Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Tamla Kari, Maimie McCoy, Matthew McNulty, Tom Morely, Thalissa Teixeira, Dan Parr, Matt Stokoe, Lily Loveless, Andre Flynn.
If there was one moment to guarantee that The Musketeers would be absolutely missed from the television schedules in the months and years ahead, it was the reappearance of Maimie McCoy’s Milady de Winter, one of the strongest female characters shown on screen in years. Whilst the emergence from out of the shadows of the conniving assassin was brief, tantalising enough to remember just how much input she had in the lives of the garrison and the four musketeers, it was the big picture she was part of which showed just how much this romance between viewer and programme had blossomed.
The final ever episode of a firm favourite and certainly interesting series is always wrought with just how many loose ends could be tied up, how many cast members would live on and if, just if the makers behind The Musketeers change their minds, if there is a possibility that the same cast could be enticed back in a couple of years to move away from the near true events they have established in their timeline and make a good version of The Man in The Iron Mask, something very sadly lacking in cinematic terms, then there won’t be too many people bemoaning the fact.
We Are The Garrison is the explosive ending all series should have, the prospect that one of the lead characters could die before it ended, the prospect that the writer’s favourite ally of death could make such an impact on the way the story was presented. In all, it was the build up to an end in which the viewer finds they just cannot let go, in which the moment of final breathe is too much and the story, too short when looked at from the view point of lesser programmes that muster on for years, is nothing but genuine and excellent.
If Maimie McCoy brought the final flourish of perfection to the series, then to the main players who throughout had carried the programme into the hearts of the viewer, they should be seen as actors deserving even greater glory on the stage and screen; especially the four men who made each of the iconic musketeers so enjoyable to watch and the three main female protagonists of the series, the superb Maimie McCoy, Alexandra Dowling and Tamla Kari, each one playing their part in making the series one of the finest on television in the last decade.
A much loved series brought to an end, there is always hope, there are stories there waiting to be written and the sound of one of the most used lines declaring friendship and honour waiting to be heard, The Musketeers will be missed.
Ian D. Hall