The Musketeers 1.10
Apr. 2nd, 2014 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the first season concludes.
I must admit they had me until Treville showed up to fire D'Artagnan, at which point I gathered it had to be a ruse. Speaking of ruses, letting Milady aim a weapon at Constance was obviously baiting anyone who's actually read the books to be afraid, but at that point I was reasonably sure the show wouldn't kill off either of the woman. Still am not keen on the fact Constance was mostly used as a damsel in distress (though she valiantly tried to escape twice and succeeded the second time), but I'll take living Constance over dead Constance any day. Letting Athos get over his Milady angst by not killng her the second time around and acknowledging his share of responsibility, then symbolically throwing away her token worked within this show; I just wish Milady had been presented as smarter and more ruthless these last few episodes because she's been unsuccessful in everything she tried which makes her not a good spy and assassin. (By contrast, book!Milady manages to succeed in her mission to get Buckingham killed despite the fact that due to Our Heroes, she's captured upon arrival in England and throwin into prison immediately. The way she subverts her Puritan jailer and makes him from someone who loathes her into not only her path to freedom but her very own tool of assassination whom neither Buckingham nor our heroes ever see coming is as masterful as anything a villain - male or female - in a swashbuckling story ever did, and I just wish the show had let her do some equivalent of this.) (Not to mentiont hat book!Milady is smart enough to want some ensurance from her boss that he won't throw her to the dogs afterwards and wash his hands of her by making him sign a letter that she did act on his orders before she goes about assassinating foreign heads of government.)
I also was terribly distracted when Richelieu after all the insistence on secrecy in the previous episode had no problem talking about the attempted assassination of the Queen in front of his guards throughout the finale. Given that the main plot was for the Musketeers to trick Richelieu into a confession, this seems extremely ill thought out writing - instead of going through the whole trouble of faking Athos' death etc., they could have just disguised the Queen as a Cardinal's guard and have her hear all. No, but seriously, I would accept this as a sign of Richelieu displaying hubris were it not that it's more likely a sign for the scriptwriters not regarding second-guard-from-the-right & comrades as people as opposed to set decoration.This being said: I did like that how the the Musketeers finally get Richelieu to admit what he's done was by insisting he did it to gain more power, goading him to clarify it was to secure a succession to avoid a return to the civil wars. And having Anne, not Louis (as I had expected - there had to be a secret listener, obviously) be the one to hear it was downright inspired and made for a great coming into-her-power moment for Anne; you could see the future Queen Regent here. (Her reason for using this as leverage against the Cardinal instead of as a way to get rid of him - he's necessary for the government, and Louis needs him - worked for me as well instead of smacking of plot device.)
As I speculated, they moved the imminent arrival of the future Louis XIV forward by many years instead of letting him be born 23 years into the Royal marriage, and made Aramis his dad, which is deliciously messed up if you know The Man in the Iron Mask and Aramis' role in it. Though I doubt that will happen in this 'verse, especially given that they moved the secret-twin-plot forward a generation earlier this season. I wonder whether Aramis in this 'verse will father Anne's second son as well? Or maybe Philippe d'Orleans will join his uncle Gaston d'Orleans into non-existence on this show. No Monsieur, as the brother of the French King was always called, for either Louis XIII or Louis XIV? (I really am lost why no one ever uses Gaston; not that he was in any way an endearing person, but he WAS a non-stop schemer and thus provider of actual plots for our heroes to foil. He had married rich and had the money, plus of course until the future Louis XIV was born he could plot unafraid of being executed for it since he WAS Louis' sole heir until then.) (This, btw, was one of several reasons why Richelieu was majorly invested in keeping Louis alive. Not only did Gaston have all the ambition and none of the competence but he hated Richelieu's guts. It would have been the end of the Cardinal the moment Gaston got on the throne.)
