The Musketeers - 'Through a Glass Darkly'

We are fucking badasses, yo!

The King is being a dick, as usual, in a manner vaguely related to a coming solar eclipse. Rochefort notes that the Great Astronomer Marmion will be putting on a bit of a show for the event, which the King declares they will attend. Shockingly, Marmion and his sinister, plague-masked attendants turn out to be setting a trap, and force the King to play a game for his life and the lives of his family, in revenge for the blockading of their village without food in a time of plague.

The Musketeers save the day, Rochefort claims the credit and, shockingly, the King fails to learn any substantial lessons.

This episode suffers from a shortage of developed background characters and an over-reliance of chance. Rochefort seemingly lures the King into this trap, but for once is no part of the skulduggery (although his guards are useless,) which kind of leaves no indication of how they were invited. It's also unclear how Marmion has managed to go from village nobody to scientific marvel of the age in a relatively short space of time, and his tragic backstory is somewhat spoiled by the fact that when making intolerable choices as to which of his sons would eat, apparently he kept himself alive. When he starts his game, Milady walks free by pure chance, and while a large number of anonymous courtiers are killed it's difficult to care when they are just faces in costumes, which kills off a lot of the potential tension in the episode. Even Aramis survives a fall from a window by dropping onto an awning, quite by chance.

And then there is the King...

We open the episode with the King demonstrating the science of a solar eclipse by simultaneously showing off that he's bonking Milady and hinting that he will eventually ditch her, and yet he wonders why people hate him. He once more poo-poos the Musketeers (including D'Artagnan, who is chided for 'encouraging Marmion to play with my life', when Marmion's original plan was just to shoot the King, and D'Artagnan had all but persuaded Marmion to hand over his gun for the chance to force a Musketeer to execute the King.) Honestly, I'm starting to get ticked off with him myself, but it's increasingly obvious that he's not likely to change any time soon.

Also, if you're looking at the middle badass in this picture and thinking that
she's shockingly mannish, there is as much wrong with your eyes as with
your priorities.

In other news, however, there is development. Milady has been ditched for running out on the King (to get help) and dressing like a man (to rescue him like a total badass) and shared peril has pushed Constance and D'Artagnan to publicly shack up. Future tensions involving Aramis are hinted at, with the Queen being a little too eager to show the rescuing Musketeer that the Dauphin is okay and just look at his little face! at the same time that he is blanking his erstwhile lover, the royal nanny Marguerite, who may well be onto them and is certainly in the pay of Rochefort. Athos clearly suspects things are hotting up again twixt Aramis and Anne, given his pointed directive for the former to get the latter out of danger and then 'hurry back'.