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The Madame Blanc Mysteries: Series 2
R2 - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (28th March 2023). |
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The Show
 When her husband Rory was killed in a strange crash during one of his buying trips to French antiques haven Sainte-Victoire, London antiques dealer Jean White (Scott & Bailey's Sally Lindsay) discovered that all of their business assets are owed to creditors and the only things left of value are a cottage they bought years ago in the village and a Burmese Blood Ruby ring that was not found among his personal effects. Traveling to Saint-Victoire, Jean learned that her husband's death was no accident when it turns out that another rarely-seen woman mistaken by the locals for Rory's wife has trafficked forgeries. Settling into village life, Jean found her expertise of value to the local head of police Andre Caron (Hampstead's Alex Gaumond) in various murder cases involving art and antiques. At the end of the last season, Jean faced off against her husband's murderer: master criminal Barbara (Olivia Caffrey) who managed to escape capture, swearing to get even with Jean. Season two finds Jean's position as police consultant cemented in place while her relationship with local handyman/ridesharing driver Dominic Hayes (Starlings' Steve Edge) is still uncertain. Wealthy (and tacky) expatriate British aristocrats Jeremy and Judith Lloyd James (Tower of Evil's Robin Askwith and Only Fools and Horses' Sue Holderness) in their attempts to remain socially relevant inadvertently invite opportunities for crime/ Pub owner Niall (Aonghus Weber) and his former Eurovision song contest winner wife Celine (Margeaux Lampley) are a source for sometimes useful gossip. Brash mechanic Gloria (Sue Vincent) starts seeing a rival ridesharer (Avant Strangel) who may be involved in a series of high-end robberies. Jean has gone into business with high end pawn shop dealer Charlie (Sanchia McCormack whose wife Simone (Djinda Kane) is serving a prison sentence for a forgery crime and who just may be Barbara's means of getting to Jean this time around. Cases include a Christmas special in which Caron becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his estranged wife (House of Evil's Désirée Giorgetti) - all the worse when the investigating detective is a spurned former flame (London has Fallen's Elsa Mollien) – Jeremy literally stumbling over a body that has suddenly appeared in his boat in the middle of the sea, a not-so-cold case involving a long-dead actress and a missing Faberge treasure, an old miser who appears to have been murdered twice, honeymooning friends of Jean's who are being dogged by misfortune after being gifted a pack of cursed tarot cards, a literal locked room mysery involving a murdered rock legend, and something rotten in the seemingly inadvertent murder of one of a pair of twin perfumers during a robbery. Lauded by The Telegraph as "Midsomer with a Eurostar ticket…", The Madame Blanc Mysteries – created, co-written, and executive produced by star Lindsay and co-star Vincent – in its second season is still just doing the bare minimum as an Acorn Media facsimile of a "cozy" British mystery. Investigation manages to still take a back seat to character drama; and yet, the characters feel even more shallowly-developed this season than the last, making it seem even more likely that Askwith and Holderness are just around for the sunny holiday. The killer is almost always one of one or two other characters introduced in addition to the main suspect, red herrings are always obviously so, and the stakes are so constantly low. It is never a question of whether Caron is guilty of murdering his wife – well, it is, but only for throwaway comic relief – and he spends less than five minutes being grilled and confined in a cell despite the seeming threat of a spurned rival when it might have shaken up things if he had been guilty. Caron dealing with the aftermath of his wife's murder is never addressed, nor is the subtle suggestion that he might have feelings for Jean, while Jean and Dom progress no further from the last series, and one would think that the comically unconvincing American accent of Sue's beau Cooper might reveal him to be a con man but he apparently is supposed to be everything he claims. "Super"-villain Barbara is so peripheral to the season apart that the one lengthy scene in which she expounds upon what she plans to do to Jean should clue any attentive viewer in to the season's final twist the one time we should actually be worried for our protagonist. If the series is renewed again then it is testament that viewers of cozy mysteries really do only care for the backdrop and only the barest lip service to the elements of a detective story. 
Video
Shot in high definition and presented in standard definition anamorphic widescreen PAL here on DVD, The Madame Blanc Mysteries looks superficially attractive as usual with a serviceable bitrate and encode. Presumably a Blu-ray version would do the settings more justice but the DVDs do the job well enough.  AudioAudio is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo with English and a lot of over-enunciated French - by both English and French actors suggesting they were directed that way so viewers believing themselves conversant enough in French could follow the dialogue - with optional English subtitles for the English dialogue and burnt-in English subtitles for the French dialogue (positioned slightly higher on the image than the optional ones, although they never overlap). 
Extras
This time around, extras consist only of start-up trailers (the same on both discs) and a picture gallery (1:03)
Overall
If The Madame Blanc Mysteries is renewed again then it is testament that viewers of cozy mysteries really do only care for the backdrop and only the barest lip service to the elements of a detective story.
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