Les Misérables - Episode Guide

1815. War-torn France has been defeated at the battle of Waterloo. Convict Jean Valjean is nearing the end of his sentence in Toulon after serving 19 years for a petty crime and is released by the ambitious prison guard Javert. Convinced he will reoffend, Javert forms a deep personal hatred of Valjean.

A desperately poor Fantine is forced to leave Paris to find work and makes a difficult decision to give her young daughter Cosette a better way of life. Making her way to Montreuil she finds work in a factory, presided over by the generous Monsieur Madeleine.

Settling into his new life as the prosperous owner of a factory, Jean Valjean becomes unsettled when Javert becomes Montreuil's new police inspector. Javert is suspicious and determined to catch him out.

Over in Montfermeil, the scheming Monsieur and Madame Thenardier demand increasingly impossible sums of money from Fantine, who is forced to take desperate measures to find a way to pay them...

A tormented Jean Valjean is forced by Javert and his own conscience to reveal his true identity, but a promise to Fantine changes everything. Things are looking up for the Thenardiers when a rich stranger arrives at their inn, but their joy is short lived.

Jean Valjean worries when Cosette meets a young man. The Thenardiers plot their revenge.

Paris is on the brink of revolt as unrest spreads through the streets and taverns, among students and the working class. Despite these larger threats to law and order in the city, Javert redoubles his efforts to find Jean Valjean. Though he's lovesick over another girl, Eponine is desperate for her affection for Marius to be requited, and so helps Marius find Cosette. The increasingly paranoid Valjean warns Cosette that they must leave Paris soon. Marius makes a promise to his beloved Cosette. When Valjean learns of a more immediate threat, he takes Cosette to a safer address. Jealous Eponine intercepts a note that the distraught Cosette leaves for Marius. At General Lamarque's funeral, the population of Paris rise up, and a violent revolt begins. Marius's friend Enjolras leads a group of students and workers to build a barricade. Marius, with no way to find Cosette, feels he has nothing left to live for, and marches off to join his friends at the barricade.

The revolutionaries and the army prepare for the next assault. Jean Valjean arrives at the barricade to find Marius, conflicted over his feelings about the man who promises to take Cosette from him. Valjean's heroic efforts to keep the soldiers back are applauded by his new comrades. The battle at the barricade reaches a tragic and bloody end. Valjean escapes through the sewers with the badly wounded Marius over his shoulder. Javert does not give up the hunt. Valjean's selfless actions shatter Javert's world view, sending him into a personal turmoil from which he never recovers. Believing he is doing the best for his adoptive daughter, Jean Valjean makes a heartbreaking decision, but underestimates the depth of the love of those closest to him.