REVIEW Spiral (S8 E9&10)

With desperate gangster Cisco’s planned robbery looming, he sends his psycho son Titi to tie up some loose ends – will informant Bilal and street kid Suleymane get the chop?

To be honest, we’re not too bothered about these low-lives, we’re obviously much more concerned about whether disgraced cop Gilou will be able to redeem himself, or whether he’ll get caught in the crossfire. And will advocate Joséphine, suffering late-onset pangs of conscience, be able to do anything to help Suleymane and his brother Youssuf, or will she just make matters worse? (it wouldn’t be the first time). 

As we approach the end of what is supposedly the last of Spiral, there’s everything to play for. But this season (like the last one) has been disappointingly unengaging – it’s more than just familiarity, the rough edges of the show have been rubbed off to such an extent that it’s now almost relaxing to watch.

So can we expect fireworks in this final double bill?

First, there’s the little matter of Gilou’s bar brawl to sort out. Beckriche and Brémont both want him off the hook so he can pursue Cisco, but Judge Bourdieu is having none of it. Can Beckriche, her secret lover, get around her? You know what they say about the French and their silver tongues. 

Bourdieu offers a tough deal – she’ll let Gilou out if Laure’s team is taken off the Cisco case. And the sentencing judge, eager enough to take advantage of Bourdieu’s apparent youth and inexperience, is happy to let Gilou out – another miracle, as Edelman puts it. 

But Brémont’s judge, Vargas, wants to cut Gilou loose – he’s concerned, as we are, that Gilou has got in too deep with the gang.

Suleymane does a flit from Edelman’s custody and falls into the hands of the lurking Titi, just as Joséphine arrives with Youssuf. Poor Edelman, he can’t do anything right for Joséphine.  The team want to track Suleymane’s phone, but won’t go without Laure – Beckriche folds and lets her go, which won’t please Judge Bordieau. Too late though, Suleymane is found dead – Titi’s ‘done what he had to do’.

Gilou reports to his probation officer, and Laure and Brémont are there to tell him the operation’s over – going ahead will get him 20 years, never mind get him reinstated. But Gilou is determined to see it through, just to bust Cisco and Titi. It will be perfectly safe, he tells Laure, he’ll just deliver the gang to the motel, and drive off in the getaway car while the cops bust them. What could possibly go wrong? – apart from the fact that we know the gang are armed to the teeth and have bullet-proofed their cars. 

Of course things go horribly awry when the raid is advanced, and Titi is put in the bugged getaway car – how will Gilou get out of this?

So, this is what we’ve been building up to since the first series of Spiral in 2006 – can the final episode possibly justify our persistence?

Staking out the Alsatian’s hotel, Laure quickly figures out that Gilou isn’t in the getaway car, since the spaced-out Titi can’t stop using his walkie-talkie. But when she’s ordered to arrest Titi, mayhem ensues as he blasts away with an Uzi. The armed response cops move in, Cisco blazes away out of the window with an AK47, one of the robbers is killed, and another plus Titi are captured. 

Laure and Ali hustle Gilou off the scene – Gilou grabs robber Barkash’s .45, the gun used to kill Cisco’s partner Darmon, and hands it over as evidence. Then he legs it, nicks a car and meets up with Cisco, who’s understandably suspicious.

The backlash from Beckriche and Brémont’s bosses after the botched operation is swift, with not much credit given for the two arrests and the evidence of the .45. But Edelman figures out a way to get Gilou off the hook, pressuring Judges Bordieau and Vargas to give up the robbery case in return for the .45.

Meanwhile Joséphine has taken it on herself to try to track down Suleymane’s killer, questioning the street kids and getting the names of Titi and Bilal – enough evidence for Judge Bourdieu to issue an arrest warrant for Bilal. Edelman finally gets his reward for years of devotion to Joséphine when she surrenders to the inevitable and snogs his face off. Bekriche, though, gets the elbow from the disillusioned Judge Bourdieu. 
Using the threat of murder charges, Laure pressures Ahmed into keeping quiet about Gilou’s part in the raid, and Bilal into admitting that Titi killed the two kids. Bilal, conveniently, also knows where Cisco is hiding out – in his mother’s empty house. 

