Versailles Review: The Tinderbox (Season 3 Episode 9)
We hurtle toward the series finale in Versailles Season 3, Episode 9, “The Tinderbox,” as every plot builds toward a ridiculously epic finish. It almost feels appropriate that the show will end its run next week, as it’s honestly difficult to imagine where it would go after all this.
(For the record: The fact that the series is ending next week still sucks. Just saying.)
Louis, reinvigorated after his death-defying leap into a river last week, returns to form by committing patricide, engaging in hardcore religious persecution, and throwing himself a secret wedding.
Whew. Hard to imagine what he might have done had he decided that God wasn’t on his side.
In an attempt to start wrapping up some loose ends, Versailles brings several plot threads to conclusions of varying quality. The Man in the Iron Mask story is summarily ended with a convenient poisoning, under the guise of Louis and Phillippe “freeing” their father from years of imprisonment and mental torture.
Weird flex, boys, but okay.
It’s interesting that Phillippe is so upset by Louis’ decision but ultimately chooses to go along with it in the end. Perhaps he knows he can’t fight his brother the king and win, or maybe it’s because he realizes that he’s too weak to do what must be done himself.
After all, it’s hard to imagine that Phillippe doesn’t understand what a very real threat this man is to everything their family has built and has. Not just to Louis, or even to France herself. But to him, specifically and personally.
What happens to him — a man accustomed to a lavish, indolent lifestyle — if it’s revealed his not actually the Duc d’Orleans? What becomes of his daughter, the newly crowned Queen of Spain?
Is he willing to throw France into chaos? Disinherit his own children?
The tragedy of Phillippe often appears to be that he is torn between the idea of who he is, and the actual fact of it. He obviously wants to be a person who defies his brother, stands up for his father, and does the right thing.
But at the end of the day, he can’t. He lets Louis have his way because that means he doesn’t have to choose between these two worlds. (It actually feels weirdly similar to his refusal to choose or reject the Chevalier at the beginning of the season. If Phillippe never decides; he’s never responsible, right?)
Unlike his brother, Louis deals with his problems by doubling down on his faith in himself. Sure, that leads to things like him trying to take over the Catholic Church in France, and forcing Protestants to change their faith or face arrest, but you certainly can’t call him indecisive.
There’s so much frankly horrible stuff happening this week that it’s honestly not clear how we’re supposed to be viewing Louis at the moment.
His soldiers are jailing religious dissenters and burning down their homes. He bullies his brother into helping him poison their father, establishes himself as supreme leader of the church in France, and snubs a princess of Europe to marry his ex-mistress.
Are these good things or bad things? Are we supposed to be rooting for Louis or hoping someone puts him in his place?
On the surface, they certainly seem less than great. After all, he’s risking destabilizing Europe for his own pride and greed. He’s harming his own subjects. But everyone who speaks against his actions — Phillippe, Fabien, Liselotte, Colbert, even the Chevalier — almost immediately suffers in some way.
All save Madame de Maintenon, who actually gets to marry Louis in a secret wedding full of candlelight, romance and the promises she thought she could never have.
In the end, Louis gets almost everything he wants while sacrificing very little. Are we supposed to be happy with him or view his behavior as the acts of a tyrant?
Versailles, interestingly enough, seems content to let us decide on our own for right now.
Stray Thoughts and Observations
- Guess we really are just never seeing Sophie again, huh?
- I really liked the sassy Infanta of Portugal, and she probably deserves better than Louis’ large adult son.
- Fabien’s sudden decision that he can’t work for the king anymore now that he thinks he’s illegitimate is bizarre and not the least bit hypocritical given that his idea of honor and duty has been pretty flexible over the course of this show (see also: Sophie’s multiple murders).
- I understand that part of the reason that the Chevalier was paired off with Madame d’Angiers this season was to give Evan Williams something to do, and to provide the audience with a character we care about enough to pay attention to during this Protestant storyline. Only…they probably should have picked literally anyone else. The idea that the Chevalier, who has been ruthlessly depicted as a craven opportunist for three seasons, would suddenly be so besotted by this woman that he would defy the king, commit crimes, risk his life, and race back on horseback with her in the middle of the night feels absurd.
- Yay, Louis is not mad at Bontemps anymore. (But I wish we’d seen his reaction to Louis surviving his river plunge.)
What did you think of this episode of Versailles? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Versailles airs Saturdays at 10pm 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.