One of the best things about being a critic that I have discovered over the years is how it puts shows and films in front of me that under different circumstances I might never have given a chance. The French detective drama, Mongeville, is a perfect example of this. I wouldn’t say the show is a hard–hitting drama, but instead a cozy murder mystery where each episode is 90 minutes that had me nostalgic for the old TV murder mysteries like Murder She Wrote. This was something I was glad I went into blindly and over the course of the 28 episodes the show took me on a journey through the French city of Bordeaux, travelling through the countryside and meeting some interesting characters along the way. So was this a series worth checking out as its characters pieced together the clues one mystery at a time? Grab your passport, gloves, and a few evidence bags, because that’s exactly what you’re about to find out.
Season 1 introduces us to Antoine Mongeville (Francis Perrin). He’s a retired judge who, well, has just found it a little difficult to leave his job completely behind. In this season Mongeville is still trying to piece together what happened to his daughter who was kidnapped, and along the way he is helping Detective Axelle Ferrano (Marie Moute) with a few homicide cases. There is the police Captain Briare (Pierre Aussedat) who has a bit of history with Mongeville and doesn’t like the idea of Mongeville inserting himself on these various cases, but as the series stretches on this continues to be a running joke, until finally Briare just accepts that there is no way he can keep Mongeville from helping out, especially when the man always delivers results.
Season 1 does have one of my favorite episodes, “At the Time of Our Death”, which involves Det. Ferrano investigating a body that was discovered at an old orphanage, and this leads to a bigger mystery when she and Mongeville discover something hidden behind the walls. I liked the dynamic of Mongeville in these first three episodes, and there was a decent arc around his missing daughter, but this season has a major issue, because it sets up storylines that absolutely go nowhere and are ignored for the rest of the series, because Season 1 is the only time we get to spend with Det. Ferrano.
When we get to Season 2, we meet Det. Valentine Duteil (Gaelle Bona), who is pretty much the exact opposite to Mongeville, but as their partnership develops, they are just a charming duo. The strength of this show is the pseudo-father-daughter dynamic between these two, There’s a nice chemistry that Perrin and Bona share that comes across, and in the scenes where they are simply bantering with one another, it’s more of the highlight of the episode than the actual murder case (at least sometimes). One aspect of this relationship that may rub audiences the wrong way, and maybe it is just a cultural thing, but Mongeville does seem to do his fair share of mansplaining just about everything to Valentine, but to be fair his character does seem to present himself of a bit of a “know it all”, and it gets a bit annoying. When it comes to things that the character doesn’t know, like pop culture references, he can be a bit condescending. Perhaps this is just something that got lost in translation with all the subtitles, but I’ll let other viewers decide.
One thing that was just about impossible to miss is that as the show goes on from one season to the next, we also see the production values increase. When you see how much change occurs from Episode 1 to the final episode, you can tell they were pumping a good amount of money into the show. Then there is the overall cinematic experience of the show. The first season things do look a bit bland, but as it goes on with some of the locations the story takes us, it becomes visually scrumptious some of the countryside’s and villas we get to witness. Though some things I do wish they addressed, like why Mongeville suddenly moves from an apartment to a fancy villa … though they do also make one character “quirk” change. In the start Mongeville always had a camera with him because he’s obsessed with photographing birds, but then there is a point where he just stops this altogether. This doesn’t take away from the quality of the show; it’s just something that is hard to ignore since they had put so much emphasis on this at the start of the series.
The episode “The Scent of Love” was a bit of a game changer. It was far enough into the series that we’ve gotten to know the characters pretty well … or so we thought. This one I liked a lot, because it flips a lot of what we thought we knew about a certain character and hits us with a bit of a surprise. It’s things like this that kept the series fresh and fun. My personal favorite episode was “Iron Gate”. This one has a bit of a gothic feel to it. It’s a mystery around people being killed, but prior to their deaths they find an old coin that is left for them as a warning of their impending doom. This episode just felt like a modern Sherlock Holmes story and had one of the more creative reveals in the series. One thing I appreciated about the show is that the victim wasn’t always a “good” person, and the killer wasn’t always the bad guy, and on a few occasions the murders are definitely justified. There is definitely a formula to the show, but it doesn’t ever feel repetitive, which is a bit of a relief. The writing for the show was clever enough at times that the directions some of these cases go are pretty unexpected. Now, that being said, there are some episodes that do get a bit absurd. “Bad Faith” is one that jumps out at me. I’m not saying the episode is bad; honestly, it is a fun one, but it stretches the notion of being believable, although to be fair, the show isn’t exactly claiming to be a true story, either.
There’s also another show called Magellan, and I bring this up because there are two crossover episodes in this set that has Mongeville teaming up with inspector Simon Magellan (Jacques Spiesser), who works out of a small French town. These episodes are a lot of fun. I couldn’t help but think of these episodes as what the Grumpy Old Men films could have been if they were detectives. Francis Perrin and Jacques Spiesser are a lot of fun together, to the point I’m actually going to track down this Magellan series and see if it holds up with Mongeville. We only get two episodes with this pair, but they are definitely high points in the series.
While this doesn’t really have an arc that stretches for seasons, the series works well as basically a fun murder-mystery-of-the-week program. One thing that was a bit odd is that the last two episodes I feel should be switched, because the ending for the second to last episode really works as a way to tie up the series. Aside from that gripe, I still had a lot of fun with this show. This is a show that is perfect for an overcast, snowy day when you can curl up and just turn your brain off for a few hours. I should mention that the show is in French and does have subtitles, but there is no dubbing option, so I know for some that may be a deal breaker.