All that remains, then, is to take in Cisco – but could something still go horribly wrong? Laure plans to get Gilou out before the dawn raid, but Ali figures out her plan and the team set off in pursuit. Laure is caught, but Beckriche guns down Cisco. With no-one left to testify against Gilou, he’s free to go – and Laure resigns, so against all the odds, we have happy ending. 

Is that, though, somehow a disappointment? Didn’t we expect Gilou, always a conflicted character, to die tragically? Can we buy that Laure would give up being a cop to be with him? What will she do? 

No, there’s a certain sense of disappointment to the ending, as there has been to this entire season. When we look back on the complexity and roller-coaster excitement of early series, this just doesn’t compare – as it went on, it became not so much a spiral, more going around in circles. Though characters like Beckriche and Brémont are morally compromised, they’re not exactly the anti-heroes we might expect. 

We imagined that Spiral was going to become more complex and more political as it went on, perhaps getting involved in government conspiracies, but in fact the cases seemed to become more trivial and obvious. Clear dramatic opportunities were missed – this time around we thought the murder of Shkun was going to be a case of police brutality, but no, it was nasty old drug dealers again. 

Most of all, we missed Judge Roban and TinTin from the final season – okay, actors move on, and characters get written out, but we never got a sense of closure over those two (and we’ve hardly got over the death of Pierre Clément (Gregory Fitoussi) in season five). 

Just as unlikely as Laure and Gilou’s happy ending is that of Joséphine and Edelman – she’s basically a man-hater with good reason, and he’s a cynical old lecher. Not the ideal setup for a potential spin-off, though we are told there might be one in the works – maybe the further adventures of Ali in charge of the squad?
So while we’re saddened at the end of Spiral, we must admit it had pretty well run out of steam. The French would say Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard  – it wouldn’t break three legs of a duck. C’est la vie, we’d say. 

Chris Jenkins

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES ONE AND TWO REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES THREE AND FOUR REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES FIVE AND SIX REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES SEVEN AND EIGHT REVIEW

Series eight of Spiral is shown in the UK on BBC Four and the BBC’s iPlayer

REVIEW Spiral (S8 E7&8/10)

The plot’s bubbling along nicely now as Gilou has sussed out Cisco’s plans. But as they seem to involve a suicidal attack on a gang of drug dealers, we don’t hold out much hope for a happy ending for Gilou, caught in the crossfire between cops and robbers. 

In fact, as Gilou has been recruited to find some guns, we’re pretty sure there’s going to be a firefight. (Why do the gang need him to do it, though? We understood that the criminal underworld of Paris was awash with illegal firearms). 

In between getting eyed up by sexy Emma from the club, Gilou also has to make time to report to Bremont, though he leaves out the little detail about looking for guns. His plan is to rip off a collector from a gun club, who carelessly boasts of having AK47 assault rifles, Glock automatics and a Heckler & Koch MP5 machine pistol at home – all ideal for Cisco’s planned robbery. 

Edelman, trying to make progress in the rape trial, pressures Lola’s mother’s boyfriend Leroy into a confession – why doesn’t the defence lawyer object at this point? Josephine would have. Either he comes to a sudden understanding of Lola’s psychology, or he’s very good at pretending he does. 

Edelman tries to manage an entente between Joséphine and Lola, but Lola isn’t having any – satisfied with the result of the trial, she’s ready to move on. Why do we always want what we can’t have?, asks Joséphine. Well, was that what you really wanted, love, a relationship with an emotionally damaged jailbird? Surely even Joséphine feels she deserves better than that? – though Edelman looks like he’d settle for her.

Ali has become fatally entangled with Bilal – when he confronts him after a meeting with Titi, Bilal threatens Ali’s family. We knew he was a wrong ‘un. 

Titi wants the kids to steal the guns for him – they hardly seem ideal for this purpose, other than being able to get through small windows. Gilou’s suitably horrified when they turn up to do the job. Implausibly, the guns are kept in a glass cabinet (even in France, there are regulations about keeping firearms in safes or security cabinets), and the kids almost get away with it, but the owner is disturbed and Suleyman (it had to be him, didn’t it?) is caught by the cops.  

Laure, who has been watching the raid go down, picks up Gilou and forces him to explain what’s going on. Gilou’s surprisingly soft on Bremont, but Laure’s furious to realise that they have been wasting time investigating the same case from different directions. Imagine how we feel love, it’s taken you seven episodes to get to this point. 

