Amazon Prime Video has premiered the first two episodes of Three Pines, a fictional Quebec-shot crime series based on Louise Penny’s series of novels about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.
While not exactly a retelling of one particular novel, the new series tells the tale of Gamache, played by Alfred Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home) who investigates a series of murders in the fictional village of Three Pines. According to a review from Variety, each investigation spans two episodes with a larger storyline brewing in the background.
The overarching storyline, however, is a departure from the novels as Gamache begins to investigate the disappearance of an Indigenous girl named Blue Two-Rivers.
“It’s a storyline that’s not present in the novels, and serves as the entry point into a broader conversation in Canada right now, where there is a long history of police ignoring or closing the book on missing Indigenous women,” read Variety’s review.
Ahead of the show’s premiere, Molina answered questions regarding his portrayal of a Quebec man when Molina himself is British.
“What I wanted to do was not do anything that was in any way going to be condescending or patronizing,” Molina explained to the Montreal Gazette. “So I thought, I’m not going to try to sound like a French-Canadian—that would be just not appropriate [...] I thought rather than trying to do a bad French-Canadian accent, we wanted to find something that was neutral enough so that the audience could fill in the gaps. I think what was most important was to treat the character with some respect and with some grace. And I hope we’ve managed to pull that off.”
Three Pines premiered its initial two episodes on Dec. 2 with a pair of new episodes releasing every Friday until the show’s finale on Dec. 23.
