Maigret Season 2 Episode Review: Inner Demons and Internal Threats

Maigret is recovering from being hit by a fleeing suspect’s car on Maigret Season 2 Episode 1 “The Hanged Man, Part 1”. Louise is terrified and doesn’t accept his claim of an accident for a moment.

In the hospital, he is encouraged to take some time off and then told outright to stop investigating and again reprimanded for going too far with Adeline. The department seems determined that her death be nothing more than a suicide.

The first issue with that arises as the bloody suit is examined. While the victim wearing it remains unfound, it has ties to a man named Elias who also committed suicide and has ties to the same university Adeline attended.

When yet another apparent past suicide arises—one both Adeline and Elias witnessed—neither Jules nor his team backs down despite warnings their careers could be threatened. They uncover footage of all three in a group breaking into a lab.

Two other members, including the bartender, are interviewed. Eventually, they confess that the third man blackmailed them and was shot in a struggle. One killed him to end his suffering, but neither Elias nor Adeline can live the memories.

Maigret lets them go, which disgruntles his supervisors further and does little to assuage his guilt. Further video Adeline leaves for her mother offers the woman some comfort but brings back memories of Louise’s lost pregnancy.

There are no psychopaths or twisted motives in this opening plot of season two. In the end, it’s a sad story of flawed people pushed to desperate measures that they are then unable to live with. Technically, there isn’t even a murder.

That doesn’t make the circumstances any easier for Jules to process. While he’s not the cause of Adeline’s suicide in the way certain officials imply, there’s also no good alternate story to what he’d forced to bear witness to.

Of course, Adeline isn’t the only victim. Everyone involved with this story, including those still living, is traumatized by it. But by the time we see how the tragedy unfolds, we’re not left with much time for empathy for anyone else.

Still, I do like that we both come full circle with her mother and touch back on Louise’s grief over her own miscarriage. With the latter, I hope the subtle foreshadowing is a sign that she and Jules will continue to heal instead of something darker.

Then there’s the continued press against Maigret’s work. I just can’t wrap my head around why a department would be so determined to avoid examining a death while wanting to investigate one of their best officers on very loose grounds.

It would be one thing if corrupt figures were working to take our main character down, but now former allies are finding friction with each other while pressing the idea that Maigret is apparently breaking rules all over the place.

Thankfully, those closest to him—Louise and his core team—are more loyal than ever. I hope that carries us through the rest of the season as Maigret faces both his own self-doubt and an increasingly coordinated smear campaign.

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Maigret airs Sundays at 9/8C on PBS. 

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