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Tuesday 31 May 2016

The Musketeers 3.2 "The Hunger" Review

                                           
Feron (Rupert Everett) plots against Louis (Ryan Gage) once again, this time by stealing the grain and attempting to sell it back to Louis for an extortionate price, again getting Griamud (Matthew McNulty) to help him.  Feron puts the blame on the refugees of the war, taking shelter in Paris.  As one of their own, Leon (Duran Fulton Brown) is part of the conspiracy.  The refugees are arrested as the Red Guard opens fire on them, including D'Artagnan (Luke Pasqualino).  Treville (Hugo Speer) tells Constance (Tamla Kari) that he will be released, but the others will be hanged, as he tries to get justice for them.  Magistrate Bellavoix (Crispin Letts) says Feron doesn't have evidence that the prisoners stole the grain, having Grimaud use the traitor Leon to plant the empty grain sacks in the refugee's wagon. He's tortured as Georges Marcheaux (Matt Stokoe) pretends to interrogate and Hubert (Francis Magee) tells D'Artagnan they will break him easily.

As the others search the refugee's camp for the grain, Athos (Tom Burke) finds a leaflet dropped by Sylvie (Thalissa Teixeira) which highlights her sedition and treason.  She attempts to shoot Athos, but he tells her at that close range, the bullet will go clean through him, as she gives him her gun. Obviously she didn't burn the documents as she was told to do, she didn't even hide them properly.  D'Artagnan comforts Hubert and we later find out he's Sylvie's father and he wrote those leaflets, but he dies in prison.
Athos: "Who taught you how to handle that?"
Sylvie: "I taught myself."
Athos: "Then you are not a bad student, merely a poor tutor."  Clearly he's smitten by her already and who can blame Athos, it's been a long time since he's laid eyes on a woman!  Even if this one will lead him to be conflicted and their relationship too, conflicted in the sense of he's a Musketeer and she's a potential rebel and traitor.

Once again Feron pleads for the execution of the prisoners and again Treville says he doesn't have any evidence.  The Magistrate tells him to get evidence as all men, ministers, or the poor will be treated equally under the law.  Athos finds the grain sacks in the wagon with Sylvie and also they find the murdered woman  and again are attacked by the guards.  Feron once more doesn't get the evidence he was so certain would be found and again thinks something will turn up.  Aramis (Santiago Cabrera) and Porthos (Howard Charles) find a man selling grain in the market and bearing the king's mark on the sacks.  He says he bought it from another man and this leads them to the stables.  Nortier (Andy Linden) tells them he doesn't have any wagons to hire and Porthos notices limestone dust on the wagon, as well as the Andalusian horse tied up.  Porthos has a hunch which he follows.  Aramis telling the others he has a good hunch.

Porthos finds the grain and he brings it back, thus foiling Feron's plans again and not being able to profit from it.  More dark conversation between Grimaud and Feron as he remarks on maintaining control at all times.  Grimaud thinks suffering is the better option than to lose his judgement.  Also saying how he grew up following the troops "across every stinking battlefield there was, fighting for scraps just to survive."  Think he's got a monopoly on the use of "cess-pit" as he repeats it again in 3.4 The Queen's Diamonds; saying he "sees no God in this cess-pit of an earth."  I somehow don't think Grimaud is much of an adversary for the Musketeers, though he keeps getting away with murder and everything else and all his plotting, he's no match for them.  He's more a pot luck kind of a mercenary since none of his plans seem to work out, which says more about him and who he is, than about being clever or getting by in this "cess-pit of an earth."

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