Versailles Review: Trust Issues (Season 3 Episode 2)

To be fair, most of Versailles Season 3 Episode 2 “Trust Issues,” is little more than table-setting, maneuvering characters and storylines into place for later pay-off further on in the season. But the set-up is entertaining, and the drama it promises is delicious.

Phillippe’s investigation into the mysterious man in the iron mask continues, despite the fact that literally everyone in Versailles tries to gaslight him about what happened to him.

In all honesty, this sequence probably isn’t intended to be as hilarious as I found it. But after the past couple of weeks we’ve all had, culturally speaking, watching a man being told repeatedly that no, he actually wasn’t knocked out by a faceless stranger, but passed out and forgot about it was endlessly entertaining.

If there are viewers out there who’ve never seen the Leonardo DiCaprio movie or heard the story of the man in the iron mask before, even those folks have probably figured out most of what’s going on right now.Versailles isn’t exactly subtle here.

Obviously, there’s more to the story than Phillippe is being told, and no one seems to try particularly hard to cover up the fact that they swapped the original prisoner with some nameless criminal that they subsequently had murdered.

Real subtle, guys.

Still, there’s enough weirdness gong on that even Phillipe can’t miss it, and he manages to get Fabien Marchal involved, too. Since apparently he doesn’t have enough to do, what with running security for all of Versailles and protecting the king himself.

The show doesn’t bother looking too closely at why Fabien might directly defy Louis by taking up his brother’s purportedly crazy cause, but maybe he’s bored without a court full of drug addicted nobles and dark magic to investigate anymore.

Still, there’s enough weirdness gong on that even Phillippe can’t miss it, and he manages to get Fabien Marchal involved, too. Since apparently he doesn’t have enough to do, what with running security for all of Versailles and protecting the king himself.

The show doesn’t bother looking too closely at why Fabien might directly defy Louis by taking up his brother’s purportedly crazy cause, but maybe he’s bored without a court full of drug addicted nobles and dark magic to investigate anymore.

Happily, most of this episode still revolves around the women of Versailles, even as Louis post-war power trip continues. (He’s busy trying to wring more tax money out of the poor and bully Leopold into giving him Spain, for the record.)

As usual in period stories like this, the female characters are generally more interesting than the men. And this is precisely because of the ways in which they must manage and manipulate a society that’s specifically geared to disempower and oppress them.

The women of Versailles are no different, and all of them use the things they have access to — family, feminine wiles, gossip, even religion — to protect and advance themselves.

Sophie returns from her post-Season 2 exile, confesses that she fled William of Orange’s court and refused his offer to spy on Louis and is promptly reinstated to her title and fortune.

Her various treasons and the somewhat suspect death of her husband seem largely forgotten, but her smoking hot sexual tension with Fabien is most assuredly not. Can these two just get together already?

Elsewhere, Marie-Therese finally decides to play the proverbial game of thrones, continuing her affair with her brother-in-law Leopold and writing a letter to her brother the King of Spain, encouraging a marriage that will thwart many of her husband’s plans for total European domination.

Go big or go home, girl. Dang.

(It is, however, nice to see someone, anyone treat poor Marie-Therese well. And for all that Leopold is kind of gross, he’s also not wrong — Louis treats his wife horribly, constantly ignoring or publicly humiliating her with his affairs.)

But it’s Madame de Maintenon who really takes the cake in this episode, riding out a wave of scandalous gossip and raining all sorts of retribution on those that tried to ruin her reputation.

One might argue, in fact, that she takes things a little too far.

Sure, being publicly accused of working in a brothel before taking up a life of piety and making your name on refusing the King of France’s sexual advances is…less than ideal.

But Maintenon responds by literally destroying lives in return — making sure that her chief rival, Madame de Montespan, is stripped of her fortune and banished to a convent, and orchestrating the removal of Liselotte’s son from her care.

(Fair warning: Make Liselotte cry and you are my enemy forever. Just saying.)

She also somehow bribes/orders/something another woman into Louis’ bed to once again avoid having to do the deed herself. This situation is super gross, to be sure, but it also seems wildly unsustainable. And what happens then?

Stray Thoughts and Observations:

• Another unintentionally hilarious thing this week? That no one even bothered to try and explain how Phillippe got from being unconscious and bleeding in the Bastille to his own bed at Versailles. Magic, I guess.
• Lisolette and the Chevalier as gossipy BFFs is everything.
• I know we’re all supposed to care about the random workers Versailles has invented this season to show us the plight of the poor in Louis’ France. The problem is, I’ve seen dryer lint that’s more interesting than these people, and we’ve been given zero reason to care about them or their stories.
• However the final image of a beaten down Colbert claiming he’s been attacked by the people France was remarkably dramatic.

What did you think of this episode of Versailles? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Versailles airs Saturdays at 10/9c on Ovation.

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