The Musketeers: Series 1, Episode 6 – “The Exiles” (2014)

 

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!