A word about the historical paternity of Anne's older son: considering Anne had several miscarriages early in her marriage, when relations between her and Louis weren't that bad yet, nobody thought of either her or Louis as infertile per se. But Louis, as opposed to most other French kings (including his father and his son), didn't have bastards - that would be because of the lack of mistresses, he had male favourites instead, whether or not anything happened with them -, so there was a huge question mark whether they'd ever be able to produce a living heir. And then the marriage went sour which meant there was even less of a chance, due to the lack of marital sex. When the future heir finally arrived, greeted by the Gazette de France (official newspaper, started, btw, by Richelieu who figured newly invented newspapers could be extremely useful for the government) as "a marvel when it was least expected", there was a contemporary anecdote that the sole reason the king and queen had sex again was because Louis, intending to travel to Saint-Maur, was trapped by a storm and since the only heated rooms in the castle in question were the queen's was obliged to spend the night with her, presto, heir. Who was called Louis Dieudonné, Louis, God's gift. While rumour later had Anne take Cardinal Mazarin (Richelieu's protegé who succeeded him as first minister upon his death) as a lover, their relationship (whatever it was) hadn't started yet at the time of Louis XIV. conception, and there was no one else Anne was rumoured to have an affair with in her later years, plus Louis XIV. certainly looks like a Bourbon and a lot like Louis XIII in his portraits, so as much as one can say anything about people centuries dead, he was probably a legitimate child. This did not stop novelists and film makers, mind you. Dumas didn't give Louis an alternate paternity, but I've seen two Man-in-the-Iron-Mask adaptions where one of the Musketeers was, in fact, the father - D'Artagnan, though, not Aramis. And then there was a novel which made Anne/Richelieu hate sex the reason for Louis XIV. conception. (And still, nobody bothers to explain Philippe d'Orleans.:) In any event, historically speaking, Anne had a far, far better relationship with her older son than her mother-in-law had with Louis XIII. Very unusual for royalty, Anne spent a lot of time with him instead of leaving him to nuses and governesses, and as an adult Louis XIV wrote about her in his journals: ""Nature was responsible for the first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood." Theirs was probably the closest and most harmonious parent-child relationship the Bourbons managed while on the throne, and thus Anne as a mother had a happy ending.
Back to the show: I liked the first half of the season until and including the Marie de' Medici episode better than the second half, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the first season in totem. It's fun, it mostly uses its ensemble well, and I like the actors. Speculation for the second season: I'm still not sure whether they'll solve their Capaldi problem by recasting Richelieu or by killing him off and move Mazarin forward in time. Having Richelieu observe Anne's and Aramis' leave taking was evidently meant as a teaser of sorts to hint the Cardinal has/will figure out how the baby came to be and thus possibly has leverage against Anne to counterweigh her leverage against him, but that point is moot if Richelieu is killed off instead of recast. Given the Cardinal and Milady parted ways, I doubt the show will ever do the whole Buckingham plot line so important in the novel, though if they do introduce and promote Mazarin ahead of time, they could simply let him rehire Milady instead of they wanted, I suppose. In conclusion, I have no idea what the next season will bring, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
I must admit they had me until Treville showed up to fire D'Artagnan, at which point I gathered it had to be a ruse. Speaking of ruses, letting Milady aim a weapon at Constance was obviously baiting anyone who's actually read the books to be afraid, but at that point I was reasonably sure the show wouldn't kill off either of the woman. Still am not keen on the fact Constance was mostly used as a damsel in distress (though she valiantly tried to escape twice and succeeded the second time), but I'll take living Constance over dead Constance any day. Letting Athos get over his Milady angst by not killng her the second time around and acknowledging his share of responsibility, then symbolically throwing away her token worked within this show; I just wish Milady had been presented as smarter and more ruthless these last few episodes because she's been unsuccessful in everything she tried which makes her not a good spy and assassin. (By contrast, book!Milady manages to succeed in her mission to get Buckingham killed despite the fact that due to Our Heroes, she's captured upon arrival in England and throwin into prison immediately. The way she subverts her Puritan jailer and makes him from someone who loathes her into not only her path to freedom but her very own tool of assassination whom neither Buckingham nor our heroes ever see coming is as masterful as anything a villain - male or female - in a swashbuckling story ever did, and I just wish the show had let her do some equivalent of this.) (Not to mentiont hat book!Milady is smart enough to want some ensurance from her boss that he won't throw her to the dogs afterwards and wash his hands of her by making him sign a letter that she did act on his orders before she goes about assassinating foreign heads of government.)
I also was terribly distracted when Richelieu after all the insistence on secrecy in the previous episode had no problem talking about the attempted assassination of the Queen in front of his guards throughout the finale. Given that the main plot was for the Musketeers to trick Richelieu into a confession, this seems extremely ill thought out writing - instead of going through the whole trouble of faking Athos' death etc., they could have just disguised the Queen as a Cardinal's guard and have her hear all. No, but seriously, I would accept this as a sign of Richelieu displaying hubris were it not that it's more likely a sign for the scriptwriters not regarding second-guard-from-the-right & comrades as people as opposed to set decoration.This being said: I did like that how the the Musketeers finally get Richelieu to admit what he's done was by insisting he did it to gain more power, goading him to clarify it was to secure a succession to avoid a return to the civil wars. And having Anne, not Louis (as I had expected - there had to be a secret listener, obviously) be the one to hear it was downright inspired and made for a great coming into-her-power moment for Anne; you could see the future Queen Regent here. (Her reason for using this as leverage against the Cardinal instead of as a way to get rid of him - he's necessary for the government, and Louis needs him - worked for me as well instead of smacking of plot device.)
