There’s a rush on the recorder, no time to fool around. After witches, One Way: Survive, Before the crashthe two daily ones from 7 p.m., the return of 5e rank, With a beating heart And Alertsa novelty in fiction shines brightly on the radar screen of the return to television.
Here is the second season ofA criminal case, which starts this Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Noovo. It’s very, very good. It’s well written, well acted and well directed. And it tickles our inner armchair detective fiber.
This is another investigation into the investigation of a “cold case”, the good old dormant file which reappears on the top from the pile after the discovery of disturbing clues.
And no, you don’t need to have watched the first season ofA criminal case to jump into the second. No link unites these two parts written by the author Joanne Arseneau (Miscellaneous facts). No character crosses from one chapter to another. In short, the two twisted stories live independently, but continue to expose the shenanigans that tarnish the badge of rotten or corrupt cops.
This time, the eight-episode miniseries shines its flashlight on police officers Geneviève Lanctôt (Julie Le Breton) and Laurence Malenfant (Alice Moreault), partners in the Montreal police homicide squad. Parenthesis, before continuing: the two main actresses sparkle in these complex and nuanced roles of investigators, who twist the truth to protect each other.
PHOTO ÉRIC MYRE, PROVIDED BY BELL MEDIA
Laurence Malenfant (Alice Moreault) and Geneviève Lanctôt (Julie Le Breton) in A criminal case
From the first minutes, the action takes off in a dingy garage, where Laurence Malenfant kills a suspect, the very strange Poupart (Hubert Proulx), who attacked his colleague Geneviève with a crowbar.
Self-defense ? Calculated murder? Stupid accident? These are the avenues that will be explored by two agents from the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI), played by Normand Daneau and Mounia Zahzam and responsible for shedding light on this dark and crooked thing, let’s say it.
Because before dying, the mechanic revealed disconcerting information about Laurence’s police officer father, Jean-Claude Malenfant (Patrice Godin), a member of the anti-gang squad who has been missing for seven years. Let’s say that these confessions shook Laurence (amazing Alice Moreault), who believed in the theory of her dad’s suicide.
Could it be that veteran Jean-Claude Malenfant, appreciated by his peers, was assassinated or that he started his life again under a new identity without saying a word?
The second heroine of the series, Geneviève (excellent Julie Le Breton), knows more about the disappearance of Jean-Claude Malenfant which she reveals to the BEI investigators. She “covers” for her friend Laurence as well as her husband Philippe Laberge (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), who was Jean-Claude Malenfant’s partner before climbing the ranks, very quickly, to the rank of chief inspector.
The couple formed by Julie Le Breton and Pierre-Yves Cardinal in A criminal case also hides some creepy elements. It explodes in the second episode and it’s disturbing to watch.
The more the series progresses, the more our perception of the events at the heart of the plot changes. And the more you scratch, the more secrets come to light. This is one of the great pleasures of watching A criminal casean intelligent, dense work full of multi-layered characters, which will be revealed from one Tuesday evening to the next.
This second season ofA criminal case appears to me to be less cerebral, less “internal police poutine”, and more focused on action on the ground. In two episodes, we find the bones of two corpses on Notre-Dame Island, a stone’s throw from La Ronde. A mysterious necklace piques the curiosity of the detective sergeants, as does the content of a cell phone which recorded a violent argument between two people whose aggressive nature was not suspected at all.
PHOTO YAN T., PROVIDED BY BELL MEDIA
Scene taken fromA criminal case
Among the secondary roles, actress Kathleen Fortin steals the show by playing the sister of the man killed by Laurence in the first episode. This vulgar woman, without falling into caricature, trades off each of her confidences, which enrages those who question her.
We laugh more often in A crime story 2we breathe more between two busy moments, I find.
These bubbles lighten the general atmosphere of the series, without trivializing the difficult things that take place there.
At the crossroads of all the leads, even the false ones, the character of Laurence – the one who lost her father seven years ago, let’s not forget – remains a fascinating enigma to decipher. Her brother got into drugs, not her. Her mother and mothers-in-law took it, not her. In appearance, at least.
We feel that Laurence is suffering from serious trauma and we understand that she is hallucinating rabbits when the tension rises to an intolerable level around her. To relieve the pressure, Laurence performs comedy shows in a small “comedy club” which resembles the Terminal, avenue du Mont-Royal Est. Yes, all these elements coexist in a coherent and plausible way.
A former patrolman even called Laurence “mentally ill”, and it is true that his fragile psychological state inspires fear.
We know little about Laurence, but we know that her comrade Geneviève will not abandon her. This criminal case is also one of solidarity and friendship.