'Les Miserables' Episode 3 Recap: Castle on a Cloud

Previously on Les Miserables: Fantine exhibits terrible judgment by leaving her young daughter in the care of the Thenardiers, the trashiest and most selfish couple on Earth, while attempting to earn a living for them both. She ends up working for Valjean, who has somehow reinvented himself as some kind of successful businessman and politician in the six years since we last saw them, but she ultimately loses her job, her hair, and her front teeth, before becoming a sex worker, catching consumption and being forced to physically fight dudes in the street before winding up dying in a hospital. Elsewhere, Javert pops back up to tell the new Monseiur le Mayor that a man claiming to be former convict Jean Val Jean is arrested for robbing a child in a different town. Everything is terrible, basically, because that’s really the sort of story this is. Need more details? Our recap of Episode 2 is here.

The third episode of Les Miserables goes a long way toward humanizing the previously offputting and largely feral Jean Valjean. That it does this through the insertion of a small, charming child into his life is a trope and a half, but since it also means Dominic West gets to both talk to dolls and smile occasionally, it’s easy enough to deal with.

We’ve spent two episodes watching the story of Valjean’s life – his time in prison, his time as a mayor – but we’ve spent precious little time with him. How did he go from one man to the other? How did he internalize the gifts both spiritual and temporal that Monseigneur Muriel gave him? Is he really the man he pretends to be – the kind, giving soul everyone around him claims he is?