The fifth dimension of 5th Rank | The Press

The soap opera 5^e Rank of Radio-Canada has never planted its intrigues in realistic soil in five seasons.

But on Monday night, what grew on our screens during the midseason finale looked like a mutated, misshapen vegetable that had been doused with an insecticide too powerful for a normal human body. Side effects experienced: confusion, dementia, hallucinations and optic nerve damage.

Honestly, what happened in the cellar of the maniac Marc Trempe (Marc Béland), very similar to that of the D^D Claire Hamelin (Marie-Thérèse Fortin) from RAMs, was pure delirium. Or a bad B horror film, remade in summer theater format.

For those late to the harvest at the Goulet farm, the whistleblower alert whistles here like a deadly response from the mischievous Francine (Muriel Dutil), back, disguised as Inspector Gadget, from the island of Saint-James. It’s good ?

Armed with a hunting knife, Marc Trempe kidnapped and locked five hostages in the basement of the Candiac house which belonged to his maternal grandmother, a stone’s throw from a factory that manufactures handmade biscuits. raspberry.

Three of the Goulet sisters were kidnapped, namely Marie-Paule (Ève Duranceau), Marie-Christine (Julie Beauchemin) and Marie-Louise (Martine Francke). Also prisoner of the psychopath Marc Trempe: Marie-Paule’s artist friend, Francis (Alexandre Bergeron), just like the valiant Gladys (Julie Roussel), whose party Valmont police retirement pension has been cancelled, put away the crudités.

“Either you free us, or you kill us,” Marie-Paule first announced to her captor Marc Trempe, whom she almost married before he escaped from his psychiatric asylum, let’s not forget that . This same Marc Trempe who, at the age of 15, killed his sister, then cut her body into pieces, before scattering them in a dump.

What followed was shrouded in an anesthetic mist: Marie-Louise complained that Francis was bleeding in his Hermès scarf, Marie-Paule offered a self-hypnosis session to her comrades on the verge of apoplexy and Gladys choreographed an attack against the killer worthy of the best contemporary dance number in Revolution. Kick the shanks, shred the face and sneak escape, come on, let’s do it again, 5, 6, 7 and 8!

While the hostages were starving in their makeshift cellar, the unstable Marie-Paule declared, as if she were playing Shakespeare or in the film Alive : “You will eat me. If necessary, you will kill me and eat me!” It was unreal.

And why did the villainous Marc Trempe, known as a shy shoe salesman in Valmont, kidnap almost all the main characters of the popular agropolice soap opera? Because he hates the cop Fred (Maxim Gaudette), whom he considers responsible for all his misfortunes, excluding the time when he wanted to stuff his ex-girlfriend. A slight detail.

Still, five people captive was insufficient for the stupid ideas of grandeur of Marc Trempe, who shifted his target to Monique Lacombe (Sophie Clément), the eccentric grandmother of Fred and Réginald (Maxime de Cotret).

But this “crazy girl”, according to Trempe, still knows how to handle a rifle. Even hit by a bullet to the abdomen, Marc Trempe was able to prowl around the Valmont baseball field, his chest covered in blood, without arousing the slightest suspicion.

Back at the devil’s house, the executioner Marc Trempe brought the very mixed-up Marie-Paule upstairs to reveal to her that her mother, Aline Trempe, was an “old whore who sold her children to pay for her dope”.

While searching in the Trempe’s abandoned residence, it was the skeleton of Aline Trempe that Marie-Paule discovered, sitting in a rocking chair, uttering a death cry evoking a mythical scene from the film Psychology by Alfred Hitchcock.

In an unforeseen turn of events, given that the authors Sylvie Lussier and Pierre Poirier had already closed this complex file, Marc Trempe confessed to the murder of Carole Lacombe (Réginald’s mother), whose corpse – the fifth? – had been exhumed on the farm of Marie-Luce (Maude Guérin). This disheveled affair had, however, been closed after an endless investigation: Carole had been liquidated by Irène, Marie-Luce’s mother who suffered from psychiatric problems.

I haven’t missed many episodes of 5^e Rank since it went on the air in January 2019. I have never held back my pleasure despite the size of the series’ cables and its sometimes caricatured, but endearing, characters. It was entertaining, fun and full of twists and turns.

After Monday evening’s episode, seen by 831,000 faithful, many more than Witches (551,000), an observation emerged: it is quite correct that 5^e Rank ends next spring, after 132 one-hour episodes. A tour of the Goulet family garden was made, and all the skeletons that rested there were dug up.

When the holidays return, there will be 12 episodes left to tie up the last dangling strings. Until then, it will take something stronger than Naloxone to defuzz this completely skipped episode and begin our withdrawal.