‘Spiral: The Butcher Of La Villette’: Episodes 7 & 8 review

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Despite a profound inability to work together without breaking the law, making horrendous cock-ups or screaming at each other, Captain Laure Berthaud (Caroline Proust) and her CID team finally start making some progress in their pursuit of the titular killer this week.

Thanks to avowed hater of homosexuals Jésus Berrondo (José Etchelus), who looks like Richard Nixon clad in a 1970s-Brian-Eno wig and a chav-in-the-naughties tracksuit, Laure is able to link some of the disparate elements of the investigation, bringing psychotic pimp and blowjob connoisseur Niko (Genti Kame) from the peripheries of the story to the centre of her inquiry. Then, when a grisly discovery is made in a secret area beneath a lockup, the identity of the Butcher is finally established. ‘I’ve got you, you bastard!’ Laure screams in triumph, but she doesn’t have him yet.

The murderer is not in custody, and tracking him down proves problematic, despite or perhaps, because the CID are now being forced to work with the Crime Squad and their smooth-talking superintendent Vincent Brémont (Bruno Debrant).

Meanwhile, Pierre Clément (Grégory Fitoussi), the only character in the show to have maintained a grip on his scruples, goes beyond a defence lawyer’s call of duty to assist teenage client Dylan Gautier (Finnegan Oldfield), allowing the homeless teenage thief to stay in his flat overnight. At the same time, Pierre’s utterly unprincipled partner Josephine Karlsson (Audrey Fleurot) helps herself to €40k from a man whom she has just helped get out of prison.

The prospect of a business relationship flourishing for these sexily dissimilar solicitors is about as likely as them being able to resist the attraction between them for much longer. The only things they have in common are a consummate ability to bullshit prosecutors and something hypnotic in their respective backsides, upon which the camera is constantly compelled to linger.

Speaking of backsides, there’s a bucket-load of bare buttocks on display in this week’s double bill. Laure cops off twice with Brémont (including one scene in which she not only sheds her famous vest but everything else as well) and then lies about the relationship to jealous colleague Gilou Escoffier (Thierry Godard), who remarks, ‘You smell of sex.’ Defensively, Laure snaps: ‘Have you quite finished sniffing me? For fuck’s sake, go back on the coke or something.’ It’s another profanely funny exchange, the like of which never graced the script of Maigret.

Meanwhile, chin-deficient mummy’s boy intern Arnaud Ledoré (Xavier Robic) is covertly filmed on the job with someone he thinks is a first year law student, but who is in reality a fifteen year old schoolgirl. Soon, he’s being blackmailed into derailing the enquiry into the corrupt mayor of Villedieu while his mother Isabelle (Anne Alvaro) renews her relationship with Judge Roban (Phillippe Duclos). It’s enough to make you want to put bromide in your Beaujolais.

This unlikely and (for the most part) unlikeable array of characters have made compulsive viewing for the last month, and the high quality of the depressing drama unfolding around them has been maintained throughout. When Spiral ends, Saturday nights will be less sleazy, but a lot sadder.

Airs at 9pm on Saturday 23rd April 2011 on BBC Four.

> Buy the Series 1-2 DVD boxset on Amazon.