'The Count of Monte Cristo' Recap: Episode 4

The Count of Monte Cristo airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Not only did Edmond’s fiancée Mercédès marry Fernand, one of the men responsible for Edmond’s imprisonment; she also has a son, Albert, with him. Caderousse has learned that Albert is visiting Rome for Carnival with a friend, Franz d’Epinay, so Edmond also goes to Rome.

He stays in the same hotel as the two young men, prevents them from booking carriages, and invites them to lunch as the Count of Monte Cristo. He then invites them to witness the execution of two criminals from his window, offering the use of his own carriage if they agree. At the very last minute, a rider interrupts the execution, saying the Pope has stayed the death of the criminal Peppino. The other man is still killed before the young men’s eyes.

Edmond outfits the boys for Carnival. Albert is drawn away from Franz by a coquettish woman – and then knocked out and bundled off by men in devil masks. When Franz arrives back at the hotel, a man gives him a note demanding payment for the release of Albert. Since neither Franz nor Albert has the money, Franz goes to Edmond for help. 

Edmond confronts the man outside the hotel who demanded payment and receives a stammering response when he reveals he is the Count of Monte Cristo. The man takes Edmond and Franz to a castle outside the city, where Edmond’s fake title once again inspires fear. The brigands release Albert and apologize to Edmond.

Edmond has, of course, arranged the whole thing. While nearing Rome, he was warned by guards that brigands under Luigi Vampa patrolled the area. When he encountered them, he warned them against the guards because of his own hatred of punitive authority, indebting Vampa to him. He then paid Vampa and his crew to set up the scenario at Carnival, including the freedom of the nearly executed criminal Peppino, who is now on his way to Edmond’s home base of Marseille.

Albert effusively thanks Edmond for saving him and asks how he can repay him. Edmond mentions a desire to go to Paris; Albert promises to introduce him to high society there.

Jacopo buys two properties for Edmond in Paris. Albert invites Edmond to his home, where Edmond meets the newspaper editor Beauchamp, the secretary to the minister of the interior Debray, and Mercédès. Fernand is giving a speech in the senate, where he serves, so he is absent. 

After a brief meeting with Edmond, Mercédès excuses herself, feeling faint. She later asks Albert the birth name of “the Count,” but Albert doesn’t know it. When Villefort later asks Edmond the same question, he calls himself Zaccone.

Edmond attends the opera, where all three of his enemies sit in boxes – he himself has bought a box off the Austrian ambassador. He points out Fernand, Danglars, and Villefort to Jacopo.

And then he meets them at intermission, introduced by Albert. Some two decades later, they don’t recognize him. But Mercédès might: she again says she feels ill and has Fernand take her home before Edmond can meet him. Edmond charms Danglars by offering a huge deposit in his bank. And he meets Villefort, his wife Heloise, and their daughter Valentine before leaving himself, asking Albert to invite everyone to the opening of his second home in a secluded, leafy part of the city.

This home once belonged to the parents of Villefort’s first wife. It was abandoned and up for sale, so Edmond purchased it, learning also of a sordid incident that took place there thanks to Caderousse’s snooping. Years ago, Villefort sent a midwife away from the home as soon as a woman inside gave birth to a son. But the midwife lingered in the trees, watching as Villefort emerged from the house with a box and buried it before riding away. 

Caderousse has located this midwife in an asylum; she was arrested and put there after trying to blackmail Villefort. Caderousse bribes an orderly to let him and Jacopo in to free the midwife. When the orderly demands double the payment, Jacopo kills him, leaving the knife behind so that it seems like the midwife herself killed him to escape. 

She is brought to Edmond’s new house and shows where Villefort buried the box. Edmond promises her safety – something she will need, since Villefort has promised to send her to the guillotine upon learning of her escape – but she must keep out of sight. 

So she is upstairs when Edmond debuts his house, although Mercédès and Fernand are once again absent. Edmond shows off a room full of potions and poisons, pointing out the lethal brucine, for which he doesn’t have an antidote, and sharing a medicine with Heloise that might help the eight-year-old son she has with Villefort with his frequent seizures.

When conversation at dinner turns towards why the house was available for purchase, Edmond hints at a grim story told to him by the notary who helped him buy it. Heloise begs him to share, so Edmond brings them all up to a room he has left untouched. It is said that a woman gave birth there and the father killed the baby by burying it in the yard, he explains, as Villefort tries to stay quiet and Danglars’ wife Hermine looks sick.

Edmond then shows them all where the box was buried, explaining that his gardeners found and dug it up. It was empty. 

Hermine rushes off to sit down. Villefort chides Edmond for telling such a story, but Edmond points out that his own wife requested it. Villefort then goes to Hermine, who tells him they need to talk. He tells her to pull herself together.

The midwife, watching with Caderousse from an upper level of the house, identifies Villefort as the man who buried the box. To her and Caderousse’s surprise, she also recognizes Hermine as the woman who gave birth to the baby.

The box was empty because she dug it up after Villefort rode away.