Now that the dream team both know what’s going on (though Laure hasn’t mentioned Gilou in her reports), perhaps there’s less chance of the case ending in confusion and carnage.

Hilariously, Joséphine phones Judge Bourdieu in the middle of the night, disturbing her in mid-shag with Beckriche, to get Suleymane out of jail, again. By this stage, you would have thought that everyone would have written him off as a bad job, and been quite happy to see him shipped back to Morocco. 
The episode ends with Ali going on a bender and having a pile-up – now it’s him who is en la merde, and we don’t fancy his chances of getting that plum job on the drug squad. 

Laure covers for Ali, while Judge Bourdain tries to get somewhere with Suleymane, presenting him with photos of the four members of Titi’s gang. Did one of them kill Amin (remember him – in the launderette? – it all seems so long ago.)

When Laure explains to the team that Gilou is undercover in Cisco’s gang, everything falls into place – Ali assumes that Titi killed Amin after having him plant the tracker on The Alsatian’s car. 

Gilou and Titi, meanwhile, are staking out The Alsatian, taking a room in a motel where he regularly stays. Masquerading as police officers Lorelle and Ardi – Laurel and Hardy – tickles Titi no end, but Gilou isn’t so amused when they have to get naked to excuse their presence in the room.

Beckriche has his own comedy moment when he leaves his tie at Judge Bourdain’s pad – surely Laure notices the handover? – but Laure is of course not amused at being told to watch Cisco and arrest him at the first opportunity, as this may blow Gilou’s cover. Wouldn’t it make more sense at this stage just to share everything with Beckriche? Or shouldn’t Laure at this stage figure out that Beckriche knows all about it? Anyway, Beckriche lets the cat out of the bag later on. 

Joséphine, as Edelman points out by now must fancy herself as Mother Theresa, promises to go to Spain to rescue Suleman’s stranded brother, leaving the boy with Edelman, who is not best pleased, but who is, let’s face it, Joséphine’s lapdog. We reckon it’s about a ten-hour drive from Paris to Barcelona, plenty long enough for Suleyman to get in trouble again.

Joséphine finds 10-year-old Youssuf without much trouble, sticks him in her car and loads up with illicit fags – are these a present for Edelman?

Meanwhile, the cops have been staking out Cisco’s hideout for so long that you’d have thought that their van would have got parking tickets. They set out after Titi in an attempt to complete Judge Bourdain’s plan of nicking him for something – anything – to get a DNA sample that might prove he killed Amin. 

Helpfully, Titi starts a brawl in a bar and gets arrested – but Gilou gets dragged in too. Finally Beckriche has to explain to everyone that Gilou is undercover, but this won’t help if he is thrown back in jail for brawling. When Judge Bourdieu finds out he’s involved, she also realises that Beckriche hasn’t been keeping her informed  – another lovers’ tiff is brewing. 

Poor Laure looks like a disappointed meerkat when she has to handcuff Gilou and drag him before the judge to explain himself – but surely he’ll get off? Otherwise, next week’s thrilling climax will be something of a damp squib.

Chris Jenkins

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE AND TWO REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE THREE AND FOUR REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE FIVE AND SIX REVIEW

REVIEW Spiral (S8 E5&6/10)

Things are hotting up with Laure’s murder case – she seems to have stumbled on an international drug-running gang. Will this be enough to lift this rather languorous season out of its ennui?

As Laure tries to question the drug mule Maria, who should turn up but Joséphine, looking like she’s stumbled out of a night-club. In fact she’s been intimidated into defending the mule by the gang who are holding Suleymane. At least the two women share a concern for Suleymane’s wellbeing. 

Bekriche goes to see Judge Bourdieu in what looks like a skyscraper slum. In fact, this is the towering Paris Courthouse project designed by Renzo Piano, sited on the northern edge of central Paris. These new law courts are built beside the Porte de Clichy to enable the judicial institution’s courtrooms and offices to be reunited in the same building. This glass-lined monstrosity is regarded as a bit of an architectural masterpiece, so go figure. 

Bourdieu gives Beckriche a right rollocking, but we still reckon she fancies him. She’s just playing hard to get. But she won’t let him try to link the drug case to the murder of Shkun, though it’s clear the same gang is involved. Then Laure finds an address hidden in Maria’s things, and it’s the hotel next to Shkun’s squat – so there clearly is a link. 