As I speculated, they moved the imminent arrival of the future Louis XIV forward by many years instead of letting him be born 23 years into the Royal marriage, and made Aramis his dad, which is deliciously messed up if you know The Man in the Iron Mask and Aramis' role in it. Though I doubt that will happen in this 'verse, especially given that they moved the secret-twin-plot forward a generation earlier this season. I wonder whether Aramis in this 'verse will father Anne's second son as well? Or maybe Philippe d'Orleans will join his uncle Gaston d'Orleans into non-existence on this show. No Monsieur, as the brother of the French King was always called, for either Louis XIII or Louis XIV? (I really am lost why no one ever uses Gaston; not that he was in any way an endearing person, but he WAS a non-stop schemer and thus provider of actual plots for our heroes to foil. He had married rich and had the money, plus of course until the future Louis XIV was born he could plot unafraid of being executed for it since he WAS Louis' sole heir until then.) (This, btw, was one of several reasons why Richelieu was majorly invested in keeping Louis alive. Not only did Gaston have all the ambition and none of the competence but he hated Richelieu's guts. It would have been the end of the Cardinal the moment Gaston got on the throne.)
A word about the historical paternity of Anne's older son: considering Anne had several miscarriages early in her marriage, when relations between her and Louis weren't that bad yet, nobody thought of either her or Louis as infertile per se. But Louis, as opposed to most other French kings (including his father and his son), didn't have bastards - that would be because of the lack of mistresses, he had male favourites instead, whether or not anything happened with them -, so there was a huge question mark whether they'd ever be able to produce a living heir. And then the marriage went sour which meant there was even less of a chance, due to the lack of marital sex. When the future heir finally arrived, greeted by the Gazette de France (official newspaper, started, btw, by Richelieu who figured newly invented newspapers could be extremely useful for the government) as "a marvel when it was least expected", there was a contemporary anecdote that the sole reason the king and queen had sex again was because Louis, intending to travel to Saint-Maur, was trapped by a storm and since the only heated rooms in the castle in question were the queen's was obliged to spend the night with her, presto, heir. Who was called Louis Dieudonné, Louis, God's gift. While rumour later had Anne take Cardinal Mazarin (Richelieu's protegé who succeeded him as first minister upon his death) as a lover, their relationship (whatever it was) hadn't started yet at the time of Louis XIV. conception, and there was no one else Anne was rumoured to have an affair with in her later years, plus Louis XIV. certainly looks like a Bourbon and a lot like Louis XIII in his portraits, so as much as one can say anything about people centuries dead, he was probably a legitimate child. This did not stop novelists and film makers, mind you. Dumas didn't give Louis an alternate paternity, but I've seen two Man-in-the-Iron-Mask adaptions where one of the Musketeers was, in fact, the father - D'Artagnan, though, not Aramis. And then there was a novel which made Anne/Richelieu hate sex the reason for Louis XIV. conception. (And still, nobody bothers to explain Philippe d'Orleans.:) In any event, historically speaking, Anne had a far, far better relationship with her older son than her mother-in-law had with Louis XIII. Very unusual for royalty, Anne spent a lot of time with him instead of leaving him to nuses and governesses, and as an adult Louis XIV wrote about her in his journals: ""Nature was responsible for the first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood." Theirs was probably the closest and most harmonious parent-child relationship the Bourbons managed while on the throne, and thus Anne as a mother had a happy ending.
Back to the show: I liked the first half of the season until and including the Marie de' Medici episode better than the second half, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the first season in totem. It's fun, it mostly uses its ensemble well, and I like the actors. Speculation for the second season: I'm still not sure whether they'll solve their Capaldi problem by recasting Richelieu or by killing him off and move Mazarin forward in time. Having Richelieu observe Anne's and Aramis' leave taking was evidently meant as a teaser of sorts to hint the Cardinal has/will figure out how the baby came to be and thus possibly has leverage against Anne to counterweigh her leverage against him, but that point is moot if Richelieu is killed off instead of recast. Given the Cardinal and Milady parted ways, I doubt the show will ever do the whole Buckingham plot line so important in the novel, though if they do introduce and promote Mazarin ahead of time, they could simply let him rehire Milady instead of they wanted, I suppose. In conclusion, I have no idea what the next season will bring, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 07:57 am (UTC)I didn't buy that the Cardinal would fall for the letter thing that easily, but did like the actual means of confession and the Anne stuff was great.
