TV Review: THE MUSKETEERS: Season 1, Episode 5: The Homecoming [BBC]

BBC’s The Musketeers The Homecoming TV Show Review. The Musketeers: Season 1, Episode 5: The Homecoming brings very few fresh things on the table but it certainly lives up to the high expectations set by the previous chapters. It is the episode with the most twists and turns so far and throughout it minor moments of improvement and style over talented storytelling and production values can be witnessed. If you are looking for a game changer though, The Homecoming is not the episode for you. It is just another thrilling detective story, connected with a dramatic past moment, with an exciting new villain and noble, typically heroic Musketeer as the episode’s protagonist. This has been the formula for The Musketeers for five episodes now and it continues to work quite decently although the truth is, the show still can’t rank among BBC’s finest works.

The most memorable assets of The Homecoming were the handful of moments where some genuine emotional resonance could be felt. Usually the emotive scenes in The Musketeers are roused by plot twists or revelations. Here however, there was a scene in which the protagonists deliver grievous news to a father and the scene was truly exceptional in its simplicity and power. In all honesty, I would much rather see an episode full of those scenes than an episode full of the regular twists and turns. It makes you feel more.

The writing of The Homecoming as a whole seemed more solid on many occasions. The humour was clearer, more effective and this time story seemed to use the reality of that period time in order to provide more grit to the story and admittedly, it worked quite well. Realism doesn’t always work better than fiction in film but here, for me personally, it worked much better. The twists and turns happen so often that they are not even surprising, even if they are still undeniably entertaining. To experience something realistic, profound and true within this fiction-this can never be too tiring or familiar. With any luck, we will see more of it in Episode Six.

On the other hand, there are some elements of the formula of the show that are indeed getting tiring. Some of the key resolutions to the story, particularly the culmination of the villain’s story and the way it is connected in a friendly way (more or less) to one of our protagonists is already getting old because it does happen in every single episode. The fight scenes are still not likable enough. We are still focusing only on one character for the entire episode. The script of The Homecoming would have been superb if it weren’t for some arguably unrealistic moments towards the end of the episode where the resolutions start to take place. This time around the performances of the newly appearing supporting characters weren’t wholly convincing. It is a bit disturbing that the directors of the show can’t keep up with their previous accomplishments. They bring in something fresh but they let some other flaw slip in.

All in all, so far so good, but The Musketeers can and should obviously become better not simply because it has the potential with these actors and writers but because the formula of the show is getting stale. If Episode Six is exactly the same as the last five I for one will start to get tired of it. That being said, every other episode brings something new to the show, regardless of how small it is and for that The Musketeers is definitely worth watching until the end of season two.

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