Balthazar 3: Pure Gold, Except...

The third season of Balthazar has been up on Acorn via Amazon Prime Video for at least a month.  My wife and I saw the first two seasons and loved them.  We felt the same and even more about the third season.

Except for the first episode, which was a standalone with Balthazar on an island, and Captain Hélène Bach eventually goes out to retrieve him.  That episode was obvious, and all right, at best.

The rest of the season, in contrast, was pure gold.   We finally learn who was responsible for Lise's death and [some spoilers ahead, so the usual cautions]

Her relationship to Balthazar, and the impact on Bach, and how Balthazar seeks to resolve this was riveting and top-notch in every way.   This fundamental story towered over all the other cases, even in the early episodes in which B & B were absorbed nabbing other villains.  And yet these other stories were excellent, too, with all kinds of nice twists and turns.

[super spoilers ahead]

But let's cut to the chase.  It was satisfying indeed to see Bach cradling Balthazar in her arms, declaring how much she loved him, after he had maybe been mortally stabbed in the neck by Maya, just as he was about to probably light a match, literally, that might have consumed him and Maya both.   But there were two problems in this ending:

1. One, we know that there's going to be a fourth season.  Which means we know that Balthazar will survive.

2. And we also know that Hélène de Fougerolles who plays Hélène Bach, and plays her so well, won't be returning to the show (Google that and you'll see).  WHAT?!    I don't care what the reasons for this are in our off-screen world.  The chemistry between Balthazar (also brilliantly played by Tomer Sisley) and Bach was so good, even before that final heart-rending scene, that the fourth season just cries out to see them again.   To the producers of the show or whomever: make that happen!

Yeah, I'll watch the fourth season anyway, but I'll miss Captain Bach in every scene she isn't in.

See also Balthazar: Quincy and the Fugitive with Much More

Balthazar: Quincy and The Fugitive with Much More

My wife and I just finishing bingeing two seasons, sixteen episodes, of Balthazar, the French series on Prime Video Acorn, made in 2018 and 2019, streaming here since April.  Despite it being about a Parisian coroner (Balthazar) who cuts open dead bodies and hasn't gotten over the terrible murder of his fiance (or maybe wife) 15 years ago, the series is actually a great pick-me-up in these, our very troubled, times.

It has lots of humor, gallows and other varieties, to be sure, but that's not why it's so refreshing.  Somehow, this combination of Quincy (the Los Angeles medical examiner, same thing as coroner, or whatever exactly they call it France) and The Fugitive manages to be heartbreaking, harrowing, and even cuddly all at the same time.

Part of the reason is the sheer brilliance of the wounded Balthazar, which he manages to flaunt almost all of the time.  This annoys Captain  Hélène Bach, who nonetheless relies on him and falls more than halfway in love with him, and not only or really because her marriage is on the rocks because of her cheating husband.   That chemistry between Balthazar and Bach keeps the series bubbling and on edge, along with the constant search for his fiance/wife's killer.

Indeed, those are the constants in what is otherwise a more or less standalone episodic series, which goes against the grain of the now more usually continuing story kind of series, which I almost always prefer.  In fact, the stories in these episodes are usually nothing special, and the chemistry and the search and the sheer pleasure of watching Balthazar's mind at work keep you riveted to the screen.  And when the episode itself very much matters, as when Bach's or Balthazar's very lives are at stake, well, those hours are masterpieces that you don't come by too often on television of any kind.

The leading roles are perfectly played by Tomer Sisley as Balthazar and Hélène de Fougerolles as Bach.  And the supporting cast, including Pauline Cheviller as Lise (Balthazar's slain fiance or wife), Côme Levin as Eddy and Philypa Phoenix as Fatim (Balthazar's at once funny and heroic assistants), and even Yannig Samot as poor Delgado (Bach's police partner, who is told by Bach, when she says she's in love in Balthazar, in danger of dying, "you never loved anyone, other than your mother and your dog") are top-drawer, too.  There's a third season well underway.  There had to be, given the ending of the second.   See it, after of course the first two.  You'll be in for a real treat.