Perhaps with a slight lapse in creativity, this fifth season is entitled Double Murder, as it is this that mostly shakes the unit out of their shock at the end of the previous season. While Laure struggles to move on, the news that she is pregnant threatens to ensure she can never really get beyond Sami; Tintin meanwhile feels put upon at home and work, having nowhere he can go to get away from stress, and Gilou continues to drift in the middle of his white knight and rule- breaking personae. Meanwhile Joséphine tries to work her way back, looking for that one good case to get her headlines and exposure; and Roban returns to work, struggling to find his vigour for the job he once had.
This fifth season is a strange beast, because it manages to work best in the moment, but not be quite as good when reflected upon or when taken as a whole. The double murder and related threads are engaging but yet do not totally satisfy as they should. There are multiple threads across all the characters which feel more forced into position than really being part of the flow. In terms of the main case, there are a lot of red herrings and steps on the way to the solution; in any given episode the pursuit of these potential solutions, or linked steps, are engaging and produce good drama, but I was surprised by how fleeting so many of them were. I'm not suggest the show became the French 24, but it did feel at times that anything that happened two episode prior was pretty much forgotten, or somehow had served its narrative purpose. This is not to say the show is bad though, because pretty much each episode did engage and have drama – it was just the feeling of it not really building so much as filling.
In particular the show has a few big moments which feel like they occur more for the sake of momentary impact or narrative convenience rather than anything else. Laure's whole pregnancy feels like one; okay we get a much more delicate character from her as a result, but at the same time I does feel like it was always going to be tidied away. We'll see what happens if there is a sixth season, but the totally pointless stabbing at the very end of the season indicates convenience rather than reality – the terrible jump cut of Laure being away from Karen, and then being stabbed, also adds to this. Of course this is nothing next to the murder of Clément – an event which a few episodes later is not even mentioned on the "précédemment dans Engrenages" opening. I guess in some ways it is brave to kill off a main character, but the way it plays out with so little consequence suggests it was done because the actor wanted out of his contract, or they just ran out of ideas for the character – it really seems to occur for no actual reason in the context of the show.
I sound negative thee, but generally I did enjoy the show as it was coming; I think the closer it got to the end, the more apparent it became that a lot of it had been twisting in the wind rather than really building on top of whatever had gone before. I am not sure this applies to the characters though, because I mostly liked what they did with them. In particular Laure is more than just shouty impatience (although that remains), and Proust is very good at the dowdy reflection thing that she is frequently asked to do. Although I did not always buy her situation, I felt for her. Godard has an odd season; on one hand he is up to his usual trouble, but then on the other he is gallant and love struck; it is an odd mix – he does the best he can but it doesn't all work. Fitoussi deserves better than he got, but is solid up to the end. Fleurot may well not have changed her character much in 5 seasons, but she does it well and looks great doing it. Likewise Duclos is reliable throughout, as is Bianconi. I liked Briançon's Herville more in this season too, although in the end it felt like he was just hanging around. The casting of "villains" is very much in service of the plot rather than anything else – although, as others have observed, there is a tendency for them to come from groups which are not white French. Of these, the most notable is Shirley Souagnon, who seems to be cast specifically to back up the "French version of The Wire" claim, by being as confusing as Snoop in terms of gender. The show is too kind on her, taking time to explain (excuse?) while also using her as they wish – she is good though, as are most of the girl gang, bikers, raider, car thieves, international criminals, and other groups all of whom come and go with the same approach of working in their moment but not in the bigger picture.
The fifth season of Spiral still works and pretty much all the episodes I found engaging and enjoyable despite some rather large duff moments on the way. It never really built like the show has at its best (maybe season 3?), and I hope that if it does return for a sixth season, that it can come with something that gets stronger each episode and not just something that tries to fill each episode.
This fifth season is a strange beast, because it manages to work best in the moment, but not be quite as good when reflected upon or when taken as a whole. The double murder and related threads are engaging but yet do not totally satisfy as they should. There are multiple threads across all the characters which feel more forced into position than really being part of the flow. In terms of the main case, there are a lot of red herrings and steps on the way to the solution; in any given episode the pursuit of these potential solutions, or linked steps, are engaging and produce good drama, but I was surprised by how fleeting so many of them were. I'm not suggest the show became the French 24, but it did feel at times that anything that happened two episode prior was pretty much forgotten, or somehow had served its narrative purpose. This is not to say the show is bad though, because pretty much each episode did engage and have drama – it was just the feeling of it not really building so much as filling.
In particular the show has a few big moments which feel like they occur more for the sake of momentary impact or narrative convenience rather than anything else. Laure's whole pregnancy feels like one; okay we get a much more delicate character from her as a result, but at the same time I does feel like it was always going to be tidied away. We'll see what happens if there is a sixth season, but the totally pointless stabbing at the very end of the season indicates convenience rather than reality – the terrible jump cut of Laure being away from Karen, and then being stabbed, also adds to this. Of course this is nothing next to the murder of Clément – an event which a few episodes later is not even mentioned on the "précédemment dans Engrenages" opening. I guess in some ways it is brave to kill off a main character, but the way it plays out with so little consequence suggests it was done because the actor wanted out of his contract, or they just ran out of ideas for the character – it really seems to occur for no actual reason in the context of the show.
I sound negative thee, but generally I did enjoy the show as it was coming; I think the closer it got to the end, the more apparent it became that a lot of it had been twisting in the wind rather than really building on top of whatever had gone before. I am not sure this applies to the characters though, because I mostly liked what they did with them. In particular Laure is more than just shouty impatience (although that remains), and Proust is very good at the dowdy reflection thing that she is frequently asked to do. Although I did not always buy her situation, I felt for her. Godard has an odd season; on one hand he is up to his usual trouble, but then on the other he is gallant and love struck; it is an odd mix – he does the best he can but it doesn't all work. Fitoussi deserves better than he got, but is solid up to the end. Fleurot may well not have changed her character much in 5 seasons, but she does it well and looks great doing it. Likewise Duclos is reliable throughout, as is Bianconi. I liked Briançon's Herville more in this season too, although in the end it felt like he was just hanging around. The casting of "villains" is very much in service of the plot rather than anything else – although, as others have observed, there is a tendency for them to come from groups which are not white French. Of these, the most notable is Shirley Souagnon, who seems to be cast specifically to back up the "French version of The Wire" claim, by being as confusing as Snoop in terms of gender. The show is too kind on her, taking time to explain (excuse?) while also using her as they wish – she is good though, as are most of the girl gang, bikers, raider, car thieves, international criminals, and other groups all of whom come and go with the same approach of working in their moment but not in the bigger picture.
The fifth season of Spiral still works and pretty much all the episodes I found engaging and enjoyable despite some rather large duff moments on the way. It never really built like the show has at its best (maybe season 3?), and I hope that if it does return for a sixth season, that it can come with something that gets stronger each episode and not just something that tries to fill each episode.
