Three Pines: White Out parts 1 and 2

December 4, 2022 8:21 PM - Season 1, Episode 2

A 2 part premiere released simultaneously on Amazon Prime video. This series, led by a Alfred Molina, is based on the best-selling mystery series by Louise Penny.

Part 1: Gamache ignores his superior's orders and investigates the disappearance of Blue Two-Rivers. As punishment, he's dispatched to the remote village of Three Pines to solve the murder of a wealthy socialite with no shortage of suspects.


Part 2: Gamache looks into the victim's enigmatic past and learns one of the villagers withheld information. Gamache's delight at a breakthrough in the Blue Two-Rivers case is short-lived when the family has doubts.

posted by bq (12 comments total)

Highlights: Molina, the enhanced emphasis on native characters, Ruth and her duck, Jean-Guy being as much of a snack as I expected, Agent Nichol being slightly less ridiculous than written, Gabri and Olivier. Not enough: Claire, food, complaints about English.
posted by bq at 8:25 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

GAMACHE! Oh I am so so excited about this. These books are so much a cherished escape to Three Pines, and ohhhhhh Molina! What an excellent choice. I am saving this for the weekend to savour.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:45 PM on December 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

We’re really in the era of peak tv.
posted by bq at 9:56 PM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've lived in the Eastern Townships so am familiar with Louise Penny. I guess my chief complaint would be the Anglicization of Three Pines (why is not Trois Pins? pretty much every English town name got revamped in the 70s/80s, IIRC.)
posted by Kitteh at 8:37 AM on December 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

There’s actually an in-book explanation for this….I THINK. It’s been a while since I read this one. In ‘A Great Reckoning’ there is a subplot about a historical mapmaker who deliberately left Three Pines off all official maps. Penny never calls out the re-naming explicitly that I recall but this could serve as an explanation for the village being missed during those efforts, as well as a general explanation for its extreme isolation.
posted by bq at 12:07 PM on December 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

Three Pines

pro: great croissants

con: murder capital of Canada
posted by betweenthebars at 5:38 PM on December 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

I don't really like murdered woman programming, but I gave this a try because you guys seemed excited. I'm glad. It's very well-done so far.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:41 PM on December 10, 2022

I've watched the first four, no spoilers except that I am delighted by Molina's casting, and the rest of the cast are very thoughtful matches too. I had to download subtitles because they switch languages often, and I appreciate the realistic casualness of that.

The plots and especially character moments are drawn from the books, but they're also pulling from other sources, notably more indigenous stories. As a reader, this makes the show much more enjoyable because it doesn't always go where I remember the story, but they're still clearly the same characters.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:06 AM on December 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've just watched the first two episodes. Great to see the Townships and glimpses of Montreal. Everything-- setting and people -- matches up exactly with my imagined version. So I'm inclined to keep watching and hope the script tightens up, but omg, the writing is excruciating. Also, some niggles or quibbles that I'd be more inclined to ignore if the dialogue weren't so clunky:

- In the party scene at the very beginning? Reine-Marie would not be known for her "famous poutine."
- Gamache did not "visit the cathedral" in Cambridge. There isn't one!

And the whiff of the supernatural added in? I'm skeptical but willing to reserve judgement.
posted by tangerine at 11:44 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Love the setting. Love Molina. Love the way the narrative is structured.

But yeah—also some of the worst writing I’ve encountered in ages. But those clunkers are being delivered with such conviction! Lord help me, I can’t resist a semi-dumb show that thinks it’s smart.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:03 AM on December 29, 2022

Just discovered this and loved it so much. I was immediately gripped by the indigenous inclusion and also by Gamache's kindness, with all its blindness and limitations. I love the language and the accents, I love the parts of Canada I don't often get exposed to. And watching their winter in the Australian winter was both very cosy and made me feel very grateful for our extremely mild winters. Looking forward to the rest, and reading the books that I didn't know about!
posted by Athanassiel at 10:18 PM on August 13, 2023

As someone who has been working their way through the book series, I need to ask an important question to judge whether the television adaptation is true to the source material:

Are all the windows mullioned?

Alright, maybe not that important but I feel as though if I were playing a game where I had to take a shot every time the word "mullion" occurs in the books I'd be incurring serious liver damage.

At least tell me that licorice pipes make regular appearances..
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:27 PM on September 19, 2023 [1 favorite]