Directed by Scott Frank, Monsieur Spade makes us privy to the life of a detective named Samuel Spade (famously known for The Maltese Falcon film), whose reputation preceded him wherever he went. Spade found himself in an unlikely situation when an old lover asked him to look after her daughter and keep her safe. So, let’s find out what conflicts Spade had to face and if he was able to look after Teresa and keep her safe.
Spoiler Alert
How did Samuel meet Teresa?
At the beginning of Monsieur Spade Episode 1, we saw that Samuel came with a girl to Philipe’s mother’s house, and he told her that he was told to drop off the girl at her place. Bridget O’Shaughnessy, who was the mother of Teresa, had told Samuel Spade to fulfill her last wish and make sure that her daughter was at her husband’s house, and that was why Samuel Spade came there. But he was a bit surprised when Philippe’s mother told him that her son had nothing to do with Bridget, and she believed that it was a big mistake that he even married her. Samuel did not understand anything, but one thing that became clear to him was that neither Philippe nor his mother wanted to keep Teresa with them, and he came to the realization that he would have to look out for her until she became responsible for herself. So Samuel put Teresa in a convent, and he used to visit her regularly. From the mother superior to each and every girl in the convent, everybody knew Samuel, and they all had a good relationship with him.
When Samuel had come to France for the first time in Monsieur Spade, looking for Teresa’s family, he had a long conversation with Patrice, the chief of police. Patrice just wanted to make sure that he didn’t get into any kind of conflict with Phillipe, and Spade told him that he wouldn’t do anything. Eight years passed, and Spade was still there, and Teresa was just about to turn 18. They didn’t meet every day, but they were very close to each other. Teresa knew that if anything happened to her, Spade would be there to protect her. Spade loved Bridget, and he knew that he would protect and look out for Teresa forever. Bridget, in her last days, stayed in Istanbul, and she was into the antique business, and as it seemed, she didn’t have a very happy life. Samuel was a complicated man, and he never sought validation from anyone because he knew that nobody would be able to fully understand what he was going through. Moreover, his relationship dynamics were very complicated, and for a normal person, it was very difficult to understand them. With time, Samuel grew aloof, and he didn’t feel like socializing anymore. There was a period of time when he was considered to be one of the most dangerous men, and in a lot of places, his reputation preceded him, and people feared him but now he had become docile.
How did Samuel’s illness change his perspective?
Samuel got diagnosed with emphysema, though the doctor told him that if he stopped smoking, then the situation could be brought under control. Samuel fell in love with Madame Larvarone, and he started living with her as she wanted his help to investigate a matter. Phillipe was blackmailing her, and she wanted Samuel to take care of the issue as she knew that only he could help her cause. Monsieur Spade does not show us how exactly they fell in love, but over a period of time, they did, and they understood each other in ways that others couldn’t. Spade’s illness changed his perspective, and he felt like he only had a fixed amount of time to make everything right. He knew that there were a lot of aspects of his life that needed to be changed, and he started working towards them. Samuel had an affair with Marguerita Devereux, Jean Pierre’s wife, and he liked spending time with her. Jean knew about it, and he didn’t have any emotional conflict with Samuel as he had stopped loving his wife way back. Jean didn’t care about his wife, and they both realized that the end of their relationship was near. They were just carrying it out for the sake of it, and they both knew that, given the opportunity, they would end it at any given moment.
Why did Phillipe come back?
At the end of Monsieur Spade episode 1, we saw that there were rumors about Philipe coming back to town. Samuel Spade found it very odd that all of a sudden Philippe wanted to be with Teresa, as for 8 years, he hadn’t even tried connecting with her. Phillipe called Samuel, and he told her not to come in between him and Teresa. After that, something very strange happened. Samuel heard a gunshot at the end of the call, and he didn’t know if Samuel shot anyone or if he got shot.
Later, in Monsieur Spade Episode 1, Teresa came to Samuel, and she told her that she needed a safe place to stay. Philipe came to meet Teresa, and he was soaked in blood. She didn’t know what he wanted, and she just ran away from the convent and came to Samuel’s house. Samuel was very sure that Philipe and his mother were trying to connect with Teresa only because she was going to get some money as soon as she turned 18 years old. They wanted the money, which was why they wanted the custody of Teresa, but Samuel knew that he was not going to let that happen.
At the end of the first episode, Samuel went to the convent, and he found that Teresa, before coming to her place, had locked all the girls inside a room, probably because she wanted to save them. Another bizarre thing that happened was that all the nuns in the convent were mercilessly killed by someone, and from the likes of it, it felt like Philipe was behind it. It was a horrifying sight, and Samuel knew that he would have to deal with the situation and save the people he loved. In the subsequent episodes, we would get to know who was behind the killings, and Spade would definitely have to find a way to save Teresa from Philip and his mother.
