'Maigret' Recap: Episode 6

Maigret is available to stream on the PBS app and wttw.com. Recap the previous episode.
Keep up with your favorite dramas and mysteries by signing up for our newsletter, Dramalogue.

Maigret arrives at the church in his home town of Saint-Fiacre that has haunted his dreams to find Sophie – also a presence in his dream – once again apologetic for exploding at him. She has kicked out her boyfriend Janos, whom she suspects of colluding with her estate manager Sebastian Gautier. She doesn’t need Maigret.

Nevertheless, he stays to attend mass. During the collection, he notices the altar boy pass Sophie a phone that startles her. She lowers her head in prayer. Even after the service ends, she still has not lifted it. She’s dead of a heart attack.

The local Dr. Bouchardon said he urged her to get a full check-up after she complained of high blood pressure; he gave her some pills to help. 

Maigret visits his parents’ overgrown grave outside the chapel, then heads to the home of the altar boy, Ernest Jaume. When he finds Ernest, he shakes him to find the phone that Ernest passed to Sophie. 

He then heads to Sophie’s manor, where he finds Janos packing things up and complaining about Sophie kicking him out. Maigret orders Janos to stay in town, despite the local inspector Chabot telling Maigret that Saint-Fiacre is outside his jurisdiction. Maigret takes a photo of the pills Sophie was taking, and watches as Janos leaves the house with Gautier. 

When Maigret visits Gautier in the new house he built at the site over the home in which Maigret grew up, Gautier’s daughter Natalie – a bank manager who just denied an overdraft to Sophie – is also there. Gautier claims he has no connection to Janos, who he says preyed on older women like Sophie. He says he will urge Sophie’s son Maurice to sell the estate, which is bankrupt – its finances began to suffer under the previous estate manager, Maigret’s father. Maigret leaves with a map of the estate that he says belonged to his father.

Maigret learns from a doctor friend back in Paris that the pills Sophie was taking were for low, not high blood pressure. They would exacerbate her high blood pressure.

Maigret meets with Maurice, who says he will sell the estate; Gautier insists it’s the only choice. Maigret urges Maurice not to trust Gautier and offers to help fight. He tells Maurice to convene everyone at the estate the next day by telling them he’s selling it. He then sets Janvier and Lapointe, whom he has called from Paris, to dig into the sales records of various parts of the estate.

Maigret’s absence from Paris is causing some consternation as the team continues to investigate the stabbing of Antoine Batille. Cavre still believes the art thieves Antoine overheard planning an operation are responsible for his death, and wants to keep questioning them. Maigret allows it, and has the team announce to the media that they’re no longer looking for Antoine’s killer. 

This is bait that the killer takes. He calls the police, demanding to speak to Maigret. He asks Maigret why he’s lying about finding Antoine’s killer, and asks Maigret to guess if he has killed before. Maigret answers with his own question: does he remember Antoine’s face? Yes, the killer answers, before hanging up.

Cavre extracts confessions from two of the three art thieves blaming the third, Xavier Mila, whom circumstantial evidence implicates. Maigret allows Mila to be charged – but insists that Maigret’s name, not Cavre’s, goes on the charge. This upsets Cavre, who complains to Kernaval, including about Maigret’s continuing absence. 

The killer once again calls Maigret, telling him that Maigret is right: Antoine’s face has haunted him, keeping him from sleeping. Maigret looks through the photos the police took of everyone who attended Antoine’s funeral and picks out the man he suspects is Antoine’s killer. 

At the Saint-Fiacre estate, Gautier, his daughter, Janos, Dr. Bouchardon, and the local policeman Chabot all arrive while Maigret, Janvier, and Lapointe look on. Maurice announces that he will sell the estate, and asks Gautier to help him estimate the price he might get for it by going through the recent sales of parcels of the estate, which Gautier has been winnowing. Gautier defends the low prices he got for the land – there was only ever one buyer.

That buyer turns out to be a company registered in Liechtenstein with the Gautiers as directors. And it turned around and sold every bit of land bought from the estate for a huge profit soon after the sales. Gautier was selling himself the land for cheap and then making a profit off it.

Dr. Bouchardon was in on it, making Sophie’s heart attack more likely by prescribing her the wrong medicine. And Janos contributed by recording sexual videos of Sophie, which he then paid the altar boy Ernest to show her during church. Phone records show that the three men all talked to each other often – especially after they heard Maigret was coming to Saint-Fiacre.

Chabot takes all the evidence. 

Back in Paris, Kernaval questions Cavre’s conviction that Mila is Antoine’s killer: there’s no DNA on his knife. Cavre says it could have been wiped clean. But then Torrence finds CCTV footage of Mila exactly where he said he was at the time of Antoine’s death, and it wasn’t where Antoine was stabbed – footage that Cavre refused to parse. Kernaval rips up the charge sheet. 

Still in Saint-Fiacre, Maigret receives a call from Louise – and figures out that Antoine’s killer has taken her hostage in the Maigrets’ apartment. Maigret insists on handling the situation himself as he rushes back to Paris. Cavre, smarting from Maigret’s superior abilities, informs the press that there is a hostage situation.

Louise talks to the killer in the meantime. Knowing she was a nurse, he called every hospital in the area to find her. When Maigret finally arrives, the killer holds a knife to Louise’s throat. He tells Maigret that the detective disrespected him by calling him a coward in the press. Louise tells Maigret the killer simply doesn’t want to be forgotten. 

Maigret guesses correctly that the killer murdered someone else a long time ago in anger but was never caught. This made him feel special – but also unrecognized for his uniqueness. So he decided to kill again, a random stranger, and Antoine happened to offer an opportunity.

A helicopter arrives, alerting the killer to the presence of the police and the press. He freaks out – and Louise, blade to her throat, steps in. I disagree with my husband, she says. I don’t care about whatever pain you suffer – I care about the pain of your victims. You’ll be able to sleep when you accept that you did terrible things.

The killer hands her the knife. Louise pours both men a shot. Maigret asks the killer for his name: Guillaume Bercy. He drinks his shot and is arrested. He asks Maigret to visit him in prison. 

Cases closed, Lucas tells Cavre to find a new team – and Torrence punches him. Cavre applies for a transfer.

Gautier and his daughter are arrested trying to flee the country with cash. Maigret and Louise take time off to recover from the hostage situation, and visit Saint-Fiacre together. Maurice has cleaned up the graveyard. They stand together at Maigret’s parents’ grave.