Gilou gets the guided tour of Cisco’s seedy strip club (which seems to be remarkably demure, though not cheap – €840 for an hour in the private room should be enough to empty anyone’s pockets). He gets a lead on the Jankos, presumed killers of Cisco’s partner Darmon, but turns down an offer from a friendly lap-dancer. 
Laure’s raid on the drug mules’ hotel turns up a lot of paraphernalia but no perps, while Joséphine’s gang contact puts the pressure on her to get Maria off the smuggling charges. 

Edelman goes to Joséphine’s cellmate Lola and offers to represent her in her forthcoming trial – surely only to curry favour with Joséphine. Joséphine does get Maria off with a light sentence, for which she’s rewarded by having Suleymane returned to her – but Laure trails her contact by putting an illicit tracker on her scooter. 
Then, to no-one’s surprise, Beckriche and Bourdieu go out for a little drinkie, and end up snogging each other’s faces off.  This must be in breach of half a dozen regulations, but all Beckriche is thinking is ‘This sort of thing wouldn’t have happened with Judge Roban’. 

Realising that the Jankos probably didn’t kill Darmon and aren’t welcome at the club, Gilou puts the frighteners on them and scares them off. But we feel they’ll be back. Cisco’s real pals appear to be a gang of security van bandits. 

Laure and Ali track down ’The Alsatian’ who they presume to be the boss of the drug gang,. When they go to put a tracker on his car, it turns out The Alsatian (because he’s from Alsace, see, not because he owns a big dog), or Fernando Sabayo, is already being bugged – we know that this is because Cisco is taking an interest in him.

Bremont and Beckriche have a barney over jurisdiction – this is bound to put Gilou in danger, and it already looks like psycho henchman Titi plans to bump him off  – and Beckriche and Bourdieu’s budding romance is put to the test when she tears a strip off him for losing the case to the drugs squad. 

Laure and Ali visit CAT (Cellule d’Assistance Technique, the police department responsible for technical support) and find out that the mystery tracker is not a police model. Did it come from Bilal’s shop? Why does it have the dead boy Amin’s fingerprints on it? Do the four phone numbers connected with it suggest four suspects in Amin’s death? At least, to Beckriche’s relief, this gives them something to go on. 

Joséphine tears a social worker to bits trying to get help for surly Suleymane, whose story seems to genuinely move her, but when he ends up in an under-funded hostel she gets put in her place – though whether she would have voted to pay less tax, we don’t know. She does certainly have a bit of a conscience. All Suleymane is concerned about is getting hold of enough cash to smuggle his little brother into the country.

Meanwhile, Edelman works on Lola’s rape case, without much success as neither Lola or her mother are very cooperative in court, leaving him dans la merde, as he elegantly puts it. Joséphine lectures him on the psychology and ethics of rape cases, but there’s no telling if the old roué is taking any of it in. 

Titi takes Gilou for a ride, telling him they’re going to steal a car – is he setting Gilou up for a fall? Anyway, Gilou plays along,  makes off with an Audi and they have a little race. This is not going to look good on Gilou’s record, though it may help Bremont when Gilou takes the car it to have it bugged. 

Laure and the team stake out a supermarket in search of the user of one of the phones connected with the mystery tracker, and who should they spot but Cisco, who they follow to a meeting with the security van robbers and Gilou. Cisco’s henchmen are manufacturing caltrops – tyre bursters – he’s planning to rip off The Alsatian. Safer to rob drug dealers than security vans, he explains, as they won’t go to the police. No, but they will track you down and shoot you in the back of the head. 

Laure sneaks around, and conveniently spots the gang barbecuing in the garden – but imagine how shocked she is to see Gilou. More to the point, what’s she going to tell the rest of the team?

Gilou’s now in so deep that we can’t see how Bremont is going to get him out, never mind restoring his badge – surely this can only end one way? We’re imagining a massive failure of police communication ending in a big shoot-out – could this be how it all ends? At last we’re beginning to feel the tension mounting in this all too languid season. 

Chris Jenkins 

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE ONE AND TWO REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODE THREE AND FOUR REVIEW

Spiral: BBC Four confirms transmission date for season eight

BBC Four has confirmed the transmission date for the eighth and final series of French crime drama, Spiral.

