Les Pennac(s): Police & poulet

Les Pennacs (aka Les Pennac, Les Pennac(s)) is a light procedural set in Montpellier, in the Languedoc. The story focuses on father & daughter police captains, Hannibal Pennac (Christian Rauth) and Annabelle Pennac (Julie-Anne Roth), as well as her son and daughter (Louis and Lea). Hannibal and Annabelle were estranged for decades, but are in touch again following Annabelle moving to France from Reunion Island. Now they are getting to know and trust each other.

A complication is Annabelle's dyslexia, which the audience sees as letters scrambling, and manifests when she goes left when she means right, and in her difficulty with reading and writing (which she has kept secret), relying instead on text-to/from-voice apps.

The show has a running gag involving Hannibal's pet chicken, Marguerite. It's common to call the police poulet because the words sound kind of the same. It's about as common as flic, and maybe slightly more affectionate. On HPI, Théa has more than once referred to Karadec as Super poule (e.g. “Décalage horaire,” 0'54").

Les Pennacs began with a 2022 pilot episode I haven't seen, and so is not among the subtitles I've created. I'm identifying the episodes by title rather than season/episode numbers because I don't know for certain whether the pilot is episode 00 or episode 1.

I'm uploading the series to Opensubtitles as I translate them, two at a time. Here are the first two:

Episode: "Mort d'une poucave" (Death of a Snitch), runtime 52:42.

Hannibal comes out of retirement after he finds a former informant dead. Louis asks Hannibal for help with an egregious PE teacher; a dyslexia-related error endangers the investigation; Annabelle sends Hannibal undercover.

NOTES

The victim Tom is found at the cité Auroras (3'06"). Cité does mean "city," but here it refers to a usually-public block of housing. In England they are called estates, perhaps ironically, and cité is usually translated as such.

The Tour de la Babote (3'43") is a 12th century stone tower that was part of the fortifications of Montpellier. It became an observatory in 1745, and a monument in 1927.

A pantoufle vair (21'30") as used here means "glass slipper," although just vair is sufficient, pantoufle is redundant. Weirdly, vair also means "squirrel fur" (21'43")

Rauth (L) as Hannibal, and Roth as Annabelle.

EHPAD (42'02" and 42'48") stands for Établissement d'hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes ("Accommodation establishment for dependent elderly people"). EHPAD Les Hortensias is a real private retirement/assisted living facility-- but it's in Burgundy, not Herault.

Hannibal asks Odile why she's so angry (48'32"), but what he says, sarcastically, is pourquoi tu es charnamment (Why are you so charming?)


Episode: "Mort d'un innocent" (Death of an Innocent Man), runtime 51:32.

A kidnapping alert leads to a social media lynching. Louis conspires with his grandfather to keep Annabelle from finding out where Hannibal is living; Annabelle's ex shows up with some exciting news; an influencer is a headache for the Pennacs; after receiving her ex's news, Annabelle decides to transfer back to Reunion.

NOTES

Napoléon est mort à Saint Hélène (00'16") (Napoleon is dead on Saint Helena), is a nursery rhyme!

A macaron (4'34") is a cookie, but it's also a car window sticker-- in this case a handicapped parking permit.

Quadriller can mean "patrol," and so quadriller la ville (5'34") means "Patrol the town." In this context I have translated it as "dragnet."

Louis says he's hoping for a 12 on a book report (16'59"). The French grading system runs from a low of 0 to a high of 20. A 12 would be considered assez bien ("Adequate" or "Good enough").

Alexia Chicot (L) as Lea, and Valentin Pinette as Louis.

Une petite châtaigne (17'12") is a chestnut treat which comes in many different recipes.

The kidnappers used a rental car, and Smercesky says it's from N'uncar (36'28")-- at least that's what it sounds like. I decided it means No Car, a made-up rental car company.

When it looks like they're being taken off the case, Hannibal warns Annabelle (38'52") si tu t'écrase (If you crash). T'écrase means crash, and also shutting one's mouth. In this context I've translated it as "If you give in."

At Annabelle's dinner with Marco, he says "the Scooby's Stew was incredible," which she laughs at (48'16"). I think the joke is that Marco, who is Italian, is saying the stew est inoubliable (is unforgettable) but mispronouncing it.