The first Season of 8 episodes from the Louise Penny novels featuring Inspector Gamache are now live on Amazon Prime, and probably some of you have watched the shows. I will give you my opinions, but I am interested in what the fans actually think. Those who have read many or all of the books will no doubt have much to say.
And feel free to disagree with anything I write below.
Briefly, there are four murders investigated, with each of the standalone murder mysteries spanning two episodes.
Unlike the books, the series includes a secondary story line throughout the season, with Gamache investigating the disappearance of a young Indigenous woman.
The list of episodes below is reproduced from Wikipedia. The series did not begin with Penny’s first book, Still Life, since that book had already been made into film a few years ago. So the first three murder plots are taken from books 2, 3, and 4. But I have no idea about the last two episodes. Perhaps that is a new story created by the scriptwriters?
Also, according to Wikipedia, “Filming took place over five five-week periods in Montreal and rural Quebec, specifically in the Eastern Townships, the region of Quebec where the novels take place and original author Penny resides.” Did the film director make good use of setting? Somewhat, yes. The pieces were there but they didn’t seem to all fit quite right.
Here’s What I Thought After 6 Episodes
As many of you know, I am not a big fan of Louise Penny’s writing. But I still looked forward to seeing these shows. Why? Because, I have found the Vera and Shetland video series to be very entertaining and well done, yet I am not terribly fond of Ann Cleeves writing style. So, I waited until they were all uploaded by Christmas Eve before I started viewing Three Pines.
But… Three Pines disappointed me. Yes, Molina does a good job with the Gamache character. But the script for the shows is extremely disappointing. It has been so long since reading The Cruelest Month, I am not sure how well Episodes 3 & 4 followed the book. But it seemed dumb to have Peter be a strong murder suspect in that case and a previous case. [Does that happen in the books?] And then, during Episodes 5 & 6, while interviewing him, they make no reference to having interviewed him for the murder in Episodes 3 & 4. It is just weird. [I hope I got the episode number references right, they have blurred a bit.]
Far more frustrating is how far the video departs from anything resembling real police work. Particularly – the brevity of each interview. After 2-4 questions, either the witness gets up and leaves without any effort by Gamache to forbid it, or else he/she leaves with some warning that they shouldn’t leave the house or the town. Unheard of! Even the viewer can think of many more questions. Police interviews with witnesses, and especially suspects are typically longer and more intense. OK – I get that you can’t have a real 45 minute interview in a 2 hour show. But the idea of it can be conveyed by at least a few more questions and some clever scripting.
The little blue jay thing got annoying. [Is this actually in the books?] Maybe they should cut most of it out and extend the suspect interviews?
The cast seems too small. They need more extras on the street and elsewhere. Surely the town is bigger than the number of people that can fit in Olliver’s.
The characters in the film are a bit over the top. Like something from Knives Out. But, my memory from the two books that I did read, was that the town was in fact loaded with very strange people. But I accept that a cluster of bizarre is not necessarily unrealistic. My real frustration, as already described, was the unrealistic way the cases are handled by Inspector Gamache.
Finally, it just seemed a little difficult to follow – the transitions between scenes unknown. Like individual segments hanging on a clothesline, but not very good continuity. In some ways the series’ long background plot (Kevin being falsely accused of murder) was easier to follow than the main plot for each of the two couplet stories I watched.
As a result of all of the above, I did not watch the last two episodes.