Yesterday, we brought you news that BBC’s iPlayer were showing all seven series of the show, which usually means that the new series is just around the corner.

And now we know.

Here’s a French-language trailer to get you in the mood.

What do we know about Spiral series eight so far?

Incarcerated pending trial, Gilou sees the chance to redeem himself when Brémont asks him to get closer to crimelord and to infiltrate his gang of robbers. 

Elsewhere, Laure and Ali are investigating the death of a young Moroccan migrant, whose body was found in a laundry in Barbès. 

Joséphine forms an intense relationship with Souleymane, a teen suspected of the murder she is defending. As for Commissioner Beckriche, he will have a lot to do with Lucie Bourdieu, a young judge who tracks down the slightest deviation from the procedure. Things will get complicated when Laure and Gilou’s affairs turn out to be linked, and to complete their investigations, they will again make an alliance and take all the risks.

Spiral (Series 8): Saturday 2nd January, 9pm, BBC Four

READ MORE: ALL OUR NEWS AND REVIEWS OF SPIRAL

REVIEW: Spiral (S7 E11&12/12)

A subdued Laure gets roasted by Acting Divisional Commander Anfrey from Disciplinary, as Tintin looks on – how does he really feel about his former colleagues? Their questioners fail to divide and conquer Laure and Gilou, who know the routine only too well. But it’s a huge humiliation when their offices are searched. Fortunately, Ali seems to have moved the cash which Laure had left in her filing cabinet, so the two are off the hook for the moment – but Anfrey and TinTin keep tabs on them.

Tintin, though, destroys evidence that might point to their guilt – is he covering for them, or trying to get them under his thumb?

Ali is certainly learning to bend the rules, promising papers for the Syrian immigrants if they tell what they know about the kidnap of Mazouz – DNA evidence links it to Herville’s murder, so it gets top priority. When a witness describes in English the kidnap driver wearing a ‘smoking’, he uses a French colloquialism for a dress jacket. He identifies David Cann’s driver Vadim from photographs. Could Vadim also have been Herville’s executioner?

Roban orders the teams to cooperate in a raid on Chen, seemingly unaware that Laure and Gilou are under the cosh – but their plan is working. Money man Cann and his contact Chen are falling out over the missing cash.

When the raid on Chen is cancelled on orders from above, Roban confronts the Commissioner with the email evidence that led to the death of Herville – reluctantly, the Commissioner agrees to let the raids go ahead, despite his fears that it will cause political repercussions. Sometimes we have to disobey order, says Roban – well, he should know.

Josephine’s case is floundering because she can’t get Lola to admit her childhood rape – even when Lola’s mother turns up, it doesn’t help. She turns to Edelman for ethical advice – his retort being to ask since when ethics bothered her? – but in the end she can’t force herself to give away Lola’s secret in court. But Lola finally reveals the truth, and the tribunal, implausibly, softens and hands out a suspended sentence. We doubt if a jury would have been so easily swayed. Josephine and Lola are jubilant, but what of the dead man’s grieving wife?

The raid on Chen’s finds stacks of cash, Chen is put under pressure and David Cann panics, telling his wife – Mazouz’s sister – to disappear, not mentioning of course that it’s he who kidnapped Mazouz, and will probably bump him off if he starts to look like a loose end.

(Incidentally, we only just caught on that Mikaël Fitoussi, who plays Mazouz, is the brother of Grégory Fitoussi, who played advocate Pierre Clément in seasons 1-5 of Spiral).

We still think, though, that Mazouz’s girlfriend Nadia knows more than she’s letting on, particularly about the killing of her son Fouad.

With the identification evidence on Cann’s driver, Roban gives the go-ahead to take in Cann, but he’s done a flit, and is planning to get out of the country with the help of Mazouz – but it all depends on Nadia laying her hands on Mazouz’s hidden cash.

Cann turns to his old schoolfriend Edelman for help – possibly not the wisest move – and gets zero sympathy. In fact, Edelmean squeezes out a confession to involvement in Herville’s murder – so that’s sorted out, then. In fact Cann’s henchman Vadim dunnit, but of course on Cann’s orders, desperate as he was to avoid the money laundering conspiracy being exposed.

