s7 review

A subdued Laure gets roasted by Acting Divisional Commander Anfrey from Disciplinary, as Tintin looks on – how does he really feel about his former colleagues? Their questioners fail to divide and conquer Laure and Gilou, who know the routine only too well. But it’s a huge humiliation when their offices are searched. Fortunately, Ali seems to have moved the cash which Laure had left in her filing cabinet, so the two are off the hook for the moment – but Anfrey and TinTin keep tabs on them.

Tintin, though, destroys evidence that might point to their guilt – is he covering for them, or trying to get them under his thumb?

Ali is certainly learning to bend the rules, promising papers for the Syrian immigrants if they tell what they know about the kidnap of Mazouz – DNA evidence links it to Herville’s murder, so it gets top priority. When a witness describes in English the kidnap driver wearing a ‘smoking’, he uses a French colloquialism for a dress jacket. He identifies David Cann’s driver Vadim from photographs. Could Vadim also have been Herville’s executioner?

Roban orders the teams to cooperate in a raid on Chen, seemingly unaware that Laure and Gilou are under the cosh – but their plan is working. Money man Cann and his contact Chen are falling out over the missing cash.

When the raid on Chen is cancelled on orders from above, Roban confronts the Commissioner with the email evidence that led to the death of Herville – reluctantly, the Commissioner agrees to let the raids go ahead, despite his fears that it will cause political repercussions. Sometimes we have to disobey order, says Roban – well, he should know.

Josephine’s case is floundering because she can’t get Lola to admit her childhood rape – even when Lola’s mother turns up, it doesn’t help. She turns to Edelman for ethical advice – his retort being to ask since when ethics bothered her? – but in the end she can’t force herself to give away Lola’s secret in court. But Lola finally reveals the truth, and the tribunal, implausibly, softens and hands out a suspended sentence. We doubt if a jury would have been so easily swayed. Josephine and Lola are jubilant, but what of the dead man’s grieving wife?

The raid on Chen’s finds stacks of cash, Chen is put under pressure and David Cann panics, telling his wife – Mazouz’s sister – to disappear, not mentioning of course that it’s he who kidnapped Mazouz, and will probably bump him off if he starts to look like a loose end.

(Incidentally, we only just caught on that Mikaël Fitoussi, who plays Mazouz, is the brother of Grégory Fitoussi, who played advocate Pierre Clément in seasons 1-5 of Spiral).

We still think, though, that Mazouz’s girlfriend Nadia knows more than she’s letting on, particularly about the killing of her son Fouad.

With the identification evidence on Cann’s driver, Roban gives the go-ahead to take in Cann, but he’s done a flit, and is planning to get out of the country with the help of Mazouz – but it all depends on Nadia laying her hands on Mazouz’s hidden cash.

Cann turns to his old schoolfriend Edelman for help – possibly not the wisest move – and gets zero sympathy. In fact, Edelmean squeezes out a confession to involvement in Herville’s murder – so that’s sorted out, then. In fact Cann’s henchman Vadim dunnit, but of course on Cann’s orders, desperate as he was to avoid the money laundering conspiracy being exposed.

Laure and Gilou plan to capture Cann when he and Mazouz come to pick up money from Nadia; but Anfrey is still pursuing them despite TinTin’s interference. Anfrey summons Soizic for questioning (we only catch on here that her name’s actually Bretz – Soizic is apparently a diminutive of Françoise. Who would have guessed?), and she fesses up to blocking Mazouz’s accounts.

At the handover, Edelman turns up to collect the cash from Nadia, so the cops nick him instead of Cann. Edelman, rather implausibly, calls on Josephine and admits that he knows Cann is responsible for the death of Herville.  Cann flees to the nightclub where Mazouz is being held, confessing that he killed Fouad, and threatening to get rid of Mazouz next.

So it seems that all our tentative theories about Herville’s killing being the fallout from a gay love triangle, or Fouad’s death being at the hands of his own mother, were worthless; David Cann is the big baddie, he’s responsible for all the killings, and all that remains is to get him in the bag.

Josephine goes to Roban, who regards her like a rabid skunk, and offers to turn in Cann if Edelman can go free. Not much of a way to relaunch her career, offers Roban, but she professes not to care. What would she do instead of the law, though? Social work?

In any case, the team reject her offer, opting instead to stake out Cann’s family in the hope he’ll come for them. But she goes in search of Cann at the nightclub, and is nabbed by Vadim, but not before putting in a call to Laure.

When the cops raid the club, Cann and Mazouz  turn themselves in, and Vadim tries to do away with Josephine, but Ali shoots him dead. We’re amazed that Ali survives, there have been premonitions of his death all through the series, but amazingly he escapes without a hair out of place. It’s also Ali who breaks Mazouz and gets him to rat on Cann, so he’s pretty well solved the case.

At a celebratory drink-up, who should turn up but TinTin, warning Gilou that Soizic has rolled over and that Anfrey is coming for him; will he now be seriously tempted to take the money and run? In fact he turns himself and the cash into Anfrey, takes full responsibility and refuses Laure’s pleas to let her confess too.

Roban sadly packs up his office and leaves after a drink with his faithful clerk Didier; Laure is left to watch her daughter Romy with her father in the park, but at least with some sense that there may be a chance of a relationship.

So what’s our conclusion on this terribly slow and rather underwhelming series? It can’t be said to have been twisty or thrill-packed – in fact it rarely got more surprising than the episode one killing of Herville. The guilty parties, if not totally obvious, were no surprise; and there was little brilliant detective work to be done, mainly observation and phone taps. The political dimensions of the case were barely explored – bent MP Aline Lecomte was quietly forgotten. Distractions like the Barbie and Ken case merely served to slow down the action, and the less said about Josephine’s miraculous defence of blackmailer Lola, the better.

In fact, a lot of the qualities of Spiral seems to have worn thin in the last couple of series; it’s rarely violent, shocking or exciting any more; one could almost say it’s plodding.

So what’s the future for Laure and Gilou? Well, with a season eight in production, we can be pretty sure he’ll beat the rap and they’ll be together again – but how will Roban return from retirement? And will Josephine have the energy to continue practising law? We’ll be there to find out – but let’s hope the script-writers have a rocket put up them. We couldn’t take another season of this ennui.