User Reviews

I have to start by saying I have not read the books. So I'm not going to obsess over how they are different. Though I'm not the type who needs things to be exactly the same anyway. I did see the older Still Life movie with Nathaniel Parker ages ago, so I was familiar at least with Gamache. I do love the inclusion of First Nation actors here as well as their issues, which I know are a big deal right now in Canada. I loved the scenery, especially when driving across the open landscape in winter. I used to live in Northern Vermont and I loved the drives up towards Montreal, across much the same the area near to where Three Pines is supposed to be. This is very close to what I remember, though it's been a while. I'm not sure how I feel about the magical realism yet.

I was bugged by 2 points. First the small one: if a person is suffocated by a pillow, there are physical signs left on the body such as petechiae. So it would not have been a mystery how CC's mother died as the dialogue implies. Though I suppose if an elderly alcoholic died in a shelter, maybe no one bothered to look too closely.

The major point that I couldn't get past and it took me out of the second half of the story is related to Blue's family's actions. If I was frantically looking for someone for a year and they were spotted twice in Brooklyn and no one was doing more, I would go to Brooklyn. If only to perhaps find the boyfriend. But if they did that here, it would radically change the plot. So they had to sit home and say "Well I'm sure she's dead, I'm not going to bother." Even if a mother thought her daughter was dead, wouldn't she grasp at any straw? It was too false to wave away. And then of course, we never would have gotten the ending. It was too contrived for me and felt false.

So, I'm willing to keep watching more episodes and go with it. I wasn't sure if I'd like Alfred Molina replacing Nathaniel Parker as Gamache, but I quickly was all in with him in the role. I enjoyed the rest of the cast. Things almost don't seem French enough but I'm certainly no expert. I'll see how it keeps unfolding.

Some trivia: the "goof" someone added for this episode is wrong. The dialogue says Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henri were monarchs in Medieval Europe. They never specify that Henri was a king of France. And actually Henry spoke French, as did all of his court, not English, so that is how it would be pronounced.

I did enjoy this episode but it was pretty difficult to understand the motivations of the characters for me. The aunt being willing to take the fall for murder was perhaps the most believable thing here, but it still seemed pretty shaky. The daughter killing CC wasn't really that surprising, since she seemed to be the one most hurt by CC out of all the suspects, but the fact that they figured out it was her based off CC's boots is a bit of a stretch. Other people in town could have known about the boots CC wears, and just because the aunt didn't mention it in her video confession doesn't mean she didn't know about it. It's like they solved the mystery but it's still not a fun or happy ending. And then the family of Blue was acting so strange to me. The police gave them evidence of Blue being alive and their response was, "no she's dead, if she was alive she would have called us", and then getting mad that the police aren't doing anything? They don't ask the police to track Blue down and get a picture or interview or anything, they just assume she's dead? After 13 months of Blue being missing, it just seems like odd behavior to be mad at police when they bring evidence of Blue being alive. And Blue's mom jumping off the roof of the police station is absolutely ridiculous. She was so adamant about finding her daughter that she was waiting in the freezing cold, but for some reason now she decided she didn't want to know what happened to Blue? Feels like a very cheap shot that was only included for shock value, and it practically ruined the whole episode for me. This show is pretty dark and dramatic so I don't really expect any of the characters to act very realistically, but this was rough.

Since when does this content pass as entertainment? A woman murders her mother. Then her daughter goes on to murder her. Both mothers were abusers. Are you entertained. In the end a young juvenile victim of abuse is arrested. I just don't see any universe in which this is entertaining. In addition was so recycled, lacked freshness or originality. Oh and there's a suicide at the end of the episode in case it has not been grim enough for you to this point. On top of that all the troubled and trouble makers are women and of course the wise lead detective is a man. The mood is spooky and ominous and I had high hopes for a good mystery. I already figured out what's going on. I won't be tuning in for another episode.