Quoi? There is not a single piece of gratuitous nudity in the entire episode – not even a distant glimpse of a bumcheek – and there is no more gore than in Temoin Silent. There isn’t even very much going on in the plot. It’s as if Versailles has slipped itself an overdose of Valium. What had promised to be a Game of Thrones 2.0 is rapidly turning into Dynasty in fancy dress, which isn’t without its charms, but not exactly what most people signed up for.
We open with Louis staring mournfully downwards with his hands on a ouija board, while his frère, the Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe, is cuddling his dead horse on the battlefield. Then Louis breaks into a smile, Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe rushes to greet his troops like a man who has just scored the winning goal in the last minute of extra time, and the peace treaty is signed. France has gagné encore.
Cut to a black crow and a gunfight at the OK Corral between Cassel’s hommes and another stagecoach.
Louis and la reine are having a chat about the meaning of vie. “I first understood the meaning of fear,” he says, “when I was dix ans.” Then Not-Quite-So-Bad-Philippe climbs through the window of le roi’s moving carriage and announces he is feeling a bit bored. I know how he feels. Le roi arrives at Versailles and announces: “We must unite the country!” It’s now clear that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove must have been watching a preview of this episode before they made their post-Brexit speeches, or their reassurances that terrified three-quarters of the UK.
The Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe and the Bad Philippe have deep snoggies in front of the Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe’s wife, Henrietta, before retiring to the boudoir for a bit of dry humping. After a matter of seconds, Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe gets bored and declares that what war has taught him is that he gets the best hard-ons in battle. Bad Philippe stumbles off looking distraught while Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe invites a chambermaid in to take his place. It’s fair to say that Not-Quite-So-Bad has not been totally lui-même since he got back from war.
There then follows a lot of squabbling. Henriette with some other women who look vaguely familiar but I’m still not exactly sure who they are. It would be helpful if the characters would sometimes address each other by name; though it’s quite possible the reason they don’t is that they are also not entirely sure who anyone is. There can be few other dramas in which everyone has looked so similar.
A book that Not-Quite-So-Bad Philippe brought back from the war happens to be written in a Dutch codex. Luckily Fabien, the Alan Turing de ses jours, is on hand and solves it in next to no time. What he learns is what the rest of us already knew: someone, somewhere is plotting something. But this is grand news, apparently.
Not-Quite-So-Bad is now seen going down on one of the king’s maitresses. She is perfectly OK with this until she realises it is not le roi. At which point she has a freak out. Un mot from the wise: next time someone goes down on you, do try to make sure you know who it is before getting undressed.
Over at Château Cassel, Montespan is trying to tempt Cassel to come to le roi’s fireworks party by tempting him with a 16-year-old girl who looks at least 25, while back at Versailles Fabien is busy torturing the bloke who was captured during the botched hijacking to find out who he was working for. The gardener then has a long chat with Louis about orange arbres and the meaning of vie.
Cassel eventually turns up at Versailles for the party and has a row with Montespan. “You cunt!” “You prick!” Charmant. Meanwhile, Sophie leaps off for a quickie with Benoit the Builder. Sophie is so engrossed with amour that she fails to notice one of her high-heeled shoes has fallen off and that she is walking with a pronounced limp.
At the sound of the fireworks, Not-Quite-So-Bad goes into meltdown. Suddenly tout est clair. The reason Not-Quite-So-Bad has been behaving so badly is because he is suffering from PTSD as a result of la guerre. As there is no trained therapist on main, I suspect this is not going to end bien. Cassel storms off in a huff and goes home to find his château en feu. La fin. As I said at the commencement, a wee bit dull.
