BBC4
The question you are all asking as Spiral series 4 commences is “did Clément get to put his cock in Joséphine?” and from the first two episodes at least the jury is out on this one. Of course this is France where you only get a jury trial if the offence in question is likely to give you 15 years or more and while many men would gladly take 15 years jailtime to spend one night knocking the back out of Ms Karlsson, Pierre is a highly sought after, highly attractive male who doesn’t need to chase around after the Red Menace like it’s the only pumpum in town. Still and all even if you were the Parisian version of Chicago’s most eligible bachelor list alumnus Will Gardner you totally absolutely would jump through a few hoops to take Joséphine for a few laps round the track. They are still in business together but in bed together? I’ll get back to you on that one.
In the other, much less interesting subplot masquerading as a main story, some anarchist tubs of shit look to blow shit up in support of irregular migrants in detention centres. One such tub of shit gets his shit fucked up when a bomb he was making explodes on him and his friends dump him in the woods to die. Long live anarchy! But not long live him because he dies a lonely excruciating death. With friends like these, huh?
“The whole plugging Ronaldo investigation could well be going south as Officer Pujade seems to be willing to contradict everyone’s bullshit testimony and tell the truth. The truth! No truth handler Laura. Her career is circling the bowl.”
Thomas (Jérôme Huguet) is the firebrand ultra-left alpha of the group, Sophie Mazerat (Judith Chelma) his soppy well-meaning girlfriend. Berthaud and crew quickly isolate Mazerat but with Joséphine defending her she’s able to wriggle out from their grasp. That girl will play the legal system like a harpsichord.
She’ll have a tougher job extracting Malian illegal Moussa Koné (Marc Zinga) out from his predicament. He may have been working for 10 years in the country, keeping his nose clean, paying tax, doffing his hat to la République and La Marseillaise but that’s all counts for shit because he’s got a fake ID and he can just right off back to Mali as far as the fascist immigration system is concerned. Well, fascist is a bit strong. Every country has to protect its borders somehow and frowning on illegal migrants is a pretty good start, no? Not that that stops Joséphine playing the Nazi card at the hearing. It doesn’t go down well.
“Given that the French care about as much about animal rights as Blandrew Stinkin cares about nailing the perfect American accent it was always going to be the latter.”
Nothing can ever be simple in Spiral country. Berthaud is getting ridden like a Triple Crown winner by her new boss Police Commissioner Herville (Nicolas Briançon). He’s exactly the kind of careerist stats-fixated fool who demands results without providing the resources needed to get them and resorts to barking indiscriminately at people when things go wrong in lieu of actual management. The whole plugging Ronaldo investigation could well be going south too as Officer Pujade seems to be willing to contradict everyone’s bullshit testimony and tell the truth. The truth! No truth handler, Laura. Her career is circling the bowl.
It was ever thus. There’s always some crisis waiting to engulf Berthaud and crew and it’s always swatted away with the minimum of fuss. They seem keen to engage with non-Islamic terrorism this season which generally means either animal rights or anarchists and given that the French murder more horses than David Milch and Clare Balding combined and care about as much about animal rights as Blandrew Stinkin cares about nailing the perfect American accent it was always going to be the latter. I’m on board with this and with Gilou jumping into bed with crooked Egyptian nightclub owners I fully expect everyone to make a big fuck up of everything before bringing the perps to justice. And with a bit of luck Pierre will finally know the touch of the red hand in his special place.
The verdict on Spiral Series 4: Same merde, different day.
Marks out of 10: 7.5
Imagined: Thursday 14th February 2013