"Three Pines": Murder in a Small Town in Quebec, with Gay Characters

 

I don't usually care for mysteries -- why be stuck in a stately English manor when you can soar across the galaxy?  But the setting of Amazon Prime's Still Life, a small town in northern Quebec, sounded intriguing, and the original novel has gay characters, so here goes.

Scene 1:  The headquarters of the Sûreté in Quebec City.  First Nation women are  protesting the disappearance of their loved ones. 5,000 have gone missing during the last 10 years, and the cops refuse to investigate.  Superintendent Francour (Marcel Jeannin) criticizes them, but Inspector Gamache (Alfred Molina) sympathizes; he rushes down to the street to save an elderly woman from being arrested for "protesting while First Nation."

Scene 2: Inspector Ganache driving with the elderly woman and her daughter and granddaughter back to their tribal community, Ioten'ton:ni, talking about  their missing loved one, 18 year old Blue Two-Rivers: she vanished a year ago, leaving a baby daughter.  The Sûreté concluded that she ran away, case closed.  The Inspector promises to take the case.

Scene 3:  Back in Quebec, Christmastime.  The Inspector is late for a house party.  He greets two women, one of whom has little girls at home, and two men, one of whom (Rossif Sutherland), has a wife at home.  Heterosexual identity established in the first line, naturally.   An inspector in charge of the tribal community gives him some details: Blue and her boyfriend, Tommy Kris, were last seen getting into a truck driven by Tommy's brother, Kevin.  The truck was filmed crossing the border into the United States,  Obviously they ran off together.

Scene 4: In  a large house lit up with Christmas lights, Dad Richard (Robert Maloney) tells his teenage daughter to hurry up, or she'll be late for her big night. Daughter complains: "She won't show up."  Elsewhere, Saul (Iannicko N'Doua-Legare, top photo) is in bed with a woman holding a Christmas tree ornament.  She explains: when she was 10, her mother tore all of the ornaments off the tree and smashed them, leaving just this one.  After they discuss how much they love each other, she rushes out -- to make a grand entrance at Daughter's Christmas pageant.  Why say "She" instead of "Mom"?  I hate obfuscation for its own sake.  And a pageant where she's not even soloist is a "big night?"  

Side note: In French, it's a "hopeful Christmas" and a "brave New Year."

Scene 5: Back home, Daughter tries to pull a chocolate snowflake from the tree, and accidentally smashes the Last Ornament.  Mom has a break down: "My only mistake was marrying you and giving birth to that!"  Wait -- so she took the Last Ornament from the tree, brought it to her boyfriend's house for show-and-tell after sex, and then returned it? 

Scene 6:  A small town, Three Pines. Christmas music playing on loudspeakers.  Olivier and Gabri (Frederic Antoine Guimand, Pierre Simpson) are running an outdoor coffee stand. I know from the book that they are a gay couple, but there's no evidence here. They are tall/thin and short/fat, like Mutt and Jeff or Laurel and Hardy, so I'm guessing comic relief.  Their customers, the town gossips, complain about an elegantly dressed woman who has written a book, and therefore thinks she's better than them.  Oh, it's C.C., Mom from the ornament-breaking meltdown.  C.C.'s husband sees her talking to her boyfriend, famous artist Saul Petrov, roils with jealousy, and rushes over to break them up.  

Time for the Boxing Day Curling Match -- the four most Canadian words in the English language!   C.C. sits in a seat reserved for the Three Graces Curling Club.  When the match begins, there's a zap -- she's electrocuted!  Wait-- if you wanted to kill one of the Three Graces, why time the electrocution to the middle of the game, when they will be busy curling? 

Scene 7: Inspector Gamache working on the missing girl case, when the Superintendent calls to assign him the Three Pines case.  So the series will be about C.C.'s murder? What was all that about the missing girl for?   He and his wife discuss how much they love each other, kiss a billion times, and he's out the door.  Wait -- he went to the party alone.  I thought he was single. I'm out.

Back to galactic empires.