As the French action crime thriller series on Netflix, Blood Coast, holds onto its intense and gripping style in this year’s season 2; the ending of the series is obviously expected to be a grand one. With the protagonist, Lyes Benamar, finally having to choose sides, there are some significant developments and shifts in power, although the show also manages to remain grounded in reality, meaning that the said developments are not too dramatic, or at least most of them aren’t. In this article, I break down the events from the finale of Blood Coast Season 2, trying to understand what happens to Lyes in the end, and what might follow for the protagonist in a 3rd possible season.
Spoiler Alert
Did Lyes really kill Victor Miranda?
Right before the events of the explosive finale, Lyes Benamar is seen shooting Victor Miranda, the second-in-command of Marseille Police, right in front of his house. The incident is recorded on the security cameras on the street, and as Victor Miranda is found dead following the attack, Lyes is reported to be the perpetrator behind the crime. His old teammates, mainly Alice Vidal, who is also his lover, are left shocked by this incident, and although they believe that Lyes couldn’t be responsible for such a gruesome crime, they have no way to prove it just yet. Even the department chief, Fabiani, assures Alice that Lyes could not have been the perpetrator, saying that she has total faith that police officers who have served under her cannot go so terribly rogue and harm a police officer in such a manner.
While Alice and her teammates try to think of how Lyes must have been framed for a murder that he did not commit, what they do not realize is the fact that the whole incident, and not the perpetrator, had been framed. The reason that Fabiani tries to comfort Alice with her words so confidently is that she is actually in on the secret mission, which had been quickly planned by Victor Miranda himself. Since the beginning of the season, Lyes has been working with the drug lord, Ali Saidi, while also being in cahoots with Victor secretly, only so that he could gather incriminating evidence against the criminal to ensure that he can finally be nabbed. Therefore, when Ali ordered Lyes to go kill Victor right in front of his house on the previous night, there was no way for him to avoid the situation.
But Lyes had crucially figured out that Ali had been feeling restless after the arrest of his niece, Leila, and that he was trying to think of ways to rescue her from police custody. Lyes knew that when Ali would run out of viable plans to rescue Leila, he would turn vengeful against the chief officer, who had indeed orchestrated the arrest of his niece, and would want to hurt him. Therefore, about a few minutes before the incident, even before Ali had ordered the hit on Victor, Lyes had texted the police officer to wear a bulletproof vest throughout the evening, not yet knowing that he would be the one forced to pull the trigger. Since turning down Ali’s order would expose Lyes’ secret allegiance to the police force, Victor also played along with the scenario.
When Ali drove Lyes to Victor’s address and then handed him the gun to finish off the officer, the protagonist agreed to do it, knowing well that he would not actually be killing the man. Lyes either intentionally shot close to Victor and not at him, or he placed a shot at a position where the bulletproof vest would definitely stop the bullet. Since Victor realized what was going on, he instantly acted as if it was a fatal shot, fell to the ground, and pretended to be dead. Being such a high-positioned police officer, it was not difficult for him to then have the news of his death spread all over the media while he took refuge inside a houseboat docked at one of the piers near Marseille. Once Alice figures out what is going on and manages to track down Victor, she learns of the whole matter, and it is also revealed to us for the first time. Meanwhile, Lyes crucially grows even closer to Ali Saidi, who believes that he has successfully eliminated the police officer and has avenged the arrest of Leila.
What happens to Leila?
On the orders of Ali, Lyes meets with the prison guard he had once befriended, Mario, this time to ensure that Leila Saidi has a comfortable and safe time in prison. As Ali continues to think of ways to get his niece released from prison at the earliest, he still needs to ensure that she remains safe while in prison. The Saidi family does not have any shortage of enemies, given that they own and run one of the biggest drug empires in Marseille, and now that Leila is in prison, she can easily be attacked by some of their enemies. Leila was also very much involved in the business, as she looked after the accounts, and so someone might even try to torture her into spilling secrets about the trade. Therefore, it is extremely important for Ali to keep her safe, both from a personal and a professional perspective, and so he enlists the help of Lyes once again.
Lyes meets with Mario and convinces him to keep the woman safe by paying a large bribe for him and all his colleagues working in the prison. Although Mario is initially hesitant, for he does not want to get involved with the Saidi family and also advises Lyes to stay away from Ali, he eventually agrees to do the job, especially because of the money that he gets. However, by the time Mario and his friends get to Leila’s cell, it is already too late, as she is found dead, with her wrists slit. It is evident that someone has murdered Leila, and it is revealed soon afterwards that Ali’s own business partners got her killed. Jaddou Sidi, the drug lord for whom Ali had been working, has the woman killed through his loyal and effective enforcer, Chris, since Leila knew far too much about their deals, and if anyone, including the police, would have gotten her to talk, then he and his drug empire would have been in trouble.
What is Lyes’ plan for the future?
When Lyes goes to meet with Mario, he has to temporarily hide when police officers arrive at the place. Thankfully, the team includes his beloved Alice, and so he can call her up and inform her of the real situation, about how he had not killed Victor Miranda. She had already met with Victor and so knows what is actually up, and so she helps Lyes escape, with the help of her teammates. Arno drives Lyes away from the spot, and then takes him to a location where the entire team comes together and finally welcomes Lyes back into their lives. But it is still unclear to the teammates, and also to us, what Lyes’ exact plan is for the future, since he will have to pick a side between the police force and Ali Saidi.
This is when Lyes proposes a plan to his old colleagues—Ali is about to oversee a grand deal selling drugs to the Jaddou Sidi gang, and this would be an opportune moment for the police to nab him. The drugs had been safely stored inside a container at the docks, and Lyes has information about this container, since he had been given the responsibility to oversee the deal. Therefore, he now shares this information about the container with his old colleagues, as Victor Miranda launches an operation with this team. The police obviously need solid evidence against Ali, and a container full of drugs would be just the best kind of evidence to collect.
