Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Ryan Gage, Alexandra Dowling, Marc Warren, Hugo Speer, Colin Salmon, Tamla Kari, Maime McCoy, Finbar Lynch, Bohdan Poraj, Oliver Rix, Charlotte Salt, Ed Stoppard, Antonia Thomas, Celeste Dodwell, Will Keen.
The questions of race, equality and loyalty and how they are observed in Europe’s chaotic and often brutal past comes into play in the latest episode of The Musketeers, The Good Traitor and it is one that doesn’t skirt the issue in a time when religious fervour is perhaps mirrored in today’s society.
The Good Traitor asks the question of what constitutes loyalty to a royal family or people in a position of power, is it one born out of necessity, one in which to trade for another’s life or money, or in the simplest of duties, to save a future King from a childhood illness and death? In this question, how 17th Century Europe looked upon the people of Africa may, in many cases cause a gigantic ripple feeling of the uncomfortable but it also needs to be looked at for its historic value as well. With the Moors being driven out of Spain, it perhaps was only natural that some would turn to their former allies’ most hated foe, that of France and offer them secrets and weapons of war in return for help in fleeing their oppressors and in finding others like them.
With The Musketeers almost taking a back seat, albeit energetic one with Porthos being captured in a planned attack on the Spanish captors, the action revolved around Colin Salmon’s General Tariq, the further intrigue of MiLady De Winter and her seduction of the King and in the very real and positively human action of Tamla Kari’s Constance Bonacieux and her female instinct to save the life of a small child, begs much of loyalty. Is loyalty bought or freely given and when the loyalty is purchased why are we more seemingly forgiving as a species when it goes wrong than we are when that freedom to help another in need is questioned?
The Good Traitor may not have been the most awe-inspiring in terms of action and adventure when it comes to The Musketeers, but it was one in which asked a lot of 21st Century morality, sometimes it seems we are not that removed from the days of gunpowder, treason and plot after all.
The Musketeers continues next week.
Ian D. Hall