by Helen Langdon
There is a downside to the traditional way of watching TV, waiting until a specific time for each episode. With The Musketeers, we’ve seen it get pushed back several times for rugby, football and Comic Relief, and now, in the UK, we’ve got to wait a whole week for next week’s conclusion to this thrilling episode (those darn Americans are fine, what with BBC America). In “The Accused”, we got a perfect penultimate episode, well-paced and exciting as it tied together loose threads from the season. Basically, they’re all gonna die.
There is a downside to the traditional way of watching TV, waiting until a specific time for each episode. With The Musketeers, we’ve seen it get pushed back several times for rugby, football and Comic Relief, and now, in the UK, we’ve got to wait a whole week for next week’s conclusion to this thrilling episode (those darn Americans are fine, what with BBC America). In “The Accused”, we got a perfect penultimate episode, well-paced and exciting as it tied together loose threads from the season. Basically, they’re all gonna die.
In between exciting plot twists – Rochefort’s poisoned the king! The Queen has to run to the convent again! Porthos is off to Spain! – what this episode did especially well was allow for small character moments in the midst of all the action. Case in point – the reveal of Aramis’ affair with the Queen. The writing is spot on here, with each character reacting completely consistently. Porthos would attack, hug and be concerned, Athos would be dry and snarky as he tells all, and d’Artagnan would roll his eyes and be a complete hypocrite about Aramis’ recklessness. This season, there haven’t been that many moments between the musketeers to show off their banter and camaraderie, but in “The Accused” there’s a real sense that this is a group who’d willing die for each other.
BBC Which is lucky, because Aramis’ dick seems poised to throw them into every possible problem (what is with Santiago Cabrera and playing loveable rogues who fall in love with queens?). It’s through his liaison with Anne and subsequent seduction of Marguerite that they’re in all this mess, and finding out about it sent Rochefort right off the edge into full villainy mode. It’s nice that now he is definitively the Bad Guy, they’ve toned down his more ridiculous elements. Now he’s more terrifying, especially when we see his effect on the broken Marguerite.
Even the occasional misstep in this episode wasn’t altogether bad. Catherine returned to get her revenge on Milady, in something of an anti-climax. Hopefully Athos was wrong in declaring “This ends here”, because otherwise, that was a waste of the character and entire storyline. (Her method of vengeance was pretty funny, though – how did she know where Milady was going to walk? Did she just have nooses set up all over Paris for the dramatic reveal?) But at least this led to more Athos and Milady plot, as the two snuck around tunnels and kissed at inopportune moments.
Probably the most shocking moment of the episode came with the execution of Lemay. The camera cut away only at the last moment as the sword swung towards his neck, and then lingered on Constance’s screaming, traumatised face. True, Lemay was only a minor recurring character, but we were really rooting for him to win Constance over. The relatively abrupt death is a reminder before the finale that anyone not wearing the Musketeer badge is fair game for the chop.
Even the occasional misstep in this episode wasn’t altogether bad. Catherine returned to get her revenge on Milady, in something of an anti-climax. Hopefully Athos was wrong in declaring “This ends here”, because otherwise, that was a waste of the character and entire storyline. (Her method of vengeance was pretty funny, though – how did she know where Milady was going to walk? Did she just have nooses set up all over Paris for the dramatic reveal?) But at least this led to more Athos and Milady plot, as the two snuck around tunnels and kissed at inopportune moments.
Probably the most shocking moment of the episode came with the execution of Lemay. The camera cut away only at the last moment as the sword swung towards his neck, and then lingered on Constance’s screaming, traumatised face. True, Lemay was only a minor recurring character, but we were really rooting for him to win Constance over. The relatively abrupt death is a reminder before the finale that anyone not wearing the Musketeer badge is fair game for the chop.
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