'The Count of Monte Cristo' Opens with "The Letter"
As Masterpiece's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's classic begins, Edmond Dantès is having a no good, very bad day.
If you're going to write a story fantasizing about all the ways you'd ruin the lives of your enemies, it's probably a good idea if everyone watching is fully aware of who those enemies are. This is Masterpiece's new adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo in a nutshell – or at least its first episode — a painfully paint-by-number affair with characters whose motivations are basically hanging on signs around their necks.
Granted, it's not like its source material is much more subtle. Alexandre Dumas based his famous tale largely on the real-life injustices his father suffered at the hands of Napoleon, and, as allegories go, it's pretty blatant. The elder Dumas (nickname: The Black Devil) was a massively successful general, so much so that his popularity began to make the future Emperor of France nervous. You can probably guess what happened next: Several years' worth of suspicious jail time, a broken family, and a young boy who lost a father whose imagined revenge he'd go on to immortalize in fiction.
So, a certain amount of wooden exposition can be forgiven here — after all, most of this episode is pure set-up, explaining how evident cinnamon roll Edmond Dantès (Sam Claflin), after losing everything thanks to the machinations of weak and jealous men, is driven to reinvent himself in the name of revenge. Though his enemies are so stupid and obvious that it's difficult to imagine how anyone with eyes doesn't immediately see through their paper-thin schemes. But, hey, Edmond's gotta get shoved in that prison somehow.
The basics are pretty simple: Everyone's jealous of how great Edmond's life is. When the captain of his ship promotes him from his deathbed, his sudden professional good fortune and constantly praised sailing skill irritates dour-looking fellow sailor Danglars (Blake Ritson), who views the job as his due. (Edmond's too good at work!)
When he returns safely home to Marseille with plans to marry his beautiful but boring love interest, Mercedes (Ana Girardot), it pisses off Fernand Mondego (Harry Taurasi), a complete creep who seems to think he's owed a chance with her simply because he wants one. (Edmond's girlfriend is too hot!) And just as Edmond is about to clear his name from their made-up treason accusation, the corrupt Gérard de Villefort (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) allows him to take the fall for a crime that could have implicated his family. (Edmond's too trusting!)
Truly, it must be exhausting being both this good and this naive all the time. (I guess there's at least the prospect of prison to beat that out of him.) Edmond is falsely accused of treason, thanks to this trio of losers, and is shuffled off on a ship to the infamous fortress Castle d’If. Fernand immediately tries shooting his shot with Mercedes because her man's about to spend the rest of his life in a hellhole. But Mercedes's primary (potentially only?) character trait is loyalty, like full-on Penelope from The Odyssey style, so we'll see about that, I guess.
Though Edmond is on the receiving end of what is, quite objectively, the most contrived revenge scheme of all time, he remains little more than a cipher throughout much of the episode, a paper doll upon which bad outcomes are heaped like ugly sweaters. Beyond being good at everything and beloved by everyone, it's difficult to name any particularly notable facts about him. What is it about him that inspires such loyalty and love? Who can say! He's, at best, a canvas on which people project their ideas of who they want this character to be, which may actually be the most perfect example of a self-insert that television has ever seen. (Which is, to be fair, essentially what the book is, as well.)
The premiere's opening scenes hint that, on the other side of this ... let's just call it a dark learning experience, is a man who is at least more morally complicated than this Edmond appears to be. Fingers crossed, we meet that version of him sooner rather than later. (Maybe the method to the show's madness is to make original recipe Edward such a literal piece of human cardboard that any change, no matter how dark it ends up being, is welcome.)
Luckily for him, Edmond is blessed with deeply stupid enemies —Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort might as well be literally twirling moustaches as they throw their heads back in laughter during whatever scene they happen to be in. (Not to mention remarkably cool about plotting to commit some crimes with people they've just met!)
But they are hardly alone in the painfully basic nature of their characterization. Flat, one-dimensional characters seem to be this series' stock in trade. There's Caderousse (Jason Barnett), the good but weak-willed servant who witnesses Danglars and Fernand plotting to have Edmond arrested for treason and says nothing when his own life is threatened. There's Mr. Morrel (Nicholas Farrell), his boss, who likes Edmond more than his other employees because the story essentially says he has to. (Also, to be fair, Danglars does suck.) There's Villefort's wife, Heloise (Poppy Corby-Tuech), who is also present sometimes! And Edmond's father (Roger Sloman), who doesn't even get a name!
(IMDb tells us that it is allegedly Louis. Quelle surprise!)
The hour ends with Edmond imprisoned, reduced to a number, and overseen by a vicious governor whose personal policy is that no one leaves the Castle d'Ilf alive. (Again, extremely chill and normal attitude about what is essentially an open admission of a crime!) No matter, Mercedes is determined to wait for her love, and the two stare longingly in one another's direction, one from a prison cell window and another from the rocky shore across the bay.
It's all very dramatic and would likely be quite moving if the show had done literally anything at all to flesh out this relationship beyond the most basic of brushstrokes. As it is, we're just told repeatedly how much Edmond and Mercedes mean to one another and how devastated they are to be parted. The episode emphasizes this fact not by showing us anything about the depth of their bond — they have maybe two conversations in the entire thing — but by deploying flashbacks from scenes we saw literally twenty minutes earlier in the hour. Somehow seeing it twice is meant to make it more meaningful, apparently? (Narrator voice: It did not. Sigh.)
On the bright side, there can't possibly be more expository ground left for anyone in this story to cover. So here's hoping that now we've set all the pieces of this story into place, the fun can finally begin.
The Count of Monte Cristo continues with new episodes airing and streaming on local PBS stations and the PBS app on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET through mid-May 2026. All episodes are available to binge on PBS Passport for members and on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
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