Monday, August 04, 2025

HPI: HAUT POTENTIEL INTELLECTUEL: Phyllobates terribilis

Season 1, Episode 4
Date of airing: April 27, 2021 (La Une, Belgium), May 6, 2021 (TF1, France)
Audience information: 9.41 million viewers, 43.3percent share with Viewers 4+

Written by: Julien Anscutter, Julie-Anna Grignon, Alice Chegaray-Breugnot
Directed by: Vincent Jamain

 

”I have a question. What is this color called?"


Karadec should get tranquilized (or high) more often. He is a lot more fun when he isn't himself and has to rely on Morgane's physical help.

The murder stories deserve to have one or two fewer twists, so that the story can focus on the characters instead of the crime procedural elements that only prolong the story and give us two extra acts that would otherwise not have been necessary if the writers knew how to tell stories through the characters. It felt weird to watch Camile learn of the death of her friend Fanny, be sad about it, then have the victim be revealed as Camile's secret girlfriend who was about to run away with her, only for Camile to end up as the killer herself because of a convoluted backstory that was so hard to put into the plot that it took time away from the characters. The entire story would have been a whole lot more meaningful if it had put more attention on Camile, and how her heart was completely shattered when she learned the truth.

The backstory seemed more interesting than the actual murder, simply because of the drama that involves a woman trying to find her child she had to give up after the birth, finding it with another family, and manipulating her way into said family to be close to her own kid. This is a movie-of-the-week-type premise, and one I would love to watch – without the murder stuff because all I want is just the drama of the emotional plot. 

 

With the help of comic books, you can establish the appearance of suspects.