Starting with the dumping of a brutally disfigured, dying young man in the middle of the night, this series is set to focus on the terrorist threat posed by the ultra gauche – the extreme left. Jérôme Huguet, who played a supporting role in last year's Angèle et Tony, is introduced as activist Thomas Riffaut. Thomas is part of a tangled web of criminals and well-meaning volunteers, whose activities range from extreme violence to caring for destitute African families.
On their trail are police officers Laure, Gilou and Fromentin, although the events of the previous series, in particular Laure's killing of serial murderer Ronaldo Fuentes, are still having repercussions. How much that death with overshadow this series' proceedings remains to be seen.
We are teased with a few brief scenes featuring lawyers Pierre Clément and Josephine Karlsson (with more to come no doubt), while Judge Roban is yet to make an appearance, after the devastation he faced at the end of season 3.
The menacing, vindictive Judge Wagner is very much in evidence, as is a new police chief.
As always, my heart was racing through much of the episode, and there were some welcome flashes of dark humour as well as a truly stomach-churning moment that surely wasn't meant to be seen on the big screen (at least not by sensitive souls such as myself!).
Welcome back, Engrenages. We missed you!
Spiral (aka Engrenages) returns on BBC4 at 9pm on Saturday 9 February
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Since we discussed the series subtitles when you lent me the DVD - I thought overall they did a good job in translating the French justice system into English, and adapting the humour, although some double entendre got lost. x
ReplyDeleteYes, I certainly don't envy anyone the task of translating all that legal jargon! The main issues I had with the subtitles for series 1 & 2 are the occasional typo in English ('their' for 'there', that kind of thing), some cringeworthy slang terms, and one blatant mistake in season 2 ('go for it' for 'lâcher prise'). Season 3 & 4 subtitles are excellent though. Because I can understand the French, but not always quite well enough to ignore the English subtitles completely, it really bugs me when they are even a tiny bit wrong. Conversely, well-done subtitles really enhance a film/TV programme for me as they make me think a lot about the wordplay involved and the enormous amount of work that must go into getting them just right!
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