Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Madame Blanc Mysteries’ Season 2 On Acorn TV, Where An Antiques Expert In France Solves Even More Murders

The mystery series that Acorn TV seems to specialize in tend to be pretty confident in their characters and mysteries from the first episode. But we know that the format gets stronger in subsequent seasons because viewers can now see how the relationships between the show’s main cast plays out and how they interact with each other. A new season of one of Acorn’s more popular series demonstrates this.

THE MADAME BLANC MYSTERIES SEASON 2 : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Jeremy Lloyd James (Robin Askwith) stumbles out of a bar after a night of revelry. It’s really late: 9:45 PM.

The Gist: After a few sweet voice mails from his wife Judith (Sue Holderness), she then angrily tells him to go sleep on the cabin cruiser instead of coming back to their villa. He manages to get to the boat, and collapses. He wakes up the next morning, exits the cabin, and trips over a woman’s body.

Caron (Alex Gaumond), the police chief, brings him in, but it’s apparent that Jeremy had nothing to do with the mysterious death. Jean White (Sally Lindsay), opening an new antiques shop with Charlie Brodeur (Sanchia McCormack) gets panicked calls from Judith, and when the neighborhood gossips let them know they saw Jeremy go into the police station, Jean tells Judith, who assumes the worst.

Not good timing, since a photo shoot for famed pastry chef Vernon Bradley (Lee Boardman) is taking place at the villa. Jean loves the chef’s work, so she asks her buddy and handyman Dom Hayes (Steve Edge) to bring her to the villa to meet him.

Jean, concerned that Judith thinks Jeremy was cheating on her with the dead woman, goes to Caron, still reeling from his wife’s death, and asks if she can see the crime scene evidence. In the woman’s physical belongings, he pulls out what he thinks is an “Afro comb,” but after looking through Bradley’s new cookbook, Jean realizes it’s a Victorian-era cake comb.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? When we reviewed the first season in 2021, we likened The Madame Blanc Mysteries to other Acorn series, like the  various Miss Fisher series, to My Life Is Murder, to Agatha Raisin. Nothing has changed for the 2nd season.

Our Take: The Madame Blanc Mysteries continues to ride on the charm of Lindsay, who created and writes the series along with Sue Vincent. The locations in the south of France also continue to be an attractive aspect of the series. But, one season and a holiday special into the series, you can see storylines and relationships gelling, making it more than just a mystery-of-the-week endeavor.

There’s the whole storyline of Charlie’s girlfriend Simone (Djinda Kane), who is about to be released from prison after serving a stint on fraud charges. She keeps thinking Charlie will finally visit her in jail, but instead she gets a visit from Barbara (Olivia Caffrey), who came close to killing Jean in Season 1.

We’ve got Caron dealing with the death of his wife, and we also have Jean and Dom becoming more than just friends. Those storylines, while not dominating what we see on screen in each episode, are enough to create a pleasant world around Jean and Dom as she uses her knowledge of antiques to help her solve murders.

The tone is light, but not quite as light as Season 1, given some of the continuing stories, but the weekly mysteries are still relatively light in tone. The first mystery of the season was more about the cake comb than anything else, and wasn’t that hard to solve. But in a show like this, it’s more about personalities and relationships, and that’s something this show has in abundance.

Sex and Skin: Not that kind of show.

Parting Shot: Simone gets that visitor she’s been anticipating, but instead of Charlie, it’s Barbara.

Sleeper Star: Vincent plays Gloria, the village mechanic, who, along with bar owner Celine (Margeaux Lampley) are the neighborhood’s Greek chorus, gossiping and speculating. Having them and the Lloyd Jameses around helps keep things light.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Your lemon drizzle cake saved my life,” Jean breathlessly says to Anton. We didn’t know a cake had that much power.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Madame Blanc Mysteries continues to bring fun mysteries to solve along with its characters, and the charm of the setting and Lindsay’s lead performance make the show very watchable.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.