Versailles Review: Truth Will Out (Season 3 Episode 3)
It’s possible that King Louis XIV isn’t as big of a petulant manchild as Versailles often makes him seem. In fact, one has to hope that actually is the case, as the real Louis did accomplish many rather remarkable things during his long rule.
It would be nice to think he wasn’t a complete jerk while he did so.
Perhaps we’re meant to struggle to see Louis as a character to root for this season. Maybe the question of whether one can attain ultimate power and remain a decent person or an admirable leader is one we’re should be asking ourselves here.
Hopefully, that’s what’s happening here in the final season of Versailles. Because at the moment? It’s pretty hard to not actively root for a chandelier to fall on the King of France’s head.
Louis’ political schemes of petty land grabs and power consolidation are entertaining to watch, precisely because they’re exactly the sort of things we expect to see from a ruling monarch.
His repeated sulking over the fact that a married woman won’t commit adultery with him? Not so much.
On some level, watching Madame de Maintenon get her comeuppance is cathartic, particularly after her wretched behavior in “Trust Issues” (Season 3, Episode 2). She does deserve to be punished — at least a little — for having Liselotte’s son taken away from her.
She’s certainly made some less than ideal choices. (Basically prostituting strange women to your own boyfriend is really never a great look.)
But it’s hard to imagine that she deserved the public humiliation she received at the hands of the Chevalier, or the subsequent vitriolic dressing down from Louis. (Also, it’s hard to swallow Madame de Montespan notching yet another victory from her convent exile. Will we literally never be free of her in this story?)
George Blagden deserves praise for his portrayal of the French monarch this season, if only because — though he never said it — you could still basically hear him asking his mistress why she was once willing to sin with other men, but won’t do so with him.
The specter of those unspoken words haunts the pair’s final interaction, which also sees Louis reject not just Maintenon herself, but the force she represents in his life. She is, after all, the only person who expects — or even asks — him to be better than he has to be.
To live up to everything that being a king requires.
But, since Maintenon at some point in her life, failed and fallen short of the glory of God, so to speak, then that means there’s no such thing as goodness anywhere and Louis might as well not even bother trying.
Seriously, the king of France is such a drama queen.
Ridiculous overreactions apparently run in the Bourbon family, as Phillippe is busy being as extra as possible himself, only about his obsession with the man in the iron mask.
He’s so fixated on figuring out who this mysterious figure is that he ignores his wife’s grief and dismisses the Chevalier in favor of tracking down random priests to tell him about the story of Cain and Abel.
Phillippe’s obsession with this individual would be more interesting if Versailles drew a clearer line between it and the fact that he’s obviously, as the kids would say, dealing with some stuff. (They wouldn’t say stuff, probably. But this is a family site.)
It seems obvious that, much like his weird friendship with Guillame, figuring out the solution to this mystery is letting Phillippe distract himself from something else.
Whether its plain old PTSD or connected to something specific that happened during his most recent trip to war, is up in the air. But something’s going on with him.
He also seems to be right about the magnitude of this mystery, given the sheer number of people who seem to be working together to try to hide whatever it is. The Pope is involved! Somehow!
Mostly, you know something is going down because Bontemps seems to feel that protecting this person is his duty, and, well. We all know Bontemps cares about exactly one person.
Surely Louis will take the news of all this deception super well.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- I’m honestly more upset about Louis’ horse than anything else in the episode.
- Versailles is certainly full of twists this season, but I wish the show were doing a more deliberate job of showing us the motivations behind some of the various shocking behaviors we see. What made Marie-Therese turn around and abandon her plan to flee to Spain? Guilt about what she was about to do to her husband? Fear?
- Does it make me a bad person if I hope that the entire squad of assorted poor folk are all mysteriously kidnapped into the Bastille forever? Every week I somehow manage to care about them even less.
- Liselotte being the bigger person and trying to protect Maintenon from embarrassment and ruin even after everything that’s passed between them is why she’s absolutely the best person on this show. She should probably just be ruling France.
- The Chevalier’s adorably protective decision to ruin Maintenon because of what she did to Liselotte was so wrong-headedly sweet. (And perfectly in character for him.)
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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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.