User Reviews

I agree with the other reviewer in that I've been very tired of cliffhangers as season enders for a long while now. They've had their day. It seems almost every show does them. Many shows I've loved have been cancelled with them which leaves me bitter. If they keep going, I usually can't remember the details of events by the time the show starts again anyway. Agreed that a good show with good characters makes me watch another season, not cheap tricks. It's pure ego and selfishness on the part of showrunners to use them and not regard for the audience.

Here, these two episodes, the "murder of the week" story was unfortunately a bit of an afterthought. It felt very much like filler. We never really knew much about the characters involved, so I wasn't too invested. I was little confused by the "script" Myrna handed everyone to read at one point. Maybe I blinked, but it seemed like she was coaching everyone on how to lie to the police? But then it was more of a poem? If she was saying "we need to solve this so the police will go away", why didn't that couple leave just then? All that was a little muddy. Otherwise the clues just came easily until the end.

There was no big surprise when Arnot was finally revealed but I enjoyed the scene over game night when he was confronted. With all the talk of kill-or-be-killed, I thought that Gamache would be forced to kill him at the end. The big shock for me was finding out Arnot set Gamache up to take the fall. In the end, Gamache went to face him unarmed, just like Isabelle did when she went to meet Kevin previously. As every other reviewer says, we know Gamache does not die so there is no suspense for next season. I don't know if this will come up again or if it's just one of those things, but I wonder how the evidence Gamache gave Francoeur is what went missing. We know Francoeur didn't like Gamache at the opening of the series. Is he also dirty?

One of my favorite scenes was where Nichol had a drink with Jean-Guy. He was always a jerk to her but her reaction to his reveal was to be compassionate. She didn't burden him with her news. But she still had to leave and Jean-Guy's reaction was just be pissed she didn't stay and console him further. I hope he doesn't try to blame her later for getting him drunk. I loved how Nichol's instinct to was confront Gamache. She didn't want her hero to be a dirty cop. The only real cliffhanger for next season is what will come after the car crash? How will the cover up effect everyone? Obviously there was supposed to be parallels between the college kids who caused the crash years ago while drinking. That's a little too on the nose for me.

I also could have done without Gamache coughing up the pine needles. It was unnecessary and just makes Gamache seem to be going psychotic rather than getting messages from his subconscious or the spirit world. I also disliked when Reine Marie was giving her lecture on the spirit and the lights were radiating around her head. That shot too was too clichéd and hamhanded. I absolutely love magical realism when done well, but I don't feel it was here.

It's tough to judge just these last two episodes on their own since they wrap up a season long mystery, which I did enjoy a great deal, along with the subject matter. And overall, I really enjoyed the series, characters, and setting. I look forward to the next season and it does make me want to read the books. But there were several issues with just these two episodes and the cliffhanger isn't much of a cliffhanger. It feels oddly incomplete or perhaps doesn't finish at its best footing. My reaction is mixed.

As a long time reader, the season's ending didn't surprise me and I'm not worried what will happen to Gamache. I continue to be impressed by the nuanced characterizations of the Three Pines inhabitants and Surete officers, and Gamache's wife. These two episodes had both slow spots, which I really liked as well as intense spots with lots of stress and tension. The characters are developing in each pair of episodes, becoming more three dimensional. A concerm I have is the long-term story arc of the disappearance, we find out murder, of the two young indigenous people, feels like it takes over the new murder investigation and solution for this particular pair of episodes, that mystery slides almost into the background. I look forward to the next season very much.

We finally get closure on the deaths of the two young people. Gamache is able to use pine needles to come up with the location of the bodies. He is also betrayed by someone who is a colleague and a close friend. There is corruption in the police and to prove this, Armand must slip away from the unspoken rules that govern what police do. I felt this case took a bit long, but it appears that's where the writers are going to go. I read Louise Penny's newsletter and she seems to be OK with the plotting that allows the writers to move away from the books. But we have been cheated by their not giving us a wide range of characters that became the staples of her wonderful novels. For instance Gabri and Olivier are just window dressing. It's the people who make the stories click. I'm hoping for something better in the next season.

I've been enjoying this series and I hope it gets renewed (viewership levels suggest that it will), but the cliffhanger at the end was just dumb. Gamache is obviously not going to die, so why even pretend that he might? It's a lazy way to try to get people to come back next season. If you have a solidly done series, you don't need cheap tricks like that to keep viewers.

I've only read a few of the Gamache books so I'll leave the main analysis of the changes to viewers who are more knowledgeable, but I do like the inclusion of the MMIW storyline and hope that will continue. Maybe not so obviously as with another missing Indigeneous woman, but, as Blue's mother suggested to Gamache, maybe with him urging systemic changes in the SQ. And, of course, there's still the matter of bringing the teens' killers to justice.

I do look forward to another season of "Three Pines" but wish the showrunners hadn't ended the first season in such a clichéd manner.