Quiet, I looked at my With a beating heart this week while picking at raw nuts (sorely lacking in salt, yuck) and sipping on a can of sparkling water The Black Raspberry Cross, way better than any Bubly flavor – rip your shirt off here.
Poor Annie Briand (Lynda Johnson), paraplegic, depressed and isolated from those around her, recorded a suicide video, almost forced to kill herself by her manic partner Laurent Lenoir (André Robitaille), who was cheating on her with another married man, let’s see !
It’s the nightmare of every vulnerable person confined to a hospital bed: falling into the hands of a crosser who publicly plays the good Samaritan, but who, in private, mistreats and humiliates you.
Annie ended her life, unable to obtain medical assistance in dying, and placed her suicide note in an unusual place: her vagina. The suicide letter, which exposed the violence of her husband Laurent, was first slipped into an (empty) bottle of medicine, which Annie then inserted into her penis, “the only safe place where she could hide her testimony of mistreatment,” observes prosecutor Gabrielle Laflamme (Ève Landry), in next Tuesday’s episode, already on Tou.tv Extra.
A twisted and shocking affair as only screenwriter Danielle Trottier knows how to tell. “My vagina will have been the guardian of my truth,” wrote poor Annie in her last missive.
With a beating heart also put its finger on a hot topic by exploring bullying at school in two frankly stirring cases. It’s hard not to think here of the 42-year-old father who lost his temper on Monday afternoon, and who threatened, then beat up his 13-year-old son’s bully, at Pierre-de-Secondary high school. Lestage de Berthierville, in Lanaudière.
In the first story ofWith a beating heart, teenager Léane (Charlotte St-Martin) is hit and thrown to the ground by a boy her age, who steps directly on her back. Other students from the high school then jostle Léane, who wants to file a complaint with the school management. Her friend Émilie (Marion Vigneault) slows down her momentum: “it won’t work and it will be worse afterwards”. It looks a lot like the “real” bullies in Berthierville, whom the school cannot control despite the red flags raised by the parents.
The identity of Léane’s tormentor will undoubtedly grip you. It is physical education teacher Juliette Lehouillier (Maripier Morin) who will support the attacked teenager with the help of counselor Christophe L’Allier (Roy Dupuis).
For the second plot, Danielle Trottier focuses her magnifying glass on two students, including Nora Dupuy (Romane Bonpunt), a non-binary person who uses female pronouns and who has a beard. Nora’s facial hair bothers Fé Mabata (Audrey Roger), who relentlessly harasses her to a tipping point. And the executioner sneakily puts on the victim’s clothes.
Like detective sergeant Fabien Gauthier (Maxime Mailloux), many of us sighed in front of our screens: let Nora shave her beard and all her problems will disappear, period. But Nora refuses to conform and embraces her dual identities as a man and a woman. Does she have the right to live her life in peace, without fearing for her safety?
That’s why I like Quebec soap operas, which are on the air from September to April, unlike TV series, which last eight or ten episodes. These television series talk about our society and super current issues.
Often, our soap operas become mirrors of real cases that shake up the news. This happens regularly in STAT, With a beating heart And Indefensiblewhich are stuck on the headlines of the judicial sections of newspapers.
It takes breath, investment and imagination to write a TV novel. It’s a tough task, which fewer and fewer authors want to accomplish. In the TV world, you see, writing a soap opera remains less prestigious than working on a miniseries intended for a digital platform. The soap opera is for old people and “madames”, we hear regularly. Moreover, there is almost no replacement – there is a shortage – to succeed Anne Boyer, Michel d’Astous, Danielle Trottier, Chantal Cadieux, Sylvie Lussier and Pierre Poirier in the industry.
It’s really a shame. Because the TV novel allows its creators to push the exploration of the characters very far, over a long period. If one episode of the season is less good, there are twenty others left to make up for it.
The audience ratings demonstrate it on a daily basis: the Quebec public loves its soap operas, starting with STAT And Indefensible.
The soap opera gives a meeting to its faithful. It is part of a family routine. It’s always nice to know that an episode of STAT (orIndefensible) awaits us after a long day of work. And that fuels a dependence that is a lot less serious than that of Tarek Renaud (Madi Chirara) on his cell phone.
I levitate
With Julie Roussel in Witches
The talented actress Julie Roussel is in the juice on Mondays at 8 p.m. On Radio-Canada, she plays the devoted Gladys Thompson of 5e Rank. And on TVA, she plays the intense mayor of Witches, Véronique Côté, who was moving during the scenes of medical assistance in dying for her father Camil (Roger La Rue). There we discovered a vulnerable, terrified and broken woman, who carries a terrible secret. It was heartbreaking.
I avoid it
THE platforms obscure and expensive
I really, really want to watch the miniseries Feud: Capote vs The Swans, about the writer Truman Capote and his New York high society “friends.” In Canada, this Ryan Murphy production is hidden behind the paywall of the CityTV+ application where you have to subscribe to the cable channel FX to follow it. It’s starting to get heavy. Last option: buy all episodes of Feud for $19.99 on Apple TV. Thanks, but no thanks. Too complicated, too expensive. At some point, you have to make choices between a TV show and a pound of butter at the grocery store.