks like the show is going to nod to Dumas canon and let him go into a clerical direction after all. (And suddenly I wonder whether they'll simply conflate Aramis and Mazarin and go for the supreme irony of Aramis eventually essentially becoming Richelieu?) We also get a loose end since the pilot wrapped up when he finally finds out what became of Adele. I liked his scenes with Athos, who suddenly gets to be the voice of common sense to other people's angst.
Speaking of other people's angst, I love Treville in this show, but really, declining the council job because the dirty business of politics is not for him, while emotionally understandable (flashback to his highly interesting conversations with Richelieu last season), was just plain stupid, and Anne's look said as much. Otoh in a very 19th century melodrama twist, we find out that not only did he and his dying best friend know Porthos' hitherto unknown father, but there is A Shameful Secret about this they both feel incredibly guilty for. I take it that this means Porthos' biodad will turn out to have been a nobleman and the secret is that they were somehow responsible for separating him from Porthos' mother the ex slave and baby Porthos, presumably for status reasons. If they intend to use tidbuts of the real life story of the Dumas family, I wonder whether it will be even worse, if we equate Porthos with Alex Dumas the general, Alexandre the novelist's dad, because Alex Dumas along with mother and siblings was sold by his white noble father to pay for the passage back to France, though his father later felt guilty enough in the case of Alex to buy his son back. Anyway, looks like Porthos has an arc coming up, which is great.
Meanwhile, Lucy's existence suddenly made me afraid the s1 trend of killing off female guest stars in the first three episodes would be renewed, but thankfully not. Her other likely role is alternate D'Artagnan love interest, which as long as she's not vilified and/or killed off once the show inevitably lets him reunite with Constance, fine. Mind you, right now I think Constance is better off without him. My sympathies were entirely with her in their scenes, and I love that the show let her unromantically point out all the practicalities, i.e. that as D'Artagnan's mistress she wouldn't even get a pension if he died , she'd be cut off her family and friends and be left with nothing.
Louis continues to be the most well played Louis of any Musketeer incarnation, from the joy at the sight of the baby to the mixture of smouldering anger and lingering grief when Treville declined the position. I will really miss his relationship with Richelieu, but knew I wouldn't get more of that anyway unless they had recast the Cardinal.
Anne starts out strong, giving Constance the job in her household which brings us closer to novel canon and handling the Aramis-meets-baby situation with grace and tact while also making it clear this is the Dauphin, full stop. Re: canon giving her affectionate backstory with Rochefort, see above.
In conclusion: a good season opener. Huzzah!
So the show solved its absent Capaldi problem by killing off Richelieu decades ahead of schedule, which had been one of my guesses, but instead of promoting Mazarin equally decades ahead of schedule, it belatedly introduces Rochefort and promotes him to new chief antagonist. It also gives him a Spooks season 6 like backstory. Take it from me now: Rochefort actually is a triple agent, i.e. the Spaniards think he's working for them but he's actually looking out both for himself and France and playing them false. Why do I think that? Because he gets to fill the Richelieu left gap in this show, and this version of the Cardinal was a For The Good Of France type villain, not a Muwahhaa One Dimensional Evil type of villain; also, we got the scene with the torture scars and all the emphasis on Rochefort having been Richelieu's best agent. Mind you, that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been all too happy to let Our Heroes die.
Other Rochefort thoughts: the last time I've seen Marc Warren on my tv, he played Kalinda's unmissed husband in everyone's least favourite Good Wife storyline, but he's got much more presence and a more interesting character here, fortunately. The show also gave him a friendship with Anne which already means a new dynamic. (And makes me wonder whether they hadn't originally meant to use Mazarin after all, given that Mazarin/Anne actually is history.) While Dumas!Rochefort was primarily D'Artagnan's arch nemesis in the first novel and his frenemy in the sequel, this one seems to have picked Athos as his Musketeer of choice, though I wonder if that will change if/when he finds out about Aramis and Anne.
Which brings me to: Aramis, starting out this season with repeated prayers for the dead, which looks like the show is going to nod to Dumas canon and let him go into a clerical direction after all. (And suddenly I wonder whether they'll simply conflate Aramis and Mazarin and go for the supreme irony of Aramis eventually essentially becoming Richelieu?) We also get a loose end since the pilot wrapped up when he finally finds out what became of Adele. I liked his scenes with Athos, who suddenly gets to be the voice of common sense to other people's angst.
Speaking of other people's angst, I love Treville in this show, but really, declining the council job because the dirty business of politics is not for him, while emotionally understandable (flashback to his highly interesting conversations with Richelieu last season), was just plain stupid, and Anne's look said as much. Otoh in a very 19th century melodrama twist, we find out that not only did he and his dying best friend know Porthos' hitherto unknown father, but there is A Shameful Secret about this they both feel incredibly guilty for. I take it that this means Porthos' biodad will turn out to have been a nobleman and the secret is that they were somehow responsible for separating him from Porthos' mother the ex slave and baby Porthos, presumably for status reasons. If they intend to use tidbuts of the real life story of the Dumas family, I wonder whether it will be even worse, if we equate Porthos with Alex Dumas the general, Alexandre the novelist's dad, because Alex Dumas along with mother and siblings was sold by his white noble father to pay for the passage back to France, though his father later felt guilty enough in the case of Alex to buy his son back. Anyway, looks like Porthos has an arc coming up, which is great.
Meanwhile, Lucy's existence suddenly made me afraid the s1 trend of killing off female guest stars in the first three episodes would be renewed, but thankfully not. Her other likely role is alternate D'Artagnan love interest, which as long as she's not vilified and/or killed off once the show inevitably lets him reunite with Constance, fine. Mind you, right now I think Constance is better off without him. My sympathies were entirely with her in their scenes, and I love that the show let her unromantically point out all the practicalities, i.e. that as D'Artagnan's mistress she wouldn't even get a pension if he died , she'd be cut off her family and friends and be left with nothing.
Louis continues to be the most well played Louis of any Musketeer incarnation, from the joy at the sight of the baby to the mixture of smouldering anger and lingering grief when Treville declined the position. I will really miss his relationship with Richelieu, but knew I wouldn't get more of that anyway unless they had recast the Cardinal.
Anne starts out strong, giving Constance the job in her household which brings us closer to novel canon and handling the Aramis-meets-baby situation with grace and tact while also making it clear this is the Dauphin, full stop. Re: canon giving her affectionate backstory with Rochefort, see above.
In conclusion: a good season opener. Huzzah!
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That first scene with Treville was brutal. Louis was completely shattered. I'm sure Treville doesn't want it, and genuinely thinks he'd be terrible at it, but he spends an awful lot of time caught up in plots, so he's hardly morally pure (as Porthos thinks he is, right now, poor Porthos), and I'm sure he could think of a dozen people he'd rather NOT have the king's ear. Very much looking forward to A Shameful Secret related plotting, anyway.
I think that was a new character in the meet the baby scene, not Anne. Baby's nurse or something.
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