'The Count of Monte Cristo' Can't Locate "The Treasure"
He takes his time about it, but Edmond finally assumes his new identity this week.
The third episode of The Count of Monte Cristo is theoretically meant to be this series's big moment of transition. After suffering for over a decade in a horrific island prison, Edmond Dantèsis free. He's got a literal treasure map. He can finally (maybe?) shave! Yet, there's a strange lack of urgency in this hour, which takes an awfully long time to set Edmond on his infamous revenge quest.
Despite looking like a homeless person and being actively chased by soldiers, Edmond – displaying zero situational awareness or planning skills — immediately heads back to Marseilles, where he learns that not only is his father dead and his girlfriend married to one of the men who actively ruined his life, but he himself is also believed to be dead. He's got a gravestone and everything.
(This is, I believe, what my very Southern grandmother would have referred to as "a big dose.")
Edmond truly is a man who just stays losing. But, not to worry, at least he makes a new friend! His rescue of Jacopo (Michele Riondino) from a phalanx of armed Marseilles soldiers requires some suspension of disbelief: A man who's been starving in prison for a decade decks a guard with a single punch, the pair race off to hide in an alley that's about six inches from the most obvious path the police would have searched, the newly rescued Jacopo's decision to not only latch onto a complete stranger but take him along on his boat.