Laure and Gilou plan to capture Cann when he and Mazouz come to pick up money from Nadia; but Anfrey is still pursuing them despite TinTin’s interference. Anfrey summons Soizic for questioning (we only catch on here that her name’s actually Bretz – Soizic is apparently a diminutive of Françoise. Who would have guessed?), and she fesses up to blocking Mazouz’s accounts.

At the handover, Edelman turns up to collect the cash from Nadia, so the cops nick him instead of Cann. Edelman, rather implausibly, calls on Josephine and admits that he knows Cann is responsible for the death of Herville.  Cann flees to the nightclub where Mazouz is being held, confessing that he killed Fouad, and threatening to get rid of Mazouz next.

So it seems that all our tentative theories about Herville’s killing being the fallout from a gay love triangle, or Fouad’s death being at the hands of his own mother, were worthless; David Cann is the big baddie, he’s responsible for all the killings, and all that remains is to get him in the bag.

Josephine goes to Roban, who regards her like a rabid skunk, and offers to turn in Cann if Edelman can go free. Not much of a way to relaunch her career, offers Roban, but she professes not to care. What would she do instead of the law, though? Social work?

In any case, the team reject her offer, opting instead to stake out Cann’s family in the hope he’ll come for them. But she goes in search of Cann at the nightclub, and is nabbed by Vadim, but not before putting in a call to Laure.

When the cops raid the club, Cann and Mazouz  turn themselves in, and Vadim tries to do away with Josephine, but Ali shoots him dead. We’re amazed that Ali survives, there have been premonitions of his death all through the series, but amazingly he escapes without a hair out of place. It’s also Ali who breaks Mazouz and gets him to rat on Cann, so he’s pretty well solved the case.

At a celebratory drink-up, who should turn up but TinTin, warning Gilou that Soizic has rolled over and that Anfrey is coming for him; will he now be seriously tempted to take the money and run? In fact he turns himself and the cash into Anfrey, takes full responsibility and refuses Laure’s pleas to let her confess too.

Roban sadly packs up his office and leaves after a drink with his faithful clerk Didier; Laure is left to watch her daughter Romy with her father in the park, but at least with some sense that there may be a chance of a relationship.

So what’s our conclusion on this terribly slow and rather underwhelming series? It can’t be said to have been twisty or thrill-packed – in fact it rarely got more surprising than the episode one killing of Herville. The guilty parties, if not totally obvious, were no surprise; and there was little brilliant detective work to be done, mainly observation and phone taps. The political dimensions of the case were barely explored – bent MP Aline Lecomte was quietly forgotten. Distractions like the Barbie and Ken case merely served to slow down the action, and the less said about Josephine’s miraculous defence of blackmailer Lola, the better.

In fact, a lot of the qualities of Spiral seems to have worn thin in the last couple of series; it’s rarely violent, shocking or exciting any more; one could almost say it’s plodding.

So what’s the future for Laure and Gilou? Well, with a season eight in production, we can be pretty sure he’ll beat the rap and they’ll be together again – but how will Roban return from retirement? And will Josephine have the energy to continue practising law? We’ll be there to find out – but let’s hope the script-writers have a rocket put up them. We couldn’t take another season of this ennui.

Chris Jenkins

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES ONE AND TWO REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES THREE AND FOUR REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES FIVE AND SIX REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES SEVEN AND EIGHT REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES NINE AND 10 REVIEW

 

REVIEW: Spiral (S7 E7&8/12)

Well, bain marie and chateuneuf du pape, as Del Boy would say, things have gone from bad to worse for obsessive cop Laure in this season of our teasingly complex Parisian policier. Her only lead to the murderer of Chief Inspector Herville is dead, so she’s been thrown off the case, and her faithful sidekick Gilou has turned his back on her over her abandonment of her baby. Her only ally is the duplicitous lawyer Josephine, and when you’re that desperate for a friend, you know you’re in trouble.

While we always enjoy the sight of Laure wallowing in self-inflicted misery, we know that she’ll always pick herself up and come back fighting, because she’s Laure; the question is, in what form will salvation present itself? Surely Josephine won’t betray her client David Cann, apparently the financier behind the Herville money laundering case?

It looks like things are heading that way when Laure, in another teeth-grindingly annoying bout of coincidence, happens to let Josephine see a picture of David Cann on her tablet – Josephine looks perturbed but doesn’t give anything away.

