Warning: This article contains spoilers for Lupin Part 2.
While Lupin Part 2 further proved that Omar Sy's gentleman thief is a genius-level mastermind capable of spinning intricate plans, three steps ahead of his enemies, it also made a Part 1 plot-hole worse. Because fundamentally, the more the Netflix show doubles down on Assane's brilliance, the more it amplifies his biggest - and most out of character - mistake.
Part 2 of the incredibly popular French-made show thrust Assane Diop and his small inner circle of collaborators and loved ones into greater turmoil on the back of the cliffhanger ending of Lupin Part 1. The action is higher-octane, the threat to Assane more pronounced, and the web of deceit around him more intense and complex, even as his systems of protection were dismantled. Rather than being able to operate under a cloud of secrecy and disguise, the master hacker, manipulator, and anti-hero amateur detective was forced out of his hiding hole and crowned Paris' most wanted man.
Those changes of circumstances forced Assane to take more desperate measures to bring down pantomime villain Hubert Pellegrini, including attacking him in public to force a confession out of him about framing his father, Babakar. But just as it seemed Assane would be captured or forced on the run for the rest of his life, conflicted cop Youssef Guedira discovered Assane had recorded Pellegrini's confession using his smartwatch and passed it on to the police. It was a typically genius twist from the socially-conscious Lupin, but it also served to amplify the problem with Assane's previous attempt to bring Pellegrini down. Because the lengths he went to uncover and publicly reveal the truth in Part 2 made the fact that he somehow failed to make a backup copy of Part 1's incriminating VHS all the more ludicrous. It was an oversight that never made sense and now it looks even worse.
The issue of the VHS was Lupin Part 1's biggest and the most distracting gripe for a lot of very vocal fans. The misstep came in episode four, as Assane tracks down journalist Fabienne Beriot and receives key evidence about Hervé Pierre's criminal overlord including a tape including incriminating evidence. Assane takes it to a TV station and appears in disguise to try and take Pellegrini down, but falls foul of the corrupt TV show anchor in Pellegrini's pocket, who destroys the evidence. The fact that Assane somehow failed to make a back-up of a simple VHS tape when everything else in the show points to him being a master manipulator of every situation with near-infinite resources is simply impossible to accept. In hindsight, the added complexities of Part 2 make the issue even worse.
This is the same Assane who proves himself capable of breaking in and out of a prison, who can bend the Internet to his will, fake his death, and out-maneuver a filthy rich villain who has high-level corrupt police in his employ and who can have people murdered with little blowback. Watching Assane escape the exaggerated pressure of Lupin Part 2's plot, with the police closing in (both corrupt and legitimate) with his apartment and his huge bag of tricks seized makes the fact that he didn't just copy the tape all the more infuriating. Let's hope that Lupin Part 3 can somehow offer an answer that retrospectively fixes the mistake.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/2TYQnHv
No comments: