The Musketeers 1.09.
Mar. 24th, 2014 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which no one ever heard of annulment and there are trips to the countryside all around.
I first thought the opening was supposed to be an Anne dream sequence before clueing in to the fact that it was supposed to really happen and apparantly serve as the French 17th century equivalent of going to Bath, which, no, but hey, we got a change of scenery (and weather) out of it. Also an Aramis episode but Aramis didn't come out of it too well, due to the writers insisting to pull an "all these years, she was the only woman I thought I could ever love" (the older I get, the more I dislike this trope) - what was Adele then, chopped liver? Not to mention that Isabelle/Sister Helene resurrects the unfortunate trend I thought we'd buried, no pun intended, after episode 3, that of female guest stars dying. This being said, I loved the nuns, including her, and do appreciate how they rallied and fought instead of being decorative extras, especially the Mother Superior.
The main plot, in terms of historical unlikellihood, was on the witch triall/pope office oggling level, if anyone cares. Mind you, given that in rl not only was the Louis/Anne marriage one that went from neutral to bad to worse to catastrophic and that it did take 23 years for Anne to give birth to a surviving child (though she did have several miscarriages early in the marriage), there was, in between, A LOT speculation whether or not Louis would try to get rid of her (what with the blame for the lack of an heir always going to the woman). The way several French kings had done in the past: pester and bribe the Pope into an annulment, sent the unfortunate woman to a convent and/or back home. (One of the most famous examples of a French queen whose marriage got annulled despite her having two surviving daughters with the King in question: Eleanor of Aquitaine. Who of course already had her eye on the young Henry, Duke of Normandy, married him post haste, and the two of them produced the eminently dysfunctional Plantagenet dynasty to rule the Angevin empire after Henry became King of England. I think Eleanor is still the only woman who was both queen of France and queen of England.) This wasn't possible in Anne's case because as mentioned two reviews earlier, the Spanish weight with the Vatican still outweighed the French one, and there was no way any Pope would have given Louis an annullment over her brother the King of Spain's objections. He most certainly would not have gotten an annullment to marry a Protestant.
(Sidenote: French royalty marrying Protestant nobility per se was possible, and did happen, though, but the Protestants were expected to convert and become Catholics first. Louis' and Anne's younger son Philippe ended up marrying the Protestant Lieselotte von der Pfalz, for example, who did convert albeit just for show and wrote incredibly vivid, funny and entertaining letters about her brother-in-law's court which are among the best primary sources we have on life under Le Roi Soleil. And of course Louis' father was Henri IV., of "Paris is worth a mass" fame.)
However, as far as assassination as an alternative method of getting rid of an unwanted queen is concerned: even in the show universe where annulment doesn't exist - and neither does Louis' younger brother Gaston, who was the heir until Anne produced the future Louis XIV - , why on earth would you hire something like this out to third and fourth parties who'd go after the woman in daylight in front of witnesses instead of using poison? Really, what are assassinations coming to in melodrama these days?
Anyway, there was some potentially interesting character stuff you could have done there with Louis early on pulling an "who will rid me of this troublesomepriest wife?" in a private conversation with Richelieu and going "how should I live without Anne?" when later faced with the reality of it later, but that would have demanded a different type of episode, one where Louis had to admit at least to himself he knew what he was doing when making such semi-veiled demands in front of the Cardinal but and would spend the rest of the episode on the one hand hoping it would happen and on the other fearing that it would, and would have to live with this afterwards.
Not that I exactly object to the episode we DID get; like I said, I loved the nuns, and while Aramis "the only woman I could ever..." was very unconvincing, Isabelle/Sister Helene very sensibly saying that their marriage would have been a disaster, pointing out why, and also making it clear it was her choice, not her father's, to go into a convent was not. Also we finally got some clerical background on Aramis, and Anne having some hurt/comfort sex with him immediately made me suspect they'll move the birth of Louis XIV forwards - or is that backwards - many years of schedule. Especially in combination of my ongoing speculation of how the show will handle Capaldi's unavailability due to Doctor Who. Right now, considering Capaldi got the news he was cast as the Doctor while The Musketeers was in the later stages of shooting (but hadn't completed yet), I suspect that the show might also kill off Richelieu several decades ahead of schedule in the finale and promote Mazarin (again, a decade or two ahead of schedule) to his job. Whether they'll also kill of Louis (repeat after me: decades of schedule), I doubt, though with Anne as Regent in tandem with Mazarin they could continue with with a scenario that has one friendly and one hostile person to the Musketeers at the top. And if the show makes Aramis the real dad of the future Sun King, then his getting into politics and the clergy for real suddenly has an additional new motive.