Can the police find evidence against Ali Saidi?
The police operation has the team split in two, as Arno and Alice make their way to the docks in order to find the container and seek out the dock manager, Tony. Lyes had told them about how Tony had a special dislike towards Ali, and would easily testify against the drug lord in court after leading the police to the container. At the same time, Audrey and Tatoo lead a team who gather in front of Ali Saidi’s house, where they can carry out the arrest at the right time. They wait for Arno and Alice to find the drugs, as that would be important evidence for the arrest warrant against Ali. In this supremely intense situation, we do not see Lyes, and that is because he has played a double bluff by actually siding with Ali.
After making the police force, and especially his old teammates, believe that he was helping them to catch Ali, in reality, Lyes chooses to help Ali carry out the deal by ensuring that the drugs are safely smuggled out of the dock. By the time the police arrive at the dock, Lyes had already smuggled the drugs out, meaning that when Arno and Alice get to check the container, they find it to be completely empty. Thus, no incriminating evidence against the man can be found, and so the team at Ali’s house has to be ordered to step away immediately. Victor’s long and detailed plan to nab the drug lord completely fails by the end of Season 2.
Who kills Ali Saidi?
The reason for Lyes ultimately choosing to side with Ali Saidi, instead of his friends at the police force, is two-fold. Firstly, the real reason behind Lyes participating in this dangerous game, playing for both sides, is only to ensure that his ex-wife will be released from prison and she will be allowed to take custody of their child. He had been trying to ensure their safety by making it a part of his deal with Victor, and since his secret mission had brought him close to Ali, Lyes shared the matter with the criminal as well and sought help from him too. By the end, it seems like Lyes considers Ali to be a more effective source of help than the police. Secondly, he has had a connection with Ali ever since their childhood days, when the two used to be very good friends, and so he cannot bring himself to have Ali arrested.
However, Lyes’ efforts to save Ali are undone by an old enemy of his, Serge Laborde, who had been recently released from prison and had been looking for ways to hurt the ex-police officer. Serge had tried contacting Ali earlier to try and harm Lyes and his family, but as Ali had rejected all his advances, he now comes up with serious evidence. Serge photographs Victor at his houseboat and sends it to Ali as proof of how Lyes had fooled him and was actually working for the police. Ali then brings Lyes to a desolate spot for a confrontation, in which he asks the protagonist about how the police second-in-command was still alive and well when Lyes had supposedly killed him a couple of days earlier.
Crucially, the third most important character in Blood Coast Season 2, Yassine Djaoui, plays a crucial role at this moment, as he had been caught by Ali lurking around his house. Following the arrest of his younger brother, Yassine had grown desperate for some vengeful action, and so he had also been trying to execute an act of vengeance against Ali. But Ali had found Yassine, taken him hostage, beaten him up, and dragged him to the desolate spot, possibly so that Lyes could also decide on his fate. However, as Ali and Lyes have their confrontation, Yassine manages to sneakily get hold of the revolver and shoot Ali twice, killing him instantly. Yassine then escapes the scene in Ali’s car, while Lyes is left grieving over the dead body of his childhood friend. What happens to Yassine, or his younger brother, Mehdi, beyond this point is left unclear, as Blood Coast holds back this information for a 3rd season, in which the Djaoui brothers will possibly be the main antagonists once more. Although Mehdi is currently behind bars, Yassine had already made use of his connection with the police commander, Beckerman, to ensure that the young man would soon be released from prison.
Why is Tobias killed?
In Blood Coast Season 2’s ending, Lyes is asked to attend a meeting with the representative of Jaddou Sidi, Chris, to which he even wears a recording device so that his old teammates can listen in on this meeting. With Ali now dead, Lyes decides to stay undercover in the drug crime empire so that he can find incriminating evidence against the main leaders and bring an end to the whole network. Thus, he agrees to attend the meeting with Chris, where Ali’s cousin, Tobias, is also surprisingly present. Turns out, Tobias had tried to take advantage of his cousin’s situation, having predicted that he would soon be arrested or killed. Although Ali had already made a deal with Chris over the batch of drugs, Tobias felt that since Ali would be out of the picture soon, he could easily sell the same batch of drugs to some Dutch buyers, who are known to be the main rivals to the Sidi gang. But what Tobias had no idea about was that the Dutch gang is secretly a client of the Sidi gang, meaning that they had informed Chris about how Tobias was trying to sell the drugs to them. Thus, Chris has Tobias killed right in front of Lyes, as she stresses how her boss is keen on getting rid of untrustworthy employees like him.
What happens to Lyes Benamar?
As the situation grows more intense, Lyes’ friends fear that Chris will have him eliminated as well, but what happens is quite the opposite, as Chris actually offers Lyes a new role—as a drug lord to replace Ali Saidi. Only some time earlier, Lyes had told Alice he wanted to infiltrate the highest rungs of the drug smuggling network in order to find incriminating evidence and bring it down totally, meaning that he still intends to keep in touch with both sides of the law. Now, Chris wants to take advantage of this very situation that Lyes is in, as she talks about how he has a number of corrupt police officers, all ex-colleagues, in his hand and under his influence. She had found out about this from the failed police operation carried out at the docks, and so Chris now wants the protagonist to make use of his connections in the police force to eliminate the threats that she and her boss have to face while smuggling drugs.
Blood Coast Season 2’s ending leaves it unclear whether Lyes Benamar agrees to this deal presented by Chris, but it is almost certain that he will do so, as it puts him in a beneficial position, and we can definitely expect him to be an undercover cop amidst drug dealers in Season 3.
