#ep6 text

I am honestly so sad about this whole thing. Episode 6 was pretty much what I was expecting from the series: it had its weird moments, but overall it mostly felt right; a decent Les Misérables adaptation, something we would at times complain about but still would like, and rewatch, and talk about. The last episode almost feels like it was written by a different person. It also showed that we don’t hate plot changes: it was interesting and refreshing to see Cosette confront Thénardier! What we don’t like is when they change the characterisations, especially of Valjean, the kindest of literary heroes, who was turned into an angry bear in this adaptation. (Until he had his “I am reaching but I fall” moment... in the sewers, 17 years too late.)

But why couldn’t the characterisation have been like that from the beginning! If they were to properly show the deaths of Courfeyrac, Grantaire and Enjolras, why not giving them some time in ep.4 so that we might care about them, instead having of all the sexual scenes, which actually led to nothing? Why not have Marius being his brave and pure self all along, and give him some more time with Cosette as well? Why not show Javert as the complex, devoted inspector that he is in the book, so that his inner confrontation would be more dramatic in the end? And, more importantly, why make Jean Valjean as violent as that, and not give him his moral transformation at its appropriate time, and have him be the loving father, protector of the poor, gentle and self-less man that he should be?

Also, about that last controversial shot: it feels like they purposely decided to go to the complete opposite direction of the musical, and instead of ending with the hope that these characters’ struggle was not in vain, but built the way to a brighter future, they showed that nothing has changed and the misérables are and will always be there. To me, it felt completely out of tone with the rest of the adaptation, which was so much focused on Jean Valjean’s story that everything was related directly to him (from Javert thinking him the leader of the riot, to Gavroche's death and Enjolras's speach happening with the camera focused on him) and where there has been neither social commentary, nor the feeling of all these characters miseries coming together and relating to one another (see for example Mabeuf’s non-existant back story- why not completely cut the character, and give room to some of the others to grow?). My point is, I could maybe accept this ending as fitting, if there had been similar moments earlier in the series. (How out of place does the first episode seem now, with its never ending scenes of Tholomyès wooing Fantine?)