The Beloved Spouse™ and I recently discovered the French-Canadian series 19-2 and watched all thirty episodes in a week. (Full disclosure: Bruce Robbert Coffin told us about this show last July. It took until January for us to get around to it. That’s entirely on me.)
19-2 is the story of two patrol officers in Montreal;
they ride in Car 19-2. Nick Berrof (Réal Bossé) is a bit of a cowboy who lost
his partner to a serious brain injury in a shooting that occurred under
suspicious circumstances. The bosses don’t like Berrof; some think he’s dirty. They
partner him with an officer transferring in from the Quebec Provincial Police, Benoît
Chartier (Claude Legault). Their relationship is problematic for multiple
reasons which I’ll not go into as knowing too much will spoil the fun. Suffice
to say they come to an understanding and the relationship grows.
I was never a cop but everything I’ve heard and have learned
about street patrol and internal politics indicates 19-2 is as realistic
a show as you’re going to find and is a sterling example of how realism,
applied properly, does not make fiction any less compelling. Season 2 opens
with Berrof and Chartier as first on scene at an active shooter event in a high
school. I have never seen a more compelling episode of television.
There is plenty else to like. Unlike most American shows,
these cops’ first impulse when arriving at a scene that does not lay out as
they expected is to call for backup. The
friction between cops who want to do things right and those who expect their
failings to be ignored is expertly examined. The storylines that deal with
personal lives never become soap opera-ish and always have the ring of truth to
them.
19-2 is also a wonderful example of how to be
artistic in service of the story rather than being artistic just because the
director knows how to do it. The school shooting episode is full of little
things that put you right there. A later episode shows Berrof and
Chartier approaching a house. The camera shifts to their backups as they seek another
entry point; the two leads then appear in the foreground, out of focus at
first, in an elegant way to show multiple things are happening without a lot of
distracting jump cuts.
The show is in French—well, Canadian French, which the
Francophone Sole Heir will tell you is not “real” French—with English
subtitles; the subtitles are not always easy to read. That said, we discovered early
on there was a parallel English version using different actors and we chose to
stick with the French, as we had already come to identify with the actors and
their characters. I don’t feel as though I missed anything by having to read
the subtitles, as the photography allows ample time to also read the actors’
faces.
The only TV show I can think of that is on a level with 19-2
is The Wire, and you all know how I feel about The Wire. Placing 19-2
a notch above NYPD Blue is no slam to David Milch’s brilliant show. 19-2
is that good.
(We have since watched the entire series again after
learning it was leaving Netflix later this month. The second time I took
notes.)
4 comments:
Sounds great. I haven't figured it out on Netflix and I may have to re-up at Paramount Plus, but it sounds worth it.
I think it is no longer on netflix, bnut it's worth finding. Outstanding show. We watched it twice through, back-to-back.
You are so right about the active shooter episode. That episode was one of the most chilling episodes of any show I have seen in a very long time.
It was very uncomfortable to watch.
It is a good series.
E. Ellis,
Just reading your comment brought back several flashbacks of that episode. I don't think I have ever been as fully engaged by any episode of television.
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