“Just be careful not to tell them that you attack little girls, and you’ll be fine. »
The end of the last episode of The emperor, relayed Wednesday at 8 p.m. on the airwaves of Noovo, certainly caused applause and whistles in many cottages in Quebec. Here, my sickener! Pay for your disgusting actions! Braille, you will pee less!
Arrested for sexual assault, then detained, advertising man Christian Savard (chilling Jean-Philippe Perras) underwent a humiliating strip search, squat included, before joining his new fellow prisoners, who were waiting for him with a brick and a homemade lantern.
Finally, the most hated narcissistic pervert on Quebec TV suffered the repercussions of everything he inflicted on the waitress Marilou Côté (Charlotte Aubin), his work colleague Manuela Suarez (Noé Lira) and the athlete Florence Morieux (Naïla Louidort).
From a Teflon boss, elusive and impervious to police investigations, the playboy advertising tilted towards the side of the terrified, of those who suffer and who never completely heal. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing this influential (and fictional, of course) man being punished severely, after so many years of impunity, and drooling over it before our eyes.
As if Christian Savard’s descent into hell redeemed all the cases of sexual attackers (very real ones) who have recently escaped the courts. Yes, justice exists, even if it takes place in a television series context. And nothing better than a public execution to calm popular discontent.
There would be a thesis to write on this, in addition to that of the academic Coralie (Jade Charbonneau), Christian’s blonde who is interested, for her master’s thesis, in “victimization as an object of power”.
Well oiled, the noose tightens around Christian Savard in the episode of The emperor on Wednesday, the sixth out of a total of eight for this second season. But like a snake, the slimy Christian slips and slips through the cracks of the judicial system. “He is a man of a thousand resources. He has financial means, he has relationships and he always has a strategy to bounce back. He doesn’t feel guilty and he doesn’t realize what he’s done,” says author Michelle Allen (Runaway, For Sarah), creator of this emperor who is as angry as he is captivating.
The most disturbing thing is when Christian shows the humanity hiding behind the monster, especially in the presence of his two young children. Part of us hates everything that Christian represents and the other understands his reality as a hen parent, ready to do anything to protect and keep his own.
In the seventh episode, already offered on the Crave platform, Jean-Philippe Perras appears in a hyper-charged scene with Jean L’Italien, who plays his father Lionel in the miniseries. This pivotal moment sheds light on all the previous episodes in another way.
Undisputed king of cognitive diversion (the good old gaslighting), Christian Savard gets away with distorting the facts and twisting the truth to his advantage, which increases, from week to week, the level of exasperation of viewers. But when will this bastard strike his Waterloo (not ABBA’s, obviously)?
“Everyone has been waiting for this for a year and a half,” says Michelle Allen, adding that the eighth and final episode of The emperor will not disappoint anyone. And no, the screenwriter will not write a third chapter, she has exhausted and closed her subject.
Those who worship by sitting in front The emperor will let out other church swear words on Wednesday evening, when Christian’s last victim, his own niece Rosie Savard-Hébert (Léa Roy), will go through the torture of the preliminary investigation. Christian’s lawyer, Aimée Beaulieu (Geneviève Beaudet), will not spare her. “This is the scene of The emperor who moved me the most while writing. It shows that the justice system is resilient and difficult,” notes Michelle Allen.
The character of Allison (Shoshana Wilder), Christian’s English-speaking partner at the Primal.e agency, has been blowing hot and cold since the first episode.
Ambitious and rattling, Allison has worn several contradictory masks (accomplice of Christian, ally of the victims), and her true face will soon be exposed, in a turnaround well constructed by the screenwriter.
As for the young and brilliant Coralie, who almost by force intrudes herself into the condo and into Christian’s personal life, she was manipulated very young – the famous grooming – by her predator and she bears all the scars. Truly, she is pitiful, prisoner of the aura and influence of Christian the puppeteer. Even when she discovers incriminating envelopes in her lover’s safe, Coralie looks away and refuses to understand that RSH means Rosie Savard-Hébert. Another prey on the hunting board of our sexual derangement.
That The emperor also accomplishes very well, is to expose the collateral damage that arises from Christian’s multiple attacks. His sister Audrey (excellent Madeleine Péloquin), who always defended him, lost everything. His ex-wife Olivia (Geneviève Boivin-Roussy) has kept the two children in a bubble, but the media overexposure of the case quickly pierces this protective cocoon.
And when the oldest Pauline (Léa-Kim Lafrance-Leroux) learns terrible information about her dad, she goes into a tailspin and makes a gesture that hits you right in the plexus.
We suspect that Christian Savard will end up in jail at the end of the eighth episode of The emperor. We just hope that he languishes in the most dangerous and unsanitary wing of all Quebec penitentiaries.