I did manage to track down a "next time on" preview -- finally -- even though it's a fan upload. So enjoy. I'm more excited than Milady's heaving breasts for next week. Well, next week for Americans who will get 5 minutes (as always) trimmed from the final cut, while UK fans have to wait an extra week because of Red Nose Day festivities which is, at least, a better excuse than sports.
![porthos]( "porthos")
Den of Geek's review continues to be at odds with my impression/experience of the show. In general, they tend to privilege action over character development, and they're sort of generally annoyed with romance. On the one hand, I -- like most people -- am bored of Constagnan, and am increasingly suspicious of D'Artagnan's assholish qualities when it comes to Constance making perfectly good points, or needing some emotional breathing room. But I will agree that it was nice to see their obstacles come to an end and to have the two of them just content with each other. Boring and happy is always better than boring and angsty. Even though it came about through a particularly frustrating Anne/Aramis moment where Anne burdens her lady in waiting with a confession of treason, so now poor Constance can't be ignorant and will definitely be implicated somehow in the Pretty-But-Stupid affair of the century.
But on to the best ship: I'm an unabashed Athos and Milady fan (both separate and together), and so I know this comes from a place of heavy bias, but their scenes together are so much more compelling and heart-breaking than the other romances, even though Athos and Milady are rarely in a room together. That said, I think Athos gets an Asshole Award this week, too, because "I gave you everything" is fairly rich given he also, you know, hanged her. And, on top of that, he was more than willing to give her all the money he had in the world when it was a "gift" last week, but if she wants to be paid for providing him with valuable information, suddenly she should "do her duty to France"? Dude, fuck that -- and fuck you. You don't Musketeer for free, last time I checked.
But Milady, sis, Athos is a hard man to find? Look in a bar. It's not that tough.
The real focus, however, was on Porthos's story and unlike DoG I was very much looking forward to him finally having some character development. While I expected Porthos's Dad to be a dick, I'm still not sure what to think of the sex slavery auction house happening simultaneously. I feel in some ways like it distracted from the much more human issue at the center of the story -- though it did give Tom Burke a chance to use his other volume setting again.
I also think this episode would've worked better as a two-parter, because Porthos handing over his uniform (is the uniform just the arm band, btw?) to Treville felt toothless, and there was no point at which we really believed that Porthos's Dad was a tragic hero and Treville was a monster. But Howard Charles still did a great job, and I do hope that the implications of this episode -- and his renewed trust in both Treville and Aramis -- goes forward from here.
Moreover, we really, really need to return to the bromance of last series. I do actually like this series much more as time goes on, and on a story telling level I think it's a lot stronger, but the guys ribbing each other and enjoying each other's company was one of the main highlights last year. It was nice to see Aramis standing up for his boo this episode, or the other three trying to casually peep at Constagnan while drinking celebratory wine, but these quick moments highlighted how little of those interactions we've seen this year by comparison.
Finally, I slightly agree with DoG with the fact that the final 5 minutes were almost too starkly action-packed compared with the rest of the episode, but Queen Anne stabbing Rochefort in the eye was great, so who cares?
Who gets your Asshole Award this week, ONTD?Source 1.
Source 2.
