We
continue to take turns highlighting the younger main cast members who cut more
dashing figures (Athos is back on top today,) but we also get huge swathes of
Richelieu in this episode. I wouldn’t be
surprised if at least a third of PC’s screentime for the entire season can be
found here.
Richelieu
has his hands full dealing with an aristocratic woman who’s committed the grave
crime of championing women’s education.
Going far beyond embroidery and needlework for the upper classes, she teaches
equality, the sciences, and social justice, to name a few. She even – gasp! – believes women shouldn’t
be treated like broodmares sold to foster “good matches.” Clearly, a person like that can’t be allowed
walking around.
Initially,
Richelieu’s chief interest is financial; the country is in need of a new lady,
and the fortune of a disgraced aristocrat could furnish it nicely. He prepares for a little underhanded mudslinging
to unseat his new foe, but the arrival of an emissary from the pope requires him
to up his game. As it happens, Richelieu
could use some extra brownie points with his Holiness, and making an example of
a woman-educating “heretic” is just the thing.
The time for discrediting clearly has passed: it’s a full-fledged witch hunt now.
It’s
always interesting to see how period pieces handle social issues, and “the
woman question” is a good one. I have a soft
spot for watching intelligent female characters do battle in worlds where all
the power is in other hands, so that aspect of this episode appeals to me a
lot. However, I’m not sure how realistic
it is that all the musketeers are so respectful of the intellects and beliefs
of the other sex. It’s a tricky
conundrum – is it even possible to keep period characters likeable while
maintaining historically-typical attitudes?
Something tells me the past didn’t have nearly as many open-minded
people as film and television would have me believe. (Of course, they were probably much dirtier
and had far worse teeth as well.)
On the
one hand, that feels disingenuous, but on the other, I don’t want to root for characters with
horrendously outdated prejudices. It’s
why I ultimately didn’t mind how Downton
Abbey handled things with Thomas in series 3. In the back of my head, I was going, “No way would this have happened,” but in
my heart, I didn’t want to hear these characters saying vile things about
him. It was bad to enough to hear Carson’s
“sympathetic” reaction that it wasn’t Thomas’s fault nature had made him into something foul and twisted; I don’t
know if I could’ve handled more outright hate and continued to like anyone on
that show.
And
yes, I realize this may seem at odds with what I said earlier about my
appreciation for The Musketeers’
efforts at diversity. While the show
makes nods to racial issues, especially with Porthos, I’ll admit that it’s
fairly unrealistic on that front too. I’m
not sure why it doesn’t stand out to me as much as the gender stuff does
here. Maybe it’s because racial
inequality has only been dealt with sparingly, as opposed to this episode’s
very intentional exploration of gender inequality, and so the musketeers’ enlightened
attitudes are more evident? Maybe it’s a
white privilege thing, and I need to make a more conscious effort to recognize it? Maybe it’s because the good of more open
casting trumps the bad of sanitizing historical prejudice? I don’t know.
I’ll try and keep my eyes open on this subject.
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