'Maigret' Recap: Season 2 Episode 4

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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The police rush to Baron Lagrange’s building and break down the door to find him quivering in bed. As they arrest him for the murder of Andre Delteil, he tries to flee. Paramedics sedate him as he has what appears to be a manic episode. Maigret sends Lagrange to the hospital where Louise works. 

Lapointe has noticed that the CCTV footage the night club sent the police edits out a red-haired woman who interacts with both Delteil and Lagrange. Maigret recognizes her from Lagrange’s apartment building; she told him she lived there. 

The night club manager claims not to know her, while Vera, the dancer Lapointe befriended there, is afraid to say anything. Lapointe promises to protect her but she makes apparent the realities of her job as a dancer in a night club. Nevertheless, she tells him the woman is Jeanne Debul. She sometimes pays the dancers for information about their clients’ preferences. 

Maigret visits Lagrange at the hospital and tells him that his son Alain took Maigret’s gun. Lagrange worries that Alain will kill “her.” He panics when Maigret shows him a photo of Debul. Louise is furious that Maigret is questioning a patient, and even more incensed that he wants her to get information about Lagrange. But Maigret thinks Lagrange may be faking his behavior for the sake of an insanity defense in the murder of Delteil.

Maigret approaches Delteil’s brother Pascal. Pascal explains that Debul is a powerful lobbyist; rumors suggest she has connections to a crime family, or slept her way to influence, or both. Delteil was about to introduce a bill to curtail the gambling industry; Debul is a lobbyist for them. Pascal has heard that she bought out Lagrange’s debt, thus putting him under her influence. 

Maigret suspects that Debul used Lagrange to approach Delteil with fake documents that claimed to implicate him in corruption; Pascal has heard rumors of people trying to smear Delteil in such a way. Delteil called Lagrange’s bluff and visited him at home to acquire the documents so that he could release them and expose the dirty tactics of the lobbying industry; Lagrange panicked and shot him. A pistol with badly wiped partial fingerprints that match Lagrange’s is found in a drainpipe near his apartment.

Maigret also suspects that Alain knows how much leverage Debul has over his father and wants to protect him from any more abuse by her. 

Guichard is not happy that Maigret wants to pursue the well-connected Debul on circumstantial guesswork.

Cavre calls his former colleague Bonfils, now on Maigret’s team, to ask why they are looking for Alain. Cavre knows Maigret’s gun has been stolen, and guesses the two are connected. Bonfils retorts that Lucas, who is now supposed to be on Cavre’s team, is instead once again working for Maigret. 

Cavre approaches Guichard and tells him that Maigret’s gun has been stolen and that Lucas is still working for Maigret. Guichard orders Lucas back to Cavre’s team. 

Maigret brought Lucas back because Guichard dumped two cases on him at once. The other involves the death by drowning due to ricin poisoning of Olga Borysenko. No trace of ricin has been found in the home of Armand Giroux, the surgeon for whom she nannied. 

However, the patisserie that supplies bread daily to the Giroux house sent three religieuse pastries the day before Olga died. Because one of Giroux’s daughters is lactose intolerant, he ordered Olga to put them away. Her lover Martin Vignolet saw her eat all three that night, likely due to cravings from her pregnancy. Perhaps the pastries had ricin.

The owner of the patisserie, after all, wanted Giroux to give her plastic surgery. He refused, she went elsewhere, the job was done badly, and she now blames Giroux. So she had motive. 

Maigret visits the patisserie and meets Laurence, who works there and lives upstairs. Giroux said she’s sweet and loves the family; she likely sent the religieuses. Laurence quickly betrays both an attraction to Maigret and an intense admiration of Giroux. 

Maigret steps outside to ask Louise about obsessive syndromes, and she explains that a person can become erotically obsessed with someone and imagine the relationship is reciprocal. 

It’s clear Laurence has this for Giroux – and now Maigret. She’s jealous when Janvier arrives. Maigret flirts with Laurence to get her to show him her apartment upstairs. He starts to open cupboards and finds a shrine to Giroux inside one with the faces of his children scratched out. Laurence tried to poison Giroux’s children so that she could have him to herself. 

She lunges at Maigret with a knife. Janvier comes upstairs at the commotion and shoots Laurence twice when she attacks her. 

Laurence will be fine, despite the gunshot wounds. Janvier is traumatized and in shock. 

At the hospital, Louise spots Lagrange hiding his medication instead of taking it. She threatens to report him, unless he tells her where Maigret can find Debul; she now understands that Alain is preparing to do something rash and wants to stop it. He relents and mentions the apartment of an older Spanish count; Debul is his mistress. He has mentioned this apartment to Alain.

Maigret rushes there, hoping to prevent Alain from killing Debul. She tries to flirt with Maigret but he insists he come with him for protection. As they walk to a car, Alain appears and points the gun at Debul. Maigret stands between them and talks Alain down while Debul taunts him. She wants him to shoot so that he is charged and Maigret gets in trouble for a crime committed with his gun. But Maigret manages to safely retrieve the gun from Alain. 

Guichard is still skeptical that the police can make any charges stick on Debul. He congratulates Maigret on catching both Lagrange and Laurence, but tells him to let Debul go – she’ll call in favors if he doesn’t. Maigret reluctantly does so, lamenting that two psychologically disturbed people will be charged while a powerful person manipulating others goes free. 

He returns home to find Alain there; Louise brought him home from the hospital because he had nowhere to go. He will stay the night and be picked up by his sister in the morning. 

Maigret tells Louise that he is becoming disillusioned with his work, particularly as Guichard undermines him. Maybe they should leave his job and Paris behind for the country after all.