Of all the egregious changes the final installment of this series makes in the story, and they are legion, the absolute worst is that Sydney does not drug Charles when he goes to see him in prison.
Those of you who know the book will understand instantly why that’s so terrible. It means that Charles deliberately accepts Sydney’s offer instead of having to be knocked literally unconscious and dragged out of La Force. It means that Charles chooses to do the unthinkable, and it utterly ruins his character. Dickens’s Charles Darnay may have been a bit of a doofus, but he was a noble doofus. He would have died ten thousand deaths before he would have let another man take his place that day.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that has no business going anywhere near this story.
The second most egregious change is this: The episode establishes that Sydney has not seen Lucie and Charles in the ten years since their marriage, until she comes to ask him to help Charles. This gives Sydney one funny line to say (“Someone wake me up, I’ve had this dream before”), but also torpedoes the “found family” vibe that Dickens created so well, in this book as in others. Far from being a beloved uncle figure to Lucie and Charles’s children, Sydney never even meets their daughter (“Matilda” here, not “little Lucie”) before the child dies at age eight. And it makes less sense for him eventually to make his great sacrifice without those ongoing strong ties.
There’s much more to gripe about: Barsad being totally left out of this installment, no seamstress at the end, no context being given for the episode title, Lucie making Dr. Manette feel guilty for concealing his secrets, the Defarges having a big unnecessary marital crisis in the middle of everything. But it’s all of a piece with what came before it. The whole endeavor — not just this installment — displayed a grievous lack of respect for the characters and for the story.
I mean, when your adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities leaves me with nothing but a vehement desire to defend Charles Darnay’s integrity, you’ve completely failed the assignment.
(Image courtesy of MGM+.)
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