In “Cassandre: Season 5” All the regulars return for another quartet of 90-minute light crime dramas to be solved by our intrepid quintet of coppers in this ongoing French TV series. Review of Season 4 HERE.
The will- they/won’t-they love tease between Cassandre (Gwendoline Hamon) and Pascal (Alexandre Varga) continues on its rocky course. The other three principals in the homicide squad also have several romantic and personal developments claiming some screen time. One particular new arrival complicates life for the stars, in a plot thread that might wear thin on some viewers.
The individual murder cases are generally up to snuff with their predecessors, though the second relies a bit heavily on coincidence, and the third might turn out less surprisingly than series fans would expect. Series creator and main writer Bruno Lecigne splits the script creation duties with Mathieu Masmondet and a slew of others keeping a steady balance between the humor and crime-solving sides of the episodes.
No need to binge, but watch them in order for relationship progressions. I’d also recommend spreading them out a bit. Screening them back-to-back for review purposes left me a bit irritated with the ratio of soapy subplots to more substantive elements, and impatient with the stars’ avoidance of many things that should have been said or done sooner. Or maybe that’s just symptomatic of my progressive curmudgeination (My word, but feel free to use it on any old crabs in your lives.).
Despite these freshly-picked nits the season was enjoyable enough to keep me ready for the rest of the series to cross the Atlantic. They’ve already aired three more seasons, with a few more episodes scheduled for later this year. I would have liked for Dominique Pinon’s Jean-Paul to be featured more, but there are plenty of episodes left for him to enhance with his unique charm.
“Cassandre: Season Five”, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice starting on February 3.
3 Out Of 4 Stars