I'm circling back to work on Falco, the 2013-16 procedural on TF-1. I'll be working on the remaining two seasons when I'm between other projects.
To review, Alexandre "Alex" Falco (Sagamore Stevenin) is a Paris detective who wakes up after 20 years in a coma, and goes back to work. The main arcs of the first two seasons involved: 1) Falco reconnecting with his estranged teacher wife Carole (Mathilde Lebrequier, she moved on while he slept), his daughter Pauline (Marie Beraud, now a grown-up lawyer), and his former partner Jean-Paul (Arno Chevrier, not what he seems); and 2) finding who was responsible for the ambush that led to his coma. Clement Manuel is Falco's current partner Romain Chevalier, and Alexia Barlier (Sophie Cross) is Eva Blum, the brigade's sergeant. Franck Monsigny is Carole's current boyfriend Philippe, a pathologist/forensics type, and Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux recurs as Romain's girlfriend Joy. Cmsr. Cecile Pereggi (Anne Caillon) took command of the brigade in Season 2.
As with Les Pennacs, I'll be uploading subtitles and posting the notes two-at-a-time.
Falco S03E01, "Chaos" Part 1, runtime 47:24
Season 3 finds Romain not doing well, having his SPOILER by the explosion in the Season 2 finale; Joy is finding it challenging to keep his spirits up. Abdel Dafri is new to the team, for the time being he seems to be Eva's partner. Alex is on an extended retreat at a cabin in the Jura (mountainous region near Switzerland), where at the moment Pauline happens to be visiting. He's enjoying his "paradise."
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| Sagamore Stevenin (L) and Marie Beraud |
Meanwhile, the brigade is investigating a string of murders-- young men are found naked with a doll (eyes gouged out) nearby. This is the signature of Michel 'Puppet Killer' Drouet (except for the doll eyes), a serial killer from the Nineties-- Falco was involved in his arrest. But Drouet is in prison, so they're dealing with a copycat-- who kills every 3 days. Cecile flies to the woods to beg Falco for help-- he refuses, but relents when the copycat kidnaps a judge's grandson. A break leads to a Drouet fan named Jerome Duloge, and Pereggi mounts a rescue operation.
Notes
Alex is reading the lyrics to C'est le printemps, It's Springtime (1964) by Léo Ferré (2'16"). The immediate passage he's reading goes,
There are our sorrows with colors
There is even some spring in misery
There is the sea pretending to be Monet-- Gauguin or Manet
It's springtime
Alex has been in the Jura, he calls it 'bear country,' for a year; Pauline teases him about the primitive conditions. He replies Je te sens d'humeur taquine ce matin, 'I sense you're in a teasing mood this morning' (2'53"). I'm shortening it to 'I smell sarcasm this morning.'
Sound design: The autopsy room door squeaks much louder for Cecile (3'42") than it did for Eva just eight seconds earlier.
Alex says of Pauline (8'45") , Qu'un par comme moi elle est blindee (she's like me, she's armored)-- she has a thick skin.
As Alex says goodbye to Pauline (11'06") she asks him to send her what sounds like Cantiere, but that means 'construction site' in Italian. The Jura is known for Comté cheese, that must be it.
La Vierge de Nagasaki, 'The Virgin of Nagasaki' (15'29")-- or The Virgin of Urakami-- is the Urakami Cathedral Virgin Mary statue, disfigured by the Nagasaki atomic bomb attack.
Upon meeting Alex, Abdel references Season 2's drama by mentioning that Eva was tellement dégoûté d'être à la clim ('so disgusted with the air conditioning') she wanted a transfer (18'14"). La clim is short for la climatisation. I'm translating la clim as 'atmosphere.'
18'25"-- Ne peux plus en bouger (doesn't move anymore) is not an accurate description of Romain, he 'can't go into the field anymore.'
La Foret du Massacre (19'22") was so named in 1535, where Italian mercenaries were massacred after a battle with the army of Charles III Duke of Savoy.
The cheese arrives (25'56")!
The family is surprised when Philippe invites Alex to stay with them. Tant que vous roulez pas les pelles sur la balançoire, tout va bien, 'As long as you don't make out on the swing, it's all good' (27'00"). We've seen rouler la pelle before, it means 'roll the shovel,' a euphemism for French kissing.
Alex asks Eva if a composite drawing c'est le portrait qu'il a cédé?, 'Is this the portrait he gave up?' (32'11"), which only gives the bare gist of the meaning. I'm fleshing it out a bit: 'Is this based on the description he gave?'
Lycée Saint-Exupéry is a real Catholic high school in the real town of Bois-d'Arcy (34'36"). Bois-d'Arcy is adjacent to the National Velodrome, site of cycling events for the 2024 Olympics.
RAID (39'41") stands for Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion (Search, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence). It's one of France's SWAT entities, the other is GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale).
The first shots of the ambush (42'03" & 20") are just the sound of the bullets coming in. Then Alex, Eva, and Abdel, now in the car, must be drawing closer to the shooter, because the actual gunshots become audible (42'23").
No sooner does a tire get shot out (42'27") than Alex drives through a pile of old tires.
Falco S03E02, "Chaos" Part 2, runtime 43:23
It turns out that Drouet was indeed the mastermind behind Duloge. The judge's grandson is safe and Duloge is in custody, but the original Doll Killer is in the wind and his next target is anyone's guess. Romain, assigned to Archives since his injury, finds clues on Drouet's grudges in old reports. Alex urges Romain to get back on active duty. Drouet has one more card to play.
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| Stevenin and Alexa Barlier (R) with Magali Miniac as Laure Spitzer |
Notes
Plan Épervier (0'29" and 2'27"), 'sparrowhawk plan,' is the Police/Gendarmerie codename for a fugitive retrieval operation, like a dragnet. A daytime Épervier is called Plan Milan, nighttime is Plan Hibou.
Laure Spitzer (2'25") was one of the Internal Affairs cops who investigated Alex in S02E06, "Artifices." Her new job is with the Brigade Nationale de Recherche des Fugitifs (National Fugitive Search Brigade).
How much water was in that iron anyway (17'43")?
The Maison d'arret in Fleury-Mérogis (18'40") is a real prison south of Paris. It's one of those sensitive sites intentionally blurred on the Google Maps satellite photo layer. Why the stamp locates the Fleury-Mérogis prison in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (the town to the west) I have no idea.
I have no idea what song Joy is singing (19'50").
LCI (20'30") is La Chaine Info, 'The News Channel,' a real French TV channel.
Calibre (34'11" & 41'59") is slang for gun, I guess.
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