I don't think they'll move Louis XIV up. They haven't been making THAT major changes to the timeline (other than through historical idiocy, like the witch thing), and Anne miscarried again in 1631. In that line, I expect they'll either recast Capaldi or have them all go to England or something.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 04:01 pm (UTC)Can anyone recommend a good translation of the original novel in English? The last one I read was a bit archaic.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-02 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-03 03:24 am (UTC)I know I'm having fun with the show. It's kind of silly, but done well visually, and the actors are all likable, and - hm. Oh, I know. This show has a good heart, and it crackles with fun energy.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-06 08:40 pm (UTC)I don't think I've simply *enjoyed* a show as much as this one in a long time. Well, I mean, Sleepy Hollow is awesome character-wise, but the plots are utterly mad and confusing. I'm very fond of everyone on this show--I don't think there's anyone who makes me wince when they come onscreen, even--and it's just *fun* all around. They've even moved on to "exile all the female guest stars" rather than "kill all the female guest stars" :P and Constance lives! (Though, fuck Bonaceiux, the "I'll kill myself if you leave me" is pure BS.) And Anne of Austria (possibly temporarily) terrifying the utter crap out of Richelieu was amazing. I even enjoyed the bit with it being Aramis's kid, and I usually hate such things. And d'Artagnan is finally a proper Musketeer, whoo!
I will definitely miss Capaldi (though as an attempt to make me care about an actor I'd never heard of before, before I see him as Twelve, this succeeded brilliantly) and can't imagine anyone else in the role on this show. Milady, though--I kind of want her to come back and be brilliantly evil, now with less wangst from Athos. Man, I was a bit afraid for her actually these last few episodes, with how shit kept going wrong for her and the Cardinal was turning on her. Gave me shivers. Also made me wonder if there's any more Cardinal/Milady hatesex been written since last I checked, which is surprisingly relevant to my interests IF (and only if) he's NOT about to throw her out.
Also: Sean Pertwee, omfg. I've been watching Third Doctor serials all this month, and dear God Sean is the spitting image of his dad. Blew my mind.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-07 02:27 pm (UTC)In the novel, because of her second marriage. Which actually is a bigamous one since technically she and Athos remained married after he almost killed her, the "almost" being no thanks to him. Anyway, in the book, Milady - not yet Milady - then upon surviving the experience fled to England and ended up marrying a Lord de Winter, by whom she had a son. Then he died. No foul play hinted at by Dumas, btw, and we get that part of the backstory via Milady's sparring with her brother-in-law in the present, who hates her guts, so if he - the brother-in-law - thought she did his brother in, presumably he'd have mentioned it. The fact she's the widow of an English nobleman is also her official cover at the English court (v. useful, as it allows her to perform the first of the tasks the Cardinal gives her in the novel, which is to steal the love tokens Queen Anne gave to Buckingham and bring them back to France), as well as at the French one. D'Artagnan only figures out she's not, in fact, English herself when discovering the burnmark of the lily on her shoulder (which is how female criminals were branded in France, and which is how Athos, years earlier, found out she was one whereupon he went from loving her to hanging her at the next tree without pause, I kid you not - no scheming brother necessary) when he's in bed with her. This is before the big reveal in the novel that the unnamed woman whom Athos angsts over and Milady are one and the same person, mind. Anyway, in conclusion: that's why she's Milady de Winter. In the book. We haven't been given an explanation in the show, of course, and I don't think they thought one thing through - book!Milady has an income of her own because of that marriage and because of the child resulting from it, who means that her brother-in-law, Lord de Winter, can't kick her out of the family after her husband's death (well, not until he finds out about the bigamy anyway). She's not dependent on the Cardinal for her living. She's his top agent because she can, and because she's good at it. Show!Milady, otoh, doesn't seem to have money of her own.
I'm very fond of everyone on this show--I don't think there's anyone who makes me wince when they come onscreen, even--and it's just *fun* all around.
Oh, same here. The show fulfills one of my primary criteria of getting me attached to a work of fiction - it makes me fond of its characters on a regular basis. I can handwave a lot of plotholes because of this.
Sean Pertwee: yep, definitely a chip of the old block. It's eerie! *uses Third Doctor icon*