It's the characters who are in tears and there's not an ounce of sentiment we're asked to give to any of the characters.
I've almost no business writing anything about this wonderful series. While I lived in Paris for a brief time, I never saw this side of what must be in every urban landscape. For those who think Caroline Proust's character is "unrealistic and over-the-top," I'll only ask: Did you have the same objection to Gene Hackman's work as Popeye Doyle in "French Connection I & II"? Laure Berthaud, captain of a police investigative unit, has all the flaws, strengths, drive found, in any "gritty" police drama. The fact that she's dimutive (in stature), she manages to fill the screen with an impossibly damaged character who is hungry for justice and will stop at nothing (I mean nothing) to get it. In charge of an equally flawed group of investigators her compassion and willingness to protect them from the scrutiny of even more corrupt higher-ups is what propels the drama.
While each season has a major crime that is (usually) solved in the season finale, each individual episode brings in smaller crimes that aren't linked to the major investigation. Fast-paced, violent, often literal in its depiction of the violence inflicted on others (and on the autopsy table), the real moments where my stomach churned was the corruption that is rife throughout the judicial and law enforcement system. Everyone is on the take and can bargain their way out of most situations by hook or crook, until Berthaud lowers the boom and dispenses justice in both traditional and untraditional ways.
Grégory Fitoussi as a disillusioned magistrate who decides (more or less with little other choice) to step down and join the ranks of a defense attorney hooking up with perhaps the most complicated character in the show, Joséphine Karlsson, wonderfully and convincingly portrayed by Audry Fleurot, who steps in an out of blatant law breaking without a blink of the eye. She's pitted against Captain Laure Berthaud who read each other with great perception and battle their way to a temporary conclusion of their rivalry until it starts up all over again in the next season. Together, they're wonderful to watch.
Because, as many have pointed out, this is a series about individuals set in the back drop of a very sordid criminal world of Paris, it's the characters not the plot that are compelling. The camera races back and forth through empty hallways and the viewer never knows what it will reveal. When the door at the end of those hallways open whether it's good or bad, it's a fascinating series and a rare original in the canon of television crime drama on both sides of the Atlantic.
The poetic infusion of nature that Scandinavian crime procedurals bring is totally absent. Not only do the characters in "Engrenages" need a bath and a quick on the fly meal after each episode, the viewer feels just as sweaty and dirty...and exhausted. I'm so glad I found this particularly during the time of a worldwide quarantine where quality entertainment is often elusive.
I've almost no business writing anything about this wonderful series. While I lived in Paris for a brief time, I never saw this side of what must be in every urban landscape. For those who think Caroline Proust's character is "unrealistic and over-the-top," I'll only ask: Did you have the same objection to Gene Hackman's work as Popeye Doyle in "French Connection I & II"? Laure Berthaud, captain of a police investigative unit, has all the flaws, strengths, drive found, in any "gritty" police drama. The fact that she's dimutive (in stature), she manages to fill the screen with an impossibly damaged character who is hungry for justice and will stop at nothing (I mean nothing) to get it. In charge of an equally flawed group of investigators her compassion and willingness to protect them from the scrutiny of even more corrupt higher-ups is what propels the drama.
While each season has a major crime that is (usually) solved in the season finale, each individual episode brings in smaller crimes that aren't linked to the major investigation. Fast-paced, violent, often literal in its depiction of the violence inflicted on others (and on the autopsy table), the real moments where my stomach churned was the corruption that is rife throughout the judicial and law enforcement system. Everyone is on the take and can bargain their way out of most situations by hook or crook, until Berthaud lowers the boom and dispenses justice in both traditional and untraditional ways.
Grégory Fitoussi as a disillusioned magistrate who decides (more or less with little other choice) to step down and join the ranks of a defense attorney hooking up with perhaps the most complicated character in the show, Joséphine Karlsson, wonderfully and convincingly portrayed by Audry Fleurot, who steps in an out of blatant law breaking without a blink of the eye. She's pitted against Captain Laure Berthaud who read each other with great perception and battle their way to a temporary conclusion of their rivalry until it starts up all over again in the next season. Together, they're wonderful to watch.
Because, as many have pointed out, this is a series about individuals set in the back drop of a very sordid criminal world of Paris, it's the characters not the plot that are compelling. The camera races back and forth through empty hallways and the viewer never knows what it will reveal. When the door at the end of those hallways open whether it's good or bad, it's a fascinating series and a rare original in the canon of television crime drama on both sides of the Atlantic.
The poetic infusion of nature that Scandinavian crime procedurals bring is totally absent. Not only do the characters in "Engrenages" need a bath and a quick on the fly meal after each episode, the viewer feels just as sweaty and dirty...and exhausted. I'm so glad I found this particularly during the time of a worldwide quarantine where quality entertainment is often elusive.