Ole
Richelieu is in pretty fine form today.
He’s running a handful of delicate stratagems with lives in the balance,
he’s playing players, and he’s pragmatic to the point of ruthlessness. I think the Richelieu seen here and in episode
4 is probably my favorite. He’s someone
wearing a black hat for the sake of France, keeping his sights set firmly on
the end that justifies his means (in his eyes, anyway.) It’s not as colorful a characterization as
his more outright wickedness in the pilot, but I think it’s a bit more
engaging.
Plus, I
think if I had to manage King Louis, I might be a little evil too. The things that man puts up with. “The Exiles” really hammers home the fact
that the king is not just weak-willed and basically useless – he’s also
exceedingly petulant. In this episode,
Richelieu points out that he may want to refrain from going out hunting when
there’s an active assassination threat in the area, and he literally throws a
tantrum and goes to sulk in his room. The king of France, everybody.
The
main cast is split between two storylines here.
The king’s mother, exiled due to her earlier attempt to seize the
throne, has returned to court and is begging for asylum. There are enemies at her heels, and Athos and
Porthos deal with this threat (along with the ensuing family drama/king
petulance among the royals) while D’Artagnan and Aramis are sent
elsewhere. Richelieu has dispatched them
for reasons unknown to retrieve a peasant woman and her infant son. Naturally, the baby is kidnapped the second
they arrive, and much is done to recover him, and to discover the cardinal’s
interest in him.
The
baby’s mother is played by Amy Nuttall, Ethel from Downton Abbey. I don’t know
if it’s just her thing to play women in period pieces whose infant sons are the
cause of all their troubles, but she seems to be carving out a niche for herself. I will say, though, that I enjoy her more
here than I ever did as Ethel.
Oh, and
one little bit of business. There is a
moment in this episode in which Aramis shoots a man in the head while the man
is holding a knife to the throat of a struggling woman and Aramis is in
mid-leap. Even leaving aside the
complete ridiculousness of his success, who
does that? Who says, “I definitely should
not wait until both my feet are the
ground before I deliver this precision kill-shot without blowing this nice
struggling woman’s head off”? I mean,
come on!
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