Through three episodes it seems like the people behind this series made a genuine effort to give hardboiled pulp icon Sam Spade his due in a twisty, noirish thriller. There's no impish 'genre deconstruction' and Spade hasn't been turned into a punchline in his own show. That's actually refreshing and laudable in 2024, sadly.
Unfortunately the series hasn't quite worked so far. The pacing is a bit too deliberate - the show meanders through flashbacks and side characters without much sense of urgency.
It's also undercut by several strange creative choices.
The first was to set it in France. As a result Spade is simultaneously and incongrously a streetwise hardcase who knows the seedy side of local life and a fish out of water in a place and culture he doesn't fully understand.
The second was to make him abrasive to everyone. Noir detectives from prior iterations of Spade to Philip Marlowe to J. J. Gittes were cynical and sardonic but their default interpersonal mode was smooth and charismatic. When they clapped back on someone or made a (controlled) show of anger it was usually a calculated gambit. This Spade seemingly can't distinguish the situational utility of different approaches. He's just a jerk to everybody; he comes off as a pugnacious idiot who has to "win" every verbal exchange regardless of the context. As a result it's impossible to warm to his character. It's also impossible to discern why anyone would help him, which the other characters that he regularly denigrates are all too willing to do.
The third was to make Spade old and financially set for life. He's mourning the death of his French wife who left him a beautiful estate; he's basically running out the clock as an idle country gentleman. He has no financial reason to get involved in an investigation. He does anyway, perhaps out of boredom and/or a sense of obligation to the people involved. These are fine and comprehensible motives except they don't jibe with Spade's characterization as weary, jaded and nihilistic. He could have been a cynical hustler whose only initial interest was financial until the case reinvigorated a latent morality (J. J. Gittes); he could have been an altruistic sleuth for whom money was tertiary to justice and an intellectual challenge (Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot.) Here Spade is neither and both. It doesn't work.
Unfortunately the series hasn't quite worked so far. The pacing is a bit too deliberate - the show meanders through flashbacks and side characters without much sense of urgency.
It's also undercut by several strange creative choices.
The first was to set it in France. As a result Spade is simultaneously and incongrously a streetwise hardcase who knows the seedy side of local life and a fish out of water in a place and culture he doesn't fully understand.
The second was to make him abrasive to everyone. Noir detectives from prior iterations of Spade to Philip Marlowe to J. J. Gittes were cynical and sardonic but their default interpersonal mode was smooth and charismatic. When they clapped back on someone or made a (controlled) show of anger it was usually a calculated gambit. This Spade seemingly can't distinguish the situational utility of different approaches. He's just a jerk to everybody; he comes off as a pugnacious idiot who has to "win" every verbal exchange regardless of the context. As a result it's impossible to warm to his character. It's also impossible to discern why anyone would help him, which the other characters that he regularly denigrates are all too willing to do.
The third was to make Spade old and financially set for life. He's mourning the death of his French wife who left him a beautiful estate; he's basically running out the clock as an idle country gentleman. He has no financial reason to get involved in an investigation. He does anyway, perhaps out of boredom and/or a sense of obligation to the people involved. These are fine and comprehensible motives except they don't jibe with Spade's characterization as weary, jaded and nihilistic. He could have been a cynical hustler whose only initial interest was financial until the case reinvigorated a latent morality (J. J. Gittes); he could have been an altruistic sleuth for whom money was tertiary to justice and an intellectual challenge (Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot.) Here Spade is neither and both. It doesn't work.