Josephine reaches new levels of duplicity, using Roban’s old adversary Marchard – whose career he ruined in a gay scandal – to plant a fake list of clients. Even Marchard has to admire Josephine’s sneakiness – prison hasn’t changed her, he notes. Roban is fooled into launching a raid on an innocent woman, and realised his case has been fatally compromised.

Not that Edelman and David Cann are happy – Josephine gives them one in the eye by calling in the Press, and walking out on Edelman who she knows has been delaying her reinstatement.

What exactly did Edelman think he was doing, saving Josephine from prison then hiding from her the fact that he had delayed her reinstatement? Is he in love with her, or his own warped version of love? Whatever his motivations, she gives him the elbow for what sounds like the last time, and after an excruciatingly embarrassing lunch, accepts an offer of employment from the bedazzled businessman Solignac.

Gilou and Laure also have an embarrassing moment, staying overnight in le Havre while investigating a suspicious container. When they discover it has been released by fraud cop Lebrion, they reckon he’s on the take from the Chinese money launderers.

In fact, that’s not quite the case – with the help of an unconvinced Beckriche, they discover that Lebrion has accidentally given away the identity of informant Wang to bent MP Aline Lecomte – could this have brought about the death of Herville and Wang?

There’s another embarrassing moment when sexy fraud cop Soizic plants a smacker on Gilou – how’s that going to work out? – he’s old enough to be her dad.

We have two little sub-plots – Ali and the team nab a pair of fraudsters, ‘Barbie and Ken’, who have been ripping off old ladies, and at the funeral of courier Fouad, his mum Nadia hooks up with gangster Mazouz. We always thought she was a piece of work – she says she’s ‘lost everything’ in front of her remaining son, Rayan. Mind you, he is a waste of space, and effectively got his brother killed.

Also, Edelman promises to help Josephine’s former cellmate Lola, who’s in jail for blackmailing a teacher who killed himself, but they don’t exactly hit it off, so is this plot going anywhere?

Roban realises he has been stitched up by Josephine and Marchard, but what can he do about it? His clandestine meeting with businessman Solignac has completely undermined his case.

As the cops close in on Lebrion, and possibly get closer to the murder of Herville, Wang and Fouad, the whole case could collapse over Roban’s impetuous pursuit of a quick win. Will he have to retire and admit defeat? That doesn’t sound like him – but with the tempting Dr Micaleff offering a comfortable retirement, perhaps he’ll give in at last.

As the pace picks up and new possibilities emerge, this season is getting into its stride – but two-thirds of the way through. It’s been an odd one, lethargically paced, devoid of shocks and strangely squeamish – will the closing stretch offer more thrills, spills, and je ne sais quois?

Chris Jenkins

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES ONE AND TWO REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES THREE AND FOUR REVIEW

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES FIVE AND SIX REVIEW

REVIEW: Spiral (S7 E3&4/12)

Following a couple of low-key opening episodes – give or take the shocking murder of Chief Inspector Herville – le plot thickens in Spiral as we find out more about Herville’s secrets, the mysterious pile of money, and the gang behind the murder.

With over €300,000 in cash kicking around, one wonders whether any of the cops will be tempted to dip their fingers in the pot – remember Gilou was in the last season. This time he shuts down any such suggestions pretty swiftly.

Presented with the cash evidence, Rayan admits he and his mates robbed the restaurant, but denies the murders. He fingers Karim, leader of the drug gang that beat up Rayan and his mates. Gilou seems to have got the case back on course, while Laure is banished to a back office by her boss Beckriche. But it’s she who discovers that the team has slipped up – the Chinese victim assumed to be restaurateur Mr Wang is, in fact, a convicted fraudster. So why, she wonders, wasn’t he deported? Was he in fact Herville’s informant, helping him in human smuggling cases?

In the chokey, Josephine is struggling to resist being drawn in by the drug dealers, while on the outside Edelman is buttering up the boss of the bar council to get her hearing advanced – a little bit of caviar-flavoured bribery being about his level. His plan is to set up a dodgy reconstruction of Vern’s ‘accident’ to prove that he couldn’t have identified his attacker.

When she finally gets a hearing – not looking her coiffured best – none of Edelman’s colleagues turn up in support, the judge trashes his ‘evidence’ and Josephine is remanded again. After a fight with a guard she’s stuck in solitary, and at this stage it looks like she’ll never get out of prison, much less resume her legal career. We wonder if the entire season is going to keep her plotline separate from that of the cops, which would be a first.

