Cerebrum 3 | Peculiar Murderer, Lonely Heart

Tut, tut, tut. No need to throw a bacon tantrum here like a 23-year-old real estate agent from Missouri who failed to secure an $18.9 million listing in Owning Manhattan on Netflix (we’ll talk about it again, phew).

Because it’s not a spoiler to reveal that a serial killer is terrorizing – and killing – “incompetent” doctors in the third and final season of Cerebrumthe first five episodes of which will appear on Tou.TV Extra on Thursday. The last five will follow on July 11 and, logically, this psychological police thriller will land in Radio-Canada’s regular programming schedule in the fall.

Unlike its previous chapter, which culminated in the capture of a psychopathic killer on the run, Cerebrum 3 reverses its mechanics.

First, screenwriter Richard Blaimert reveals in the first episode the identity of the main suspect, who will attack doctors who have been cleared of serious medical errors. Like forgetting a scalpel in the belly of a patient who had undergone a cesarean section.

It’s lawyer Jacqueline Laurent (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin), known as Jackie, a charming, intelligent, cunning and completely crazy woman. By day, Jackie dominates the forensic world in her slender tower in downtown Montreal. By night, Jackie spits (literally) on graves, dons multi-colored wigs and changes her accent to hook her prey. That’s our new favorite crazy woman.

Then, Jackie’s victims will not be young women mutilated or tortured, a form of violence that has been overexploited in all the TV series in the world, but men. At least, that’s what transpires from the first hours of Cerebrum 3 that I have seen and which are gently sliding into the territory of Reasonable doubt.

Of course, the pair of star investigators of major crimes Simone Vallier (Christine Beaulieu) and Danno Boulianne (Olivier Gervais-Courchesne) will work hard to catch the murderer who plays with instruments much sharper than a trombone. To support them in the hunt for the maniac, Simone and Danno are counting on the invaluable help of psychiatrist Henri Lacombe (François Papineau), who is returning from an internship at the FBI, no less, and who has signed a contract as a profiler for the Montreal police.

This third season of Cerebrum starts about eight months after the finale of the second, where the speaker Pierre Bouchard (Hugues Frenette) confessed to his murders, including that of Simone’s girlfriend, the beautiful Adèle Rioux (Chanel Mings).

Addicted to sleeping pills and still in mourning, Simone is having a very bad time, the complete opposite of D^r Lacombe, who lives with his new girlfriend Suzanne (Hélène Florent), an interior designer who convinced him to leave the suburbs for the city. Their relationship is very polite and they speak to each other with bows almost as in Bridgerton. It’s fishy. And weird.

The D’s two adult children^r Lacombe, Marine (Marianne Verville) and William (Henri Picard), remain in the portrait, and one of them has a big surprise in store for his father, taken directly from the first season of Cerebrumwhich dates back to 2019 (that’s really far away). Hint: incestuous twins.

In parallel with the central investigation, the D^r Lacombe still treats “regular” patients at the National Institute of Mental Health, including the disfigured young man Xavier (Anthony Therrien), a 23-year-old autistic and schizophrenic woman (excellent Sara Montpetit) and a crime reporter (Isabelle Brouillette), who suffers from Capgras syndrome, a psychiatric disorder that makes her believe that her loved ones have been replaced by doubles.

The central point of Cerebrum 3 remains on the unhinged (and rather clichéd) lawyer, which leaves a reduced role for Louise (Marie-Chantal Perron), the benevolent head nurse of the D^r Lacombe.

Now, knowing right away who killed – and who will do it again – doesn’t detract from the viewing pleasure. Cerebrum in a burst. It’s also thrilling to be one step ahead of the protagonists and to see how lawyer Jackie has fun with the police, getting dangerously close to the ongoing investigation.

Some of the plot threads are quite thick and sail into the territory of the risky waters of Dexter. Also, the fact that Simone and the D^r Lacombe always addressing each other formally creates a kind of coldness in the story, which slows down our attachment to them, I find.

That said, I love the character of Detective Sergeant Simone Vallier, who loves woolen hats as much as a tough 14-hour interrogation. This Simone is more akin to the tormented and fallible characters that populate Scandinavian thrillers.

The D^r Lacombe is more distant and straight, almost cold. One thing is certain, his new girlfriend Suzanne is obsessed with Simone and does not hesitate to question him repeatedly on this subject, which quickly becomes redundant.

Cerebrum remains a classic, effective and gripping police series, in addition to being one of the rare Quebec productions to take place in the middle of winter.

In the second episode, when a character faints after swallowing 4 mg of clonazepam (an anxiolytic), I couldn’t help but think of Celine Dion who gave several shows with 90 mg of Valium in her system. How did she not collapse or stagger on stage, chives? I’m still traumatized by it, such is my destiny, I think.