Summary
“Chapter Six — The Alliance” is the calm before the storm, undercut slightly by a daft villain but still with enough energy and mystery to carry an audience through to the finale.
This recap of La Revolution season 1, episode 6, “Chapter Six — The Alliance”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
La Revolution episode 6 opens with a scene that I truly think would have been great had Donatien not been established as such a ridiculous, prancing villain. We pick up where we left off, with him discovering Katell and Joseph in their investigation, and immediately starts poking around to try and figure out what they’re up to. When talk naturally turns to the blue blood virus, the obvious irony of Joseph telling him about the malady spreading across France is that Donatien is more aware of it than most, but the tension just isn’t there as it should be. Even when a real confrontation occurs and Katell shoots him in the gut, this scene itself just plays like a misfire.
Either way, it lands Joseph and Katell in captivity, chained up at that giant tree. Elsewhere, Elise proposes a marriage of political convenience to a nobleman, Henri, which always seems to be the way of things in period dramas. But there’s clearly a sense of calm before the storm here in “Chapter Six – “The Alliance”, which is aptly titled. Along with this, we see Madeleine experiencing another vision when Donatien touches her, prompting her to lash out and slap him, and also see Marianne and the Fraternity sending a message to Edmond and the Gendarmerie. It all feels like a major dust-up is right around the corner.
You get that sense, too, with Donatien’s daft, slobbering meltdown at the assembled noblemen; he’s such a petulant child that he’s impossible to take seriously as a villain, and it’s obvious that Charles isn’t going to tolerate his antics for long. Those antics also allow Lariboise to continue to consolidate support with the ultimate intention of usurping Donatien, something that Charles is wise to. Luckily, there are enough ears in the right places to get a warning back to the Fraternity.
Since it seems to be contractually mandated that Donatien can’t go half an episode without committing some kind of pointless villainy, he turns up at the tree – from which Katell only recently freed herself – with some noblemen and Marie, the latter of whom he stabs and infects with the blue blood. His own sister! Again, I’m not sure how much this – or indeed anything Donatien does – truly works beyond filling a quota of cartoonish wrongdoing.
Much better is what we get towards the end of La Revolution season 1, episode 6. Elise attempts to smuggle Madeleine and Ophelia away from the danger zone, but their escape attempt is thwarted, leading to the death of poor, sacrificial Henri. It’s a quick injection of mortal peril that “Chapter Six – The Alliance” really needs after so much supernatural posturing, and Elise and Madeleine both fleeing into the woods and subsequently being captured works to put them both in quite a pickle. As Marie and co. rise from the dead, very hungry – are we just accepting that the speed at which the infected succumb to their hunger is entirely plot-determined now? – and ready for action, Elise looks very much like she’s going to inject herself with a helpfully provided dose of blue blood.
What did you think of La Revolution season 1, episode 6, “Chapter Six — The Alliance”? Comment below.
