22 December 2024: The three latest written interviews of me are here, here and here.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Liaison: Crime and L' Amour



So I just binged Liaison, a six-episode French/British spy thriller that streamed on Apple TV+ two years ago.  It's still up there -- one of the joys of streaming -- and I'm glad it is.  I don't how I missed it when it first aired.  I see that critics gave it mixed reviews, another example of the poor vision and/or hearing of some of the people who somehow continue to share their myopic assessments to hapless readers.

First, I should say that I'm not surprised Liaison was so good.  The French have a knack for putting up excellent police series.  They know when a couple running away from police, or in the police themselves, always find time when they're caught in tight spots, figuratively and literally, to hug, kiss, pull together even more, and do what comes naturally.  This mix of crime and l'amour always hits the spot, if done right. It made Spiral, a French police drama, one of the best ever on screen.  Thus a spy thriller with a French ambience, which after all is a kind of police drama, has big leg up in emotion.

In the case of Liaison, the British, who also have the own appealing ways of presenting a spy story -- epitomized of course by James Bond -- meld with the French to make an once combustible, sarcastic, and devoted production.  Eva Green (Penny Dreadful) and Vincent Cassel (Westworld the series) in the lead roles are in the middle of a high tech, terrorist tale of corruption and those who are struggling to stop it, and it's tough to tell, or supposed to be tough, to tell who is the hero and who is the villain.  Although--

[And here's my warning about spoilers ahead .,.. ]

I said "supposed to be tough," because I never lost my faith for a moment in the these two appealing heroes.  It was fun to see them driving from both sides of the front seat, as well as wielding knives and guns and avoiding their lethal result with a combination of prowess and sheer luck.

Now the short series ended in a way which leaves the tableau wide open for a second season.  I have no idea if that will or won't happen. But if it does, rest assured I won't wait two years to watch it.


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