On the other hand, they might simply recast Richelieu, but like I said, I do suspect that getting the Doctor Who news might have caused some last minute rewrites so that the main antagonist gets killed in the show finale.
I first thought the opening was supposed to be an Anne dream sequence before clueing in to the fact that it was supposed to really happen and apparantly serve as the French 17th century equivalent of going to Bath, which, no, but hey, we got a change of scenery (and weather) out of it. Also an Aramis episode but Aramis didn't come out of it too well, due to the writers insisting to pull an "all these years, she was the only woman I thought I could ever love" (the older I get, the more I dislike this trope) - what was Adele then, chopped liver? Not to mention that Isabelle/Sister Helene resurrects the unfortunate trend I thought we'd buried, no pun intended, after episode 3, that of female guest stars dying. This being said, I loved the nuns, including her, and do appreciate how they rallied and fought instead of being decorative extras, especially the Mother Superior.
The main plot, in terms of historical unlikellihood, was on the witch triall/pope office oggling level, if anyone cares. Mind you, given that in rl not only was the Louis/Anne marriage one that went from neutral to bad to worse to catastrophic and that it did take 23 years for Anne to give birth to a surviving child (though she did have several miscarriages early in the marriage), there was, in between, A LOT speculation whether or not Louis would try to get rid of her (what with the blame for the lack of an heir always going to the woman). The way several French kings had done in the past: pester and bribe the Pope into an annulment, sent the unfortunate woman to a convent and/or back home. (One of the most famous examples of a French queen whose marriage got annulled despite her having two surviving daughters with the King in question: Eleanor of Aquitaine. Who of course already had her eye on the young Henry, Duke of Normandy, married him post haste, and the two of them produced the eminently dysfunctional Plantagenet dynasty to rule the Angevin empire after Henry became King of England. I think Eleanor is still the only woman who was both queen of France and queen of England.) This wasn't possible in Anne's case because as mentioned two reviews earlier, the Spanish weight with the Vatican still outweighed the French one, and there was no way any Pope would have given Louis an annullment over her brother the King of Spain's objections. He most certainly would not have gotten an annullment to marry a Protestant.
(Sidenote: French royalty marrying Protestant nobility per se was possible, and did happen, though, but the Protestants were expected to convert and become Catholics first. Louis' and Anne's younger son Philippe ended up marrying the Protestant Lieselotte von der Pfalz, for example, who did convert albeit just for show and wrote incredibly vivid, funny and entertaining letters about her brother-in-law's court which are among the best primary sources we have on life under Le Roi Soleil. And of course Louis' father was Henri IV., of "Paris is worth a mass" fame.)
However, as far as assassination as an alternative method of getting rid of an unwanted queen is concerned: even in the show universe where annulment doesn't exist - and neither does Louis' younger brother Gaston, who was the heir until Anne produced the future Louis XIV - , why on earth would you hire something like this out to third and fourth parties who'd go after the woman in daylight in front of witnesses instead of using poison? Really, what are assassinations coming to in melodrama these days?
Anyway, there was some potentially interesting character stuff you could have done there with Louis early on pulling an "who will rid me of this troublesome
Not that I exactly object to the episode we DID get; like I said, I loved the nuns, and while Aramis "the only woman I could ever..." was very unconvincing, Isabelle/Sister Helene very sensibly saying that their marriage would have been a disaster, pointing out why, and also making it clear it was her choice, not her father's, to go into a convent was not. Also we finally got some clerical background on Aramis, and Anne having some hurt/comfort sex with him immediately made me suspect they'll move the birth of Louis XIV forwards - or is that backwards - many years of schedule. Especially in combination of my ongoing speculation of how the show will handle Capaldi's unavailability due to Doctor Who. Right now, considering Capaldi got the news he was cast as the Doctor while The Musketeers was in the later stages of shooting (but hadn't completed yet), I suspect that the show might also kill off Richelieu several decades ahead of schedule in the finale and promote Mazarin (again, a decade or two ahead of schedule) to his job. Whether they'll also kill of Louis (repeat after me: decades of schedule), I doubt, though with Anne as Regent in tandem with Mazarin they could continue with with a scenario that has one friendly and one hostile person to the Musketeers at the top. And if the show makes Aramis the real dad of the future Sun King, then his getting into politics and the clergy for real suddenly has an additional new motive.
On the other hand, they might simply recast Richelieu, but like I said, I do suspect that getting the Doctor Who news might have caused some last minute rewrites so that the main antagonist gets killed in the show finale.
