What are we watching this weekend? Those who have not yet tasted the unmissable Succession and the fratricidal war for power that animates the Murdoch clan will be able to take the plunge and binge-watch this Shakespearian food until the last bite. The guys !
For the others, there is the British Utopia Utopia, the daring and caustic Countrymen or an express catch-up of the inimitable French comedy Jeune et Golri… Something to satisfy all appetites, big or small…
Why, but why did this absolutely cult English series never have a season 3? Ten years after the release of its first season, Utopia fans are still haunted by this question. Too geeky? Too cruel? Too politically incorrect? It is good, in any case, to dive back thanks to Arte into this enjoyable pop and trash muddle, which is both a conspiratorial thriller against a backdrop of the pandemic and vaccine trafficking, unbridled comics with gore scenes in Technicolor and Club of the five Déglingo versions.
In a world that looks like ours, but in an even more pre-apocalyptic version (yes, it’s possible), five lay people are obsessed with a strange comic, Utopia, of which only the first volume is available. Without seeing each other in “real life”, they regularly discuss it on an online forum. When one of them gets their hands on the second volume of the comic, the small group of fans finds themselves forced to flee from two atrocious killers, launched on their heels by an ultra-secret and ultra-dangerous organization. Because in the pages of this cursed comic strip sleep explosive secrets concerning the march of the world – or its total disruption. Does all this sound crazy to you? It is. And that’s what we love.
Utopia, two seasons of six episodes. On art. TV.
Why on earth should anyone care about a handful of capricious, contemptuous, deeply hateful billionaires? The question was on everyone’s lips in the summer of 2018, as the Succession series debuted on HBO (OCS in France) and the world discovered patriarch Logan Roy and his four children, the despised Connor, the heartbreaking Kendall, the cunning Shiv and the decadent Roman… Five years later, no one wonders. Obnoxious these characters are, of course! But they are also pathetic, endearing… and above all fascinating. The relentless finale of the series – an episode of 1:30 broadcast Sunday evening in the United States and available in France since Monday – concludes four seasons of rare dramatic perfection. Like Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire and a few others, Succession will have changed the game.
How ? By imposing an explosive mixture of genres. Logan Roy’s media group, Waystar Royco, is a multinational that includes a news channel, numerous newspapers, a movie studio, but also amusement parks, cruise ships and a firm that sends satellites in space… In a very comparable way, Succession is a multi-headed monster, part family drama, part satirical comedy, part soap opera and part financial thriller. This monstrous ambition makes all the singularity of a series which borrows as much from the tabloids as from Shakespeare. Don’t throw any more.
Succession, four seasons of ten episodes. On Amazon Prime with the Warner Pass.
Two years after winning the prize for best collective interpretation and the prize for high school students at CanneSéries, the broken arms of Countrymen land on Arte with their share of burlesque situations worthy of Monty Python. But can we make people laugh by venturing into the territory of terrorism? This is what Izer Aliu and Anne Björnstad, the creators of this new unclassifiable phenomenon, defend. Adil, Tariq and Khabib, three radical Islamists, leave Oslo and settle in a farm in the countryside to prepare for a terrorist attack. But nothing will go as planned. Not only will the three accomplices have to deal with the arrival of a childhood friend, Marwan, and his granddaughter Kiki, who have come to hide on the farm, but also and above all with all the inhabitants of the village who don’t stop meddling in their business. It must be said that to cover up their suspicious activities, the nickel-plated feet have found nothing better than to relaunch the dairy production of the farm and to make cheese… halal.
Halfway between fable and black comedy, the series is carried by the talent of its actors – who multiply the comical camera faces to comment on the situations unfolding on the screen – and by the completely offbeat twists of the scenario. The fact remains that risking making three (alleged) terrorists in search of meaning sympathetic and endearing is a perilous exercise, which is moreover in a country like Norway, deeply marked by the tragedy of Utoya in 2011… A pitfall debated at length between the creators of the series who finally decided: of course we must also laugh at what scares society! But isn’t it above all that the real problem of the series is to be found elsewhere, not around Islamism and radical discourse, but rather on the side of identity, of belonging? Who are we for ourselves? For the others ? Where is home really? Aren’t we always someone’s stranger? Rest assured, very quickly the northern wind takes over the major philosophical questions. And brings us back, for our greatest pleasure, to the land of biting humor and politically incorrect.
Countrymen, 8 episodes. On Arte. TV.
Help, Plum is back! But before giving this second season the welcome it deserves, do not hesitate to immerse yourself in the first season of Jeune et Golri (laugh in verlan to designate what is “funny”) of which she is the heroine . This series of 8 episodes of 20 minutes lightly tells the crazy daily life of Prune, the early twenties, stand-up actress, who falls in love with Francis (Jonathan Lambert), 47, boring like a “wallpaper”, flanked by a kid as mature as Prune is childish. On paper, the pitch sells. All that remains is to bring it to life. And who better than the adorable Agnès Hurstel, co-screenwriter, with Léa Domenach, of this pastel nugget, to embody this deliciously banal heroine who gives a new vision of the sacrosanct “neighbor”. All supported by a gently pop musical universe, somewhere between the notes of Vladimir Cosma and François de Roubaix, fun fluorescent interludes, very inspired by comics and graphic novels and offbeat pastilles but not too much. We assure you, Prune and co have everything to charm you…
Young and Golri, season 1, 8 episodes. On OCS. Season 2 available from June 8.
