Summary
“Chapter Four — The Executioners” kills off a couple of characters to raise the stakes as we move towards the latter half of this first season.
This recap of La Revolution season 1, episode 4, “Chapter Four — The Executioners”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
The word of the day is “hunger”. This, you see, is the curse of the blue-bloods. You might get superhuman power and immortality, but you also have to chow down on your fellow man at regular intervals just to keep an even keel. This is addressed right at the top of La Revolution episode 4 through Donatien, who messily eats the face of a fellow prisoner.
This, needless to say, doesn’t bode well for Albert, and Oka knows it. These two have a cosy friendship that it’s going to be interesting to see develop. Albert certainly seems to be handling his “infection” differently to everyone else we’ve seen thus far, from the Count to Donatien. Oka obviously has some knowledge of the ins and outs, but quite what his capabilities are, and what the limitations of the blue blood might be, is anyone’s guess at this point.
The prison escape in the previous episode has caused some pretty serious issues in Camp Nobility. Edmond – that’s it! – you’ll recall had his hand sliced off by Marianne, and we catch up with him in “Chapter Four – The Executioners” cauterizing the wound, which doesn’t look entirely pleasant. Charles, meanwhile, has a giant bee in his bonnet about the whole matter and is overseeing things personally. The Gendarmerie is in his bad books and so, too, is Elise, who gives him Marianne’s name but nothing else, and also lets on that she knows Charles’s men attacked her father’s coach.
Elise isn’t prone to scaring easily these days, which is perhaps just as well since Madeleine seems intent on bestowing nothing but dreadful predictions of everyone’s deaths. I do wonder what direction the show is taking with Madeleine at this point – is she some kind of soothsayer? What relevance does her mutism have? Does her facility with dreams and suchlike connect her in some way to Oka, who allowed Joseph to experience the same kind of visions? Questions!
Speaking of Joseph, he’s being held captive by a very irritated Edmond and the Gendarmerie, though they eventually let him go. He later awakens in the church and speaks with Father Maxence, and after that Elise and Ophelia. Since the blue blood “disease” is becoming pretty much common knowledge at this point, at least it’s able to be discussed openly. Joseph lays out the symptoms, which are eerily similar to Madeleine’s various predictions. True to form, she doesn’t have anything pleasant to say to Joseph, revealing that his friend is going to die tonight. This turns out to be true, even if the word “friend” is a bit loose in this context.
It’s time to say goodbye to Father Maxence in La Revolution season 1, episode 4. He served his purpose well, but now his purpose is to die. As he creeps through the church passageways and eventually encounters the Count, it seems like his fate is sealed there and then, but not quite. Maxence and the Count enjoy confession, of a kind, with the Count insisting that sooner rather than later, all the nobles will be very much like him. Case in point: Donatien, who shows up and promptly sinks his teeth into Father Maxence’s neck.
Question! Presumably, the Count has been infected for ages, and yet here he is having a perfectly reasonable conversation about French politics, while Donatien has been infected about five minutes and has for some reason turned into a preening camp lunatic, already more vampire than man. Have we had any confirmation thus far that the blue-blood causes any behavioural changes beyond the obvious growing hunger? Or is La Revolution just trying to position Donatien as a flamboyant villain for its own amusement? I feel like it isn’t following its own rules here.
Next on the chopping block is the Count himself, which has also been a long time coming. Right before his execution, we learn a couple of important things regarding the entire blue-blood plot and Louis XVI, and also that the only way to kill a blue-blood is to chop off its head. Thus, Donatien and Charles behead the Count.
There is little time for Joseph and Elise to mourn their respective losses. Father Maxence quickly expires in Joseph’s arms, while Madeleine spots the blue blood on her dead father’s wrist. Even the locals have no time to grieve for the Count, since the ceremony to honour him is interrupted by Donatien, dressed in a full floral ensemble, who seizes power for himself.