Roban puts the uncooperative Rayan on remand with a typically Roban-esque gesture of despair, while Gilou puts Karim on the spot – who ordered him to beat up Rayan’s gang? The trail leads to a bigger drug dealer, but Ali slips up and loses him, and gets an informant beaten up in the bargain. Gilou’s needling about his Arab heritage starts to cause friction – Ali says he was born in Rouen and his dad liked (traditional French singer-songwriter Georges) Brassens, not (Algerian folk-singer) Cheb Khaled.

Roban, meanwhile, has another case on his hands, sexy Doctor Micaleff whose patient died while she was out of the room – she now blames understaffing, and he’s inclined to believe her – but is she still hiding something? Roban raids Dr Micaleff’s hospital looking for evidence of mismanagement, and focuses on one of the managers.

Gilou’s observation of drug dealer Nasser finally leads to a big meet, but Laure, distraught at missing her daughter Romy’s medical crisis, falls asleep in her car and misses the action – though she arrives just in time to intercept the bagman.

She follows him to a shopping centre – there’s a bravura tracking shot following her around the stairways – and he drops off the cash in a fashion outlet belonging to a Wei Xu. So was Herville’s investigation actually about money laundering?

Gilou’s informant tells him that Nasser had nothing to do with the killings, but Gilou is unconvinced – well, he doesn’t have any other leads to go on, except Wei Xu.

Nico, who knows the Wen Chinese community, is assigned to go undercover – interesting to finally get a bit of background for the reliable but underdeveloped Nico. Translator Bao Sun is recruited to listen to phone taps, and it soon transpires that the garment business is indeed a money laundering operation, funnelling cash to China via powerful businessman Mr Chen – but Beckriche is warned by his bosses to be sensitive around the Chinese community.

Laure is summoned to a family court where Romy’s father, Bremont, reluctantly insists on sole custody – Laure isn’t in much of a position to object.

Herville’s funeral is a sad little affair with minimal official presence and Beckriche, who didn’t know him well, called in to provide the oration. But who’s in the funeral party, but the much missed TinTin – will he now be drawn back into the action? The signs aren’t good – his first move is to wish Gilou and Laure good luck with their relationship, which shows how much out of the loop he is.

But the funeral seems to give the prefect some impetus to speed up the investigation, and observation on Mr Chen is authorised – only to lead back to Rayan’s older brother Fouad.

As we watch these episodes, we’re reminded of current news about low morale, mental health problems, suicides and even murders in the French police – what Laure and her colleagues are going through is indeed being mirrored in real life.

As for the development of this season, it seems fairly glacial, and not marked by any of the usual twists or outbreaks of violence. So far it’s not so much spirals as going around in circles – let’s hope the action breaks out of this repetitive loop pretty sharpish.

Chris Jenkins

READ MORE: OUR EPISODES ONE AND TWO REVIEW

 

 

Review: Spiral (S6 E5&6/12), Saturday 13th January, BBC Four

NB: SPOILERS INSIDE

So far as TV cop shows are concerned, if you want a quiet life, don’t be an angler, a dog-walker or a construction worker. If you are, nothing is more certain than that your day will be interrupted by the discovery of a bloated floating corpse, a dismembered body or the mummified remains of someone encased in concrete. No surprise, then, that this week’s soupçon of Spiral cuts straight from a shot of a building site to the digging up of a dead girl – either an actress giving a very convincing performance as she’s shovelled out of the earth, or an equally convincing dummy.

Review: Spiral (S6 E3&4/12), Saturday 6th January, BBC Four

NB: SPOILERS INSIDE

Spiral still has the ability to shock; the Irréversible-style opening of episode three, with Josephine finding herself recovering in an underpass after an assault, follows a languid dolly-shot across the Parisian cityscape. The Paris of Spiral is rarely inimical – though some of its inhabitants are – but here we are reminded that the city hides brutal secrets.

Review: Spiral (S6 E1&2/12), Saturday 30th December, BBC Four

NB. SPOILERS INSIDE

Finally, or rather enfin as the French say, Spiral is back, and we can plunge once again into the murky world of the Parisian justice system, and the convoluted private lives of the unorthodox flics we have come to love.