'Maigret' Recap: Season 2 Episode 2

Maigret airs Sundays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream on the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous episode.
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Maigret is alive, if suffering from some cracked ribs and a concussion after being run down by a car. He tells his team from the hospital that Claude van Damme was the driver – but not to arrest him. Instead, check his car for bullets, since Maigret fired a few shots, and use that to apply more pressure. To everyone outside his team, including his wife Louise, Maigret says the hit-and-run was an accident and he doesn’t know who was driving. But Louise knows he went looking for trouble; she worried he had died.

Maigret wants to find out if the suicides of Adeline Jeunet (in front of Maigret) and Emile Klein (ten years ago at a church) are connected. Emile worked in the lab at the college where Adeline was studying science. And the bloody suit in her backpack at the time of her death could be his in terms of size – but the blood, bone fragments, and brain tissue on the sleeves are not Emile’s. Someone was shot in the head, and the suit wearer was close.

Maigret’s boss Guichard encourages Maigret to drop the case, warning that the police report noted alcohol on his breath after he was hit by a car. It’s just two suicides, Guichard argues.

A “where are they now” article in the school paper shows that Adeline, Emile, Claude, and the banker Genevieve Belloir did all know each other, despite the denials of Claude and Genevieve: they’re all shown in a decade-old photo together. Emile is “unidentified” in the photo. He only worked at the school for two years, then was fired for substance abuse. 

Maigret goes home from the hospital, refusing to use a wheelchair, and calls his team to his apartment to clandestinely continue the investigation while telling their bosses they have closed it. Louise is not happy. She fantasizes about a life in which she and Maigret retire to the country, where she wouldn’t have to worry about him dying in his work, and maybe having a child.

Lapointe examines Claude’s car and finds a bullet embedded in it. He confronts Claude with it, and Claude agrees to talk with the detectives. But when Maigret and Lucas arrive for a meeting, only Genevieve is there. She explains that she, Claude, Adeline, and Emile were all friends at school. Adeline dated Emile, but broke up with him when the students’ final exams approached. He was adrift and soon got fired for drug use, then died by suicide. In the wake of that, Claude failed his medical exam and Adeline dropped out.

Ten years later, Adeline started blackmailing Claude and Genevieve over Emile’s suicide. She must have seen the story in the school newspaper and noted their success and Emile’s anonymity. Claude’s business went nearly bankrupt, and Genevieve has just been fired for borrowing too much money to pay Adeline’s demands. When Genevieve and Claude finally refused to pay more, Adeline made her bomb threat against the bank. Her last phone call, which Maigret witnessed, was to Genevieve, who feels partially responsible for Adeline’s suicide.

Maigret thinks Genevieve is lying. Emile’s suicide would not be enough for blackmail.

Adeline’s phone is found in the Seine. Moers does his best to retrieve anything from it but comes up with only one corrupted video file. It shows Adeline (filming), Claude, Genevieve, and Emile in a darkened building with a BSI logo meeting a man named Louis who asks Adeline to stop filming. BSI is a government testing company that closed a lab years ago. A security guard named Louis Mortier died by suicide there a decade ago, shooting himself in the head with his own gun. He had serious gambling problems and debt. The date on Adeline’s video matches the day Louis died.

Kernaval comes to Maigret’s apartment to check on his health and finds him continuing the investigation with his team. She warns him that he’s compromising the future of his team, and to be careful – but they all want to continue with him. 

Maigret brings Genevieve, Claude, and his team to the closed BSI lab. (Claude apologizes for running down Maigret in his car.) He has figured out that the young quartet was planning to free the lab’s testing animals in a form of activism. Emile knew Louis and paid him to let them in.

Genevieve explains what happened next. Louis suddenly demanded more money and pulled his gun out when Emile refused. Emile was high and fought him even though the others wanted to leave. The gun went off, shooting Louis in the head. Genevieve told them not to call an ambulance and pretend nothing happened; it was an accident. Claude, who was training to be a doctor, agreed that nothing could be done to save Louis and even helped him die faster. 

Emile couldn’t live with this, and died by suicide. Ten years later, Adeline also succumbed.

Maigret lets Genevieve and Claude leave. He will not charge them.

His rival Cavre, who is investigating Maigret’s conduct leading up to Adeline’s death, has hacked the computers of Maigret’s team and deduced everything, and so confronts Maigret at the lab as Genevieve and Claude leave. You’re not a judge, he tells Maigret. But Maigret argues that Genevieve and Claude have been paying for that night for the past decade, and now also have Adeline’s death on their conscience, in addition to Emile’s and Louis’. Plus, the investigation had been shut down; there was no official case.

Guichard also worries about Maigret’s actions, though all he knows is that Maigret kept investigating secretly but didn’t make any arrests. Kernaval points out that Cavre’s investigation has cleared Maigret of wrongdoing, even while Cavre’s colleague George Bonfils noted the extreme loyalty Maigret inspired in his team. Guichard is considering breaking up that team to reprimand Maigret, and tells Kernaval to stop enabling his unorthodox tactics. She points out that she is not Maigret’s boss; Guichard is.

Moers has recovered one other video from Adeline’s phone: a birthday message she recorded for her estranged mother in which she says she misses her and has many happy memories with her. Louise cries when she sees this. Maigret has Lucas show it to Adeline’s mother Isabelle, who smiles through tears while watching it, then immediately asks to watch it again. 

You did good, Louise tells Maigret as they watch from afar. I’m proud of you.