3.4 The Queen’s Diamonds Written by Jeff Povey (who has a good catalogue of staple British shows to his name, including Midsomer Murders), he tells us the story of the Queen of England’s missing gems, a bit of Aramis backstory as well as an expansion on Sylvie’s treasonous meetings and her developing relationship with Athos. That looks a lot, even on paper and it’s unfortunate that the episode suffers just as you would expect – an overstuffed hour that is tonally all over the place and has little to no consequence for the season. Yep, it really is a bit of a mess. That’s not to say that it was completely without promise. The heist of the Queen’s gems could have made for a somewhat thrilling mystery, and although the reveal of the great James Callis’ Bonnaire was a little disappointing so early on, he’s such a refreshing character that you don’t really mind. In fact, I’d go as far to say that he’s easily the best and only good thing this week. Likewise, Pauline and Aramis. This was, by far, the weakest thing about the episode. It added very little colouring to Aramis’s background and just got in the way of the other plot points that deserved far more attention. The convergence of story lines at the end just seemed very on-the-nose and forced. Also the tragedy of Pauline’s ending further mixed the tone of an episode that was all over the place. When you’ve got someone like Callis having a ball with his Bonnaire, surely the best thing is to go ‘all in’… I mentioned at the beginning that this week had no real consequence, which may be a little harsh. The Sylvie and Athos elements will play big in the weeks to come but everything else didn’t really add much to a series that only has six episodes left before the whole thing is wrapped up. I’m going to make a poor comparison, but make it I will because it gets my point across. Games Of Thrones has the same season length as The Musketeers and yet look what happens in a single season in that compared to The Musketeers. That’s because of the economy of effort when it comes to telling the story, every scene has a purpose and momentum towards something else. Good writing like that not only has consequence but it also draws the audience in and commands them to pay attention. The Musketeers is at times frivolous with the time it spends with the audience. You may consider that harsh for one bad episode in four, but that’s what happens when the general standard is pretty high. Read Rob’s review of the previous episode, Brother In Arms, here.
