'The Count of Monte Cristo' Recap: Episode 8

The Count of Monte Cristo airs Sundays at 9:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
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Now that he has ruined Fernand – leading to the disgraced man’s suicide – Edmond will complete his revenge and ruin Danglars and Villefort. Edmond tells Mercédès, who is returning to Marseille, that he didn’t intend for Fernand’s death. She warns him that he is playing with people’s lives.

Nevertheless, he will destroy his rivals. First up is Danglars. Edmond advises Mercédès to withdraw all her husband’s money – now hers – from Danglars’ bank. 

The banker is nervous about his plans for a railroad project because he is relying on investments from Edmond and the “count of Spada” – but neither will hand over the substantial sums of money until Spada is officially engaged to Danglars’ daughter Eugenia. Edmond reassures Danglars that everything will work out.

Before the engagement ceremony, Spada visits Eugenia and her singing teacher and lover Louise to give them letters recommending Eugenia to the best opera companies in Rome, signed by Edmond. Spada admits that he doesn’t actually like opera, and hints that there is a window of time before the engagement ceremony for the pair of them to take advantage of the career connections offered by the letters and start a life in Rome.

Edmond also acts before the ceremony, bringing Beauchamp, the newspaper editor, evidence that Danglars and his wife Hermine have been inside trading based on knowledge from Hermine’s lover Debray, the secretary to the minister of the interior. Edmond gives the same evidence to the police.

As everyone gathers for the engagement ceremony, Eugenia cuts her hair to pose as Louise’s brother, whose passport she has acquired. She also takes some of her mother’s ill-gotten money for travel, leaving Hermine’s safe empty when she rushes to it after learning from Debray that the police are onto them. 

The ceremony begins despite all this. Spada asks where Eugenia is. Her door is locked, and she doesn’t answer, so Danglars breaks it down. All that is left is Eugenia’s hair clippings. She and Louise have absconded in a carriage. As this realization sets in, the police appear with arrest warrants for Danglars, Hermine, and Debray. Edmond watches, satisfied, as they are led away to face prison.

Villefort has realized that his own daughter, Valentine, shouldn’t be in prison – thanks to Edmond, who tells Villefort that Haydee saw Villefort’s wife Heloise go to Edmond’s lab during a dinner party. When she left, the vial of brucine, the poison used to kill Villefort’s mother-in-law, was missing.

Heloise stands to gain the fortune of Villefort’s mother-in-law by her death and Valentine’s imprisonment, which send the fortune to Villefort and then his son with Heloise, Edward. She keeps asking Villefort why Valentine has not yet gone to trial, and tries to shift blame on her stepdaughter – including by hiding the brucine in Valentine’s room for Villefort to find.

Villefort tells Heloise Valentine will be released from prison – and that he knows Heloise is the poisoner. No one is above the law, he tells his wife before leaving to report her to the police. 

He also has to attend to his work, prosecuting Gaston, the pickpocket who was witnessed killing the inspector Boville after stealing from Caderousse. Edmond invites Beauchamp to observe the trial with him.

Gaston’s lawyer calls the midwife Edmond found who delivered Hermine’s baby with Villefort years ago. She explains to the court that she is Gaston’s foster mother – and how she came to be so, rescuing the infant from a hole Villefort dug even though the boy was still alive. When Villefort’s affair and attempted infanticide are revealed – and his parentage of a pickpocket – he is at a loss. He eventually stammers that “no one is above the law, including myself,” and announces that he is withdrawing from the case before leaving in shock.

He returns home to find that Heloise has poisoned both herself and Edward. As he sobs over his son’s corpse, Edmond arrives to reveal his true identity and why he has sought revenge. But when Edmond sees Villefort’s grief, he decides that he doesn’t need to do any more to the bereaved man. “God forgive me,” he says, before leaving to recover from his shock in a carriage. He reaches for his go-to drug, but throws it out the window instead of taking it. His yearslong pursuit of vengeance is done. 

Valentine is the only member of the Villefort family to have some happiness: she reunites with her love, Max Morrel, unencumbered. 

Edmond does make sure Danglars knows who is responsible for his downfall and why, sending him a letter in prison identifying himself and reminding him of the letter he and Fernand wrote to indict Edmond all those years ago. 

And then Edmond wraps up all his business. He sends the loyal Jacopo and Ettore home to Italy with his carriage and a yearly allowance. When they stop receiving money from him, they will know he is dead. Jacopo urges Edmond to send letters: Jacopo wants to learn to read and write.

Edmond returns to his birthplace of Marseille and visits his father’s tomb, which sits next to his own, from when Mercédès thought he was dead. He then goes to Mercédès herself: she stands on a cliff every morning and looks out to the Chateau d’If where he was imprisoned for 15 years. Thinking of you kept me alive in there, he tells her. But he’s leaving France and may never come back. The Abbé Faria told him in prison that revenge would kill something inside him – and he was right. 

“Love can heal,” Mercédès says as she takes his hand and they stare out to sea.