Versailles Review: Smoke and Mirrors (Season 3 Episode 1)

Period drama Versailles returns for its third and final season with an episode that’s full of all the things that make this show great.

There’s gossip and scheming, political machinations and grandiose speeches. Romantic intrigue abounds. Everyone wears amazing outfits. What’s not to love?

Versailles Season 3 Episode 1, “Smoke and Mirrors,” opens at some unspecified time which is definitely meant to be a ways in the future from where we left everyone at the end of last year.

General note: We should all probably just accept right out of the gate, that there are going to be a lot of things in this season that are wildly historically inaccurate, even more so than back in Seasons 1 and 2.

And if you have ever seen this show before, you know that is saying something.

For example, it’s not clear what year this is supposed to be or how much time has passed since last season. (The real Franco-Dutch War ended in 1678, but Philippe’s son was born in 1674 and is clearly an infant here. Shrug emoji, I guess.)

But, nitpicking this show takes all the fun out of it, so let’s just not bother. We can accept that accuracy is not exactly this series’ strong point, and move on.

Because while Versailles may play fast and loose with the actual facts, it’s excellent at telling a soapy story and “Smoke and Mirrors” is no different.

This show is going to tackle the Man in the Iron Mask legend this season, for goodness sake. You can’t ask for much more ridiculous drama than that.

The premiere ends with Philippe’s discovery of a mysterious, unidentified prisoner sporting some seriously elaborate headgear. Who is he? Who imprisoned him?

Even though Philippe finds himself knocked out by an unidentified stranger before he can determine the identity of the man in the mask, it’s unlikely he’ll stop searching for the truth.

Because despite Philippe’s prowess as a soldier, he seems to have a problem shaking off the specters of the war he just helped win. His grungy appearance, sudden friendship with the random soldier who saved his life and deep obsession with the simple task of naming criminals to ship off to America all feel very out of character for him.

Plus, he’s pushing away his wife (Liselotte), his boyfriend (the Chevalier de Lorraine) and his brother (King Louis). Which is obviously sad from a story perspective, but also because Philippe is simply more interesting when around them.

On the plus side, the Cheavlier and Liselotte seem to have become something like friends during Philippe’s absence, which is something I never knew I needed, but now love. More of that please, show.

Philippe doesn’t just come home from the wars with some PTSD and a random new BFF, though. He’s also dragging along Leopold, the Archduke of Austria, and leader of the Holy Roman Empire.

In theory, Leopold is there to negotiate with Louis, but since he was just defeated by him, he doesn’t have a lot of power. What he does have, however, is a pre-existing connection to the Queen of France, having been married to her sister who died.

And it’s rather intriguing that – for the first time on the show – Versailles seems to want to give Marie-Therese, Louis’ extremely put-upon wife, something to do.

She spent most of the series’ first two seasons suffering varying degrees of personal embarrassment, giving birth to an illegitimate child and watching her husband openly bed half the women at her court before setting one (Madame de Montespan) above her.

Yet, Marie Therese soldiered on, and was generally only trotted out when the show needed someone to be devoutly religious for some reason. (And occasionally if Louis needed a reason to feel guilty about something.)

Now, Marie Therese appears to be over it, having watched her husband and her BFF – the pious Madame de Maintenon – catch feelings for one another.

Her sudden decision to show up at her brother-in-law’s door in the middle of the night for a hook-up feels like it comes out of nowhere on her part. Why now?

But there’s no way that Leopold won’t throw this in Louis’ face at some point, and given the king’s rapidly increasing insistence that he has the god-given right to do whatever he wants, that probably won’t go well.

The most boring part of the Season 3 premiere is probably Louis’ ongoing relationship with Maintenon.

Last season, his friendship with her felt like a breath of fresh air next to his increasingly dark and unhealthy entanglement with Montespan. Here, though? It’s snoozeville.

Part of the problem is that their entire storyline seems to revolve around whether or not she’ll eventually relent and sleep with him. Their physical attraction has never been the most interesting part of their relationship, so the insistent focus on it here kind of grates.

Plus, the idea that this woman is out here in the castle recruiting girls to sleep with her married boyfriend so that she doesn’t have to feels…pretty gross.

And of course, she has some kind of dark, messy secret. Who doesn’t on this show?

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• I realize the introduction of the tanner Guillame is probably important to whatever Philippe’s arc will turn out to be this season, and Versailles probably wants to use the family to illustrate some sort of class-related story, since they aren’t noble. But wow, exactly zero of them are interesting.
• The scene in which Louis revealed the Hall of Mirrors was beautiful.
• Tygh Runyan’s delivery of that “I am justice” line as he casually backhands a dude was so perfect.
• Where is Sophie???
• Louis is honestly the most extra person in the world but his Biblical speech before turning the street lights on in Paris – and giving the city its famous nickname – was so well done.

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Versailles airs Saturdays at 10/9c on Ovation.

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