Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Ryan Gage, Tamla Kari, Alexandra Dowling, Matthew McNulty, Hugo Speer, Rupert Everett, Dan Parr, Thalissa Tiexeira, Oliver Chris, Jan Spanbauer, Barry McCormick, Jodie Hay, Frances Magee, Janet Walker, Duran Fulton Brown, Matt Stokoe, Crispin Letts, Christopher Brand, Andy Linden, Ian Conningham.

The one impact of war that people tend to forget is that it tends to displace the great masses, the heaving movement of humanity, that it makes refugees of those to whom would never have expected to have to move from their homes and end up being looked upon as figures of derision, of hate, of being the cause for all other ills that society suddenly has to deal with. It is the possibility of starvation, of having to resort to stealing and losing your head that makes civilisation crumble and live through The Hunger that precedes the dark days and makes us susceptible to losing the very basic human emotion of compassion.

It is The Hunger that has driven Paris to its knees and in very way that the writers and team behind The Musketeers have managed to shadow events unfolding throughout Europe and across the mindset of the British viewing public throughout the combined series; so to do they accomplish with great intrigue in the second episode of the third series.

Paris is under siege by those who would use the situation to their own advantage, to bring the country even further to its knees and attempt to control the populace by fear; if that rings bells then let them be heard because in the case of The Musketeers art really is imitating life.

With the four heroes reunited but finding Paris much changed, especially in the life of d’ Artagnan who finds his Constance a much transformed woman as she has become his equal, the true enemy slowly reveals itself and the state of France that the Musketeers understand is almost on the edge of a precipice of anarchy. It is a foreshadowing of events in Britain as certain individuals in dark circles would have the country tear itself in two rather than work with the rest of the world, than show the understanding of how true society should work; not the me first approach but that each one of requires nothing more than food in our belly and the feeling of safety in our hearts.

With stand-out performances by Rupert Everett, Ryan Gage and Hugo Speer, albeit briefly held on screen, the whispering of who truly runs a country is put on show and it is a chilling reminder to all that in the end, most of those in charge are only truly in it for the glory and their own corrupted hearts.

Ian D. Hall