After consecutive episodes that examined the relationships and responsibilities between social classes—“The Return” (2.05) and “Through a Glass Darkly” (2.06)—The Musketeers returns to its primary fare of political intrigue (both state and personal). While I favor those explorations of “social awareness,” I also appreciate a good action-adventure tale involving spies and assassins. Thus, with its abundance of espionage intrigue and assassination attempts (and successes), “A Marriage of Inconvenience” (2.07) was not a disappointing change from the previous two episodes that are my overall favorites of this television series.
The episode opens with our four musketeers escorting King Louis XIII’s cousin, Princess Louise of Mantua, to Paris before she is to depart for Sweden for an arranged marriage to the immediate heir of the Swedish crown. However, the convoy is attacked an hour outside of Paris—and coins found on the bodies of the attackers (once our protagonists thwart the attack) suggest it was a Spanish plot to assassinate the princess before her politically-motivated marriage produces an alliance between France and Sweden.
After arriving in Paris, the princess must take part in a pre-marriage blessing ceremony that the king cannot attend because he has locked himself in his bedroom and refuses to either come out or see anyone other than Rochefort. Despite the king’s absence, the ceremony proceeds at either Notre-Dame Cathedral or the recently completed (in 1633) Church of St. Eustace with the Archbishop of Paris blessing the princess’s marriage—which he tells her is not meant to be a happy union, just a dutiful one.
However, the presence of our four musketeers notwithstanding, another assassination attempt results in Death coming for the archbishop—a death that is yet another indication that The Musketeers takes place in a parallel universe because in our universe Jean-François de Gondi was the Archbishop of Paris from 1622 until his death in 1654. However, rather than evidence of a Spanish plot, the crossbow bolt lodged in the archbishop’s neck indicates the assassin has a connection to Rochefort’s royal guard.
After two apparent attempts on her life, the princess is taken to the Louvre*—the safest place in Paris—where, as fortune would have it, the king is still unable to see her because he is still pouting in his room for unknown reasons. However, the queen, who has never before met her cousin-in-law, is able to meet the princess. Unfortunately, the king and queen’s gift for the wedding (a portrait of the princess) is not at hand, so Rochefort dispatches Captain Treville to the artist’s studio to fetch it.
While I enjoyed this episode, I was also irritated by the various “circumstances” I’ve described above—circumstances that were required to make the overall plot work. To be more accurate, I was irritated that those circumstances were not actually required, but were used nonetheless. These situations were forced into the story to provide easy solutions to problems with the plot rather than the writer, showrunner, or director working to find satisfying solutions to those problems.
For instance, why is the king refusing to come out of his chambers?
Of course, the answer could be as simple as: The king has been consistently presented as a buffoon prone to childishness, so it isn’t unusual for him to act this way. (Additionally, he had a dagger at his throat just a week ago, so perhaps he’s too emotionally shaken to leave his chambers.)
Indeed, the king’s childish nature is mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Just before the mercenaries ambushed her convoy, the princess told the musketeers that she had not seen the king since they were children—to which Athos comments, “He’s barely changed.”
So, yes, the king is childish, but there did not seem to be any larger context for his childishness in this episode. In one of the brief scenes in which we see him, he tells Rochefort that he’s not coming out of his room until Milady has left the palace—so, yes, that is a childish reason to not leave his room, but the episode has very little to do with Milady de Winter (thus, no true larger context for his childishness).
However, it brings up a good point: Why is Milady still in the palace?
The king ordered her to leave in the previous episode—so . . . does her eviction not take effect until the end of the month because she has already paid her rent? Has she filed a lawsuit to try to have the eviction overturned? Has she been unable to hire a moving company to pack up her stuff? Louis is a 17th-century King of France! If he orders a courtier to be removed from the palace, that courtier should be gone within the hour—not days later!
The entire subplot with the king refusing to leave his chambers lacked verisimilitude, which is the worst offense a work of fiction can have. Yes, I do realize The Musketeers is a work of fiction despite my protests of how the plots often diverge from actual history—such as the death of the archbishop in this episode, the apparent birth of Louis XIV five years before his actual birth, or the death of Cardinal Richelieu between seasons one and two (20 years before his actual death).
The historical discrepancies don’t really bother me; I just have fun pointing them out. However, failures in achieving verisimilitude bother me greatly—such as no narrative context to have Louis pouting in his bedroom for the entire episode.
Of course, there actually is a “larger contextual reason” for Louis staying in his chambers for the entire episode—and it had nothing to do with Milady de Winter still being in the palace. The writer of the episode, Steve Bailie, had the king remain in his bedroom so he would not see his cousin, the princess, because if he had seen her he would have exclaimed, “This is not my cousin; this woman is an imposter!” At that point, the plot would have needed to take a very different turn from the one the writer wanted it to take.
It’s believable that the queen could not have known the “princess” was an imposter—which is why the gift of the portrait became a plot point. While the queen had never met the real princess, the artist commissioned to paint the portrait had traveled to Mantua so he could begin work on her portrait. Thus, the contrived notion of the portrait not being at hand (and then sending Captain Treville to fetch it) was introduced as a way for the musketeers to eventually realize the princess is an imposter.
The contrived circumstances to get the plot to work included the musketeers failing to secure the balcony overlooking the cathedral chapel where the archbishop was assassinated (he, rather than the imposter princess, was the real target). The narrative then makes the mistake of emphasizing how contrived that circumstance was by having Aramis note after the archbishop has been killed that the balcony was the perfect place for an assassin.
Yes, that’s right, after the musketeers thwarted an apparent attack on the “princess” by Spanish mercenaries, they later failed to notice that a balcony overlooking the ceremony would be a perfect place to attempt another attack on the princess. I completely agree with Rochefort when he then enters the chapel and comments on what a poor job the musketeers have done in protecting the “princess.”
However, the overall plot may not have worked if our protagonists had not been so bad at doing their job. On the other hand, if the writer of the episode had been better at doing his job, the plot would not have had to depend on such contrivances.
Still, despite problems in the details, the larger plot was very entertaining. It involves Rochefort’s attempts to manipulate the cold war between France and Spain to his advantage so he can somehow become King of France and have sex with Queen Anne—who, of course, has her eyes own eyes set on Aramis.
Regarding that aberrant romantic triangle of Rochefort, Anne, and Aramis . . . it got a bit weirder in this episode, as we discovered that the jeweled crucifix of gold that Anne gave Aramis as a token of her romantic love was originally given to Anne by Rochefort—presumably as a token of his romantic love for her, and that she had sworn to him that she would always wear it.
Understandably, Rochefort is now really upset to have learned the queen is a re-gifter. However, haven’t we all at least felt the urge to re-gift a present that we don’t really want? On the other hand, wouldn’t we all be really upset to have learned our present to someone had been re-gifted?
I feel for you, Rochefort; I really do!
* In 1633 the Louvre was not the museum it is today; it was the royal palace where the king and queen resided.