This episode, right here, this is very good Musketeers indeed: chock full of adventure, romance, and mystery, and just goes to show how much easier royal identity theft was in the days before photography.
Princess Louise (the pitch-perfect Perdita Weeks) is passing through Paris on her way from Italy to her new home and husband-to-be in Sweden. Things go awry as it seems that an attempt is being made on the Princess’ life – though we later discover that the Princess is not a princess at all.
It’s interesting watching the mystery shift from seeing the Musketeers wondering who’s trying to kill the Princess, to wondering why the fake princess and her accomplice are doing murders, to wondering who hired them to do the murders in the first place. One does hope that they figure out who the real bad people are soon.
Meanwhile, now that D’Artagnan and Constance have decided to make their romance official, Constance endeavours to break things off with her rather unpleasant husband, Bonacieux. This goes predictably horribly, Bonacieux is a despicable person, and nobody’s sad when he dies at the hands of Ersatz Princess Louise – except Constance and D’Artagnan, and I can’t help but worry that their now-cursed burgeoning romance isn’t going to end well either.
Who could ever want anything bad to happen to Constance? Tamla Kari plays her with such sweetness that I hate to think they don’t get some sort of the happily ever after they deserve.
And finally, at long last, somebody finds out that Rochefort is a Spanish spy! I am honestly this close to shouting HE’S A VERY NAUGHTY MAN WHO DOESN’T HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS IN MIND, LOUIS at my television every time the King decides to bestow another layer of trust upon him, as he has again in this episode.
But it’s Milady who makes the discovery thanks to the fake princess, and Milady’s devious, so I don’t expect this to end well either – though speaking of Milady, I suppose it’s a testament to just how manipulative she is (and Maimie McCoy’s acting chops) that I feel manipulated into feeling bad for her falling out of the King’s favour, even though she’s a very bad person who does things that make characters I like unhappy. That’s some good manipulation, right there.
The ending of this episode really feels like we’re moving toward some pretty explosive stuff (beyond the usual measure of gunpowder) as the series continues toward its finale: we keep getting teased about learning of Porthos’ father, and I think – I hope – we may well almost be there. Rochefort has roped poor Marguerite into his creepy schemes about the Queen, and just what the heck is Milady going to get up to now that she’s no longer the King’s girlfriend?
I await the next adventure with tremendous impatience.
Aired at 9pm on Friday 27 February 2015 on BBC One.
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