The Musketeers season 3

 Time for another one of those "I need to watch the next season" series of years ago.

And that is the third season of The Musketeers.  I loved the first one (Peter Capaldi was super), but lost a bit the drive with the second.

So let's see what season 3 has to offer, as it jumps forward 4 years!

 

The Musketeers are involved in the war against Spain, a long and bloody affair, while Aramis has entered a monastery.  In the meanwhile in Paris, the Guard are used by the regent as a personal ruffian band, to the chagrin of the commander of the musketeers.  When the war comes to the monastery, Aramis returns to his calling of being a musketeer to protect the monastery. 

As the reunited friends return to Paris, they get on the trail of a fraudulous plan by the regent to sell grain at inflated prices to his own people.  They learn Paris has grown rotten in their abscence, and try to restore order and justice.  Even when the brother of the king arrives, murdering three men, they must see how to go along and bring him to court, but meet resistance with the political games at play.  But the war keeps rearing his head, as England asks France's support.

But even when the Bastille suffers a mass break-out, the King only cares about his boy's sixth birthday party.  Though this has partly to do with him having The White Plague, giving him about a year to live, it also is the influence of the governor that makes him unaware and uncaring about the city.

When Aramis, Porthos and D'Ártagnan are send on an escort mission, Athos becomes the target of an assassination attempt.  Soon  after, the red Guard takes Aramis back to Paris, as D'Artagnan and Porthos are ambushed on the road.  They are saved, while Aramis is confronted by the King who wants to admit him that he slept with the Queen.  The governor is stabbed by his henchman, who wants to take the King, but alarms Aramis and the King who stand off against them.  The musketeers arrive, breaking the attack, and as Aramis and the King are send to safety they find the body of the governor.  The King names him a hero, unknowing he was behind it all.

As the Musketeers hunt the late governor's right hand and the killer Grimaud, they come along mutinying soldiers, but also learn the origins of the assassin.  The Queen confesses in the meantime Aramis is indeed the biological father of the crownprince.  When Aramis is captured by Spanish collaborators, and the French caught three spanish generals that need to be protected from the angry masses, the Musketeers must balance between camaraderie and duty.

When the King does succumb to his disease, it is not the queen but Treville who is named regent.  Hiding the heir to the throne as insurgents are marching on Paris, the defences of the city are being prepared.  But the crownprince is captured as chaos errupts in the city.  During the rescue, Treville is killed protecting the prince.

 

 

The garrisson is bombed as Grimaud has engaged on a personal vendetta to kill the Musketeers. News is spread that D'Artagnan was killed, in order to have him be able to operate under the radar.  He takes out the corrupt captain of the Red Guard, before they hunt down Grimaud, who wants to blow up the queen and half of Paris.  Athos faces him, insisting on fighting him alone, killing him at last.

Is it due to watching Versailles again as well, or has the series dropped in sheer amusement compared to the first season, but I didn't get warm from this year either.  Though Santiago Cabrera was pretty awesome once again, for the whole it was rather "meh" to me.