The Musketeers continued season two with an episode that started quietly but quickly picked up the pace. This episode also appeared to be a slower and plot focused affair, but action and unlikely alliances surprisingly took center stage. “Through the Glass Darkly” was an intense and sad affair, but this episode was one of the best in The Musketeers history.
“Through the Glass Darkly” introduces a new character in Marmion, who happens to be a famous astronomer. For some reason, Marmion wants to invite the Royal family, the Musketeers, and the royal court to his chalet to learn about a solar eclipse. This invitation seems to be innocent enough, so the king and this entire group (minus Athos) travel to the chalet in hopes of learning about the solar system.
Unfortunately, Marmion has far more devious plans in place, and the eclipse is his cover for these plans. Once the royal party arrives, Marmion’s villainous crew begins to take hostages and murder various members of the king’s group. For some unknown reason, Marmion hates the king with a passion and decides that he needs to play heads or tails with the king’s life and a fancy coin.
While Marmion is flipping his coin with the king and D’Artagnan, Milady (who was released) is trying to rally Athos and Treville in hopes of mounting a rescue attempt. Of course, Athos is slow to trust Milady, but he does have a duty to uphold. Plus, Athos really wants to rescue his comrades, including Porthos, who has been stuck in a prison with Rochefort. This rescue attempt plays out in four different ways, all of which are entertaining.
“Through the Glass Darkly” was by far the saddest episode of the season, but it included a lot of entertaining moments as well. Of course, these sad moments all came from the random murders that Marmion committed. Additionally, Marmion had a sadder story than expected, although it wasn’t one that justified his insane games. The other sad moments spawned from the direness of situations. Despite the generally positive feeling of The Musketeers, “Through the Glass Darkly” pointed out that happy endings don’t always happen. In fact, sometimes loved ones will become collateral damage in a vicious game.
Thankfully, this latest episode does include some happy and humorous moments. One of these better moments actually came from the forced companionship of Athos and Milady. These two characters despise each other—for good reason—but it was strangely satisfying watching them work together to free their friends. However, the best moment of the episode came from D’Artagnan and Constance. This duo has been dealing with a rough relationship for the past two seasons, but this stressful situation helped clear up some of these issues.
Honestly, too many important moments happened during “Through the Glass Darkly” to list, and most of these moments would be considered major spoilers. Rest assured that all of these moments came together to create a great episode. The only major complaint about the episode is that fact that once again the king had a gigantic temper tantrum to finish the episode. For some reason, The Musketeers has finished each episode of the second season with the king freaking out and unjustly screaming at the various Musketeers. I understand that the writers want to prove that King Louis is a petulant child, but this repeated scene is becoming quite tiring. At least the rest of the show is fantastic. Just don’t pay attention to the last two minutes of each episode.
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