Terry Zobeck chips in a brief notice on episode 2 of Monsieur Spade, currently running on AMC. He did his main layout in his opening installment, and mentions, “There are some gentle spoilers, but I don’t see a way to write much of a review without them. I am presuming that folks are watching along with me each week.”
I’m the one being worked over here, since I’m holding off till the whole thing can be binged in one fell swoop. Terry assures me — and you — “But I won’t give away the solution at the end.”
No whodunits or whydunits or howdunits.
Here’s Terry:
I’ve decided that the way to watch Monsieur Spade is to ignore the whole conceit that this is a Sam Spade story set some 35 years after the events of The Maltese Falcon.
As I noted last week, the makers of this series contorted themselves into a tremendous knot to try and justify the conceit. Let’s say it’s nonsensical and leave it at that.
Once we’ve dispensed with that unnecessary raison d’etre, we find a fairly interesting mystery. The production values are top-notch and the cast, led by Clive Owen (who is no blond Satan) is fine. The scenery and sets are gorgeous — it is southern France after all, so how can they not be?
Spade is confronted with the horrible deaths of six nuns at the convent where he consigned Brigid’s daughter, Teresa, several years previously. Despite Teresa’s hostility toward Sam for the way in which he dealt with her parents, she reluctantly cooperates with him as he begins his unofficial investigation of the murders.
There are some murky clues that suggest the solution may be tied to Sam’s French widow’s first husband, who seems to have been a Nazi collaborator. Her attraction to Sam eight years earlier may have been more than pure romance.
And is Teresa’s father back from the dead and after Sam?
We’ll have to watch episode 3 to see where the story may be headed.
