Why don’t people do more stuff like this for Christmas? It doesn’t always have to be mushy and dated romances for the season. A thriller with beautiful cinematography and a fresh, though somewhat derivative, storyline can be exactly what we want for the season. “Three Pines” is so clearly inspired by “Murder on the Orient Express.” But there was something about it that made us believe that we were going to get a new fare. Let’s go through the first episode.
Spoilers Ahead
Murder In The Pines
“Three Pines” Episode 1 starts with a protest outside the police station where indigenous women are leading a march against the inaction of police regarding the disappearance of the women from their community. When things get a little violent, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache intervenes and takes the family of the bereaved home. Blue Two Rivers has been missing for more than 13 months, and the family is angry that the case is not being investigated. But upon further inquiry, Gamache comes to know that Blue and her boyfriend Tommy were last seen leaving in Kevin Kis’ truck. The conclusion has been that they have run away, but Blue’s family disagrees, saying that she wouldn’t leave her daughter Pearl behind. Meanwhile, in the village of Three Pines, a woman named CC is having an affair with her photographer, Saul Petrov. She is a bitter woman who rarely has a nice thing to say to anyone. At a curling match where the whole town is assembled, she is electrocuted in an accident, which causes everything to come to a halt. Inspector Gamache is sent to investigate the case, along with Inspector Beauvoir and Sergeant Lacoste. They team up with Inspector Yvette Nichol, but none of them seem so happy about it, as Nichol is clearly rather incompetent. But they have to work together, and as the first step of the investigation, they reach the victim’s house. Upon talking to the husband, Gamache gets the sense that he suspected his wife of having an affair with the photographer. There is also a weird moment with the daughter, Crie. Her father has no qualms about the detectives asking him questions in front of her; he is not worried about the effect it could have on her young mind. This indicates that Crie probably hears much worse. An example of it would be a previous scene in which CC bursts out that her marriage and her child were her greatest mistakes. She spoke in French, but it is not unreasonable to assume that Crie understood. When Gamache is comforting her, he tells her about how grief is just love that has nowhere to go. But his advice is based on the assumption that Crie loved her mother. What if CC was just abusive and distant? In such cases, the children’s first feelings are relief at the death of the parent figure, followed by guilt for feeling this way. And for someone as young as Crie, it had to be very confusing.
Inspector Gamache suspects that CC’s death was not an accident. As he mulls over the violent manner of it, he wonders who could have hated her that much. If killing her was the only objective, there were simpler and much more efficient ways to do it. But what was chosen was death by electric chair, a punishment often handed out to death row inmates. The objective is not just to take someone’s life but to punish them as much as possible. That too, by making a public spectacle of it. It was as if the person wanted the world to know that they had taken their revenge. It reminds us of the comparison to Frankenstein made early on in the show. Is it an indication that CC was the town’s hellion? But we must remember that the so-called monster was not born but created. All he had wanted since his first waking moment was the love and affection of his father, his creator. Similarly, CC is shown to hate her mother but, at the same time, is obsessed with her. She obviously loves her but has a lot of anger in her heart towards her. CC’s mother may have been Frankenstein. Three Pines is a small town where public opinion is often united rather than divided. CC must have antagonized many with her anger and aloofness. She definitely had no shortage of enemies.
Inspector Gamache is unable to narrow down his suspects because everyone he interrogates in the town gives off the vibe of not being very fond of CC. Meanwhile, he gets a call regarding the Blue Two Rivers case, where he is sent a photograph of her in Brooklyn from two weeks prior. He takes it to Blue’s mother, but her family refuses to believe it. They are adamant that, had Blue been alive, she would have called them. Blue’s sister even brings out a jacket, the same one Blue is wearing in the picture and asks the detective if Blue was really in Brooklyn, then how did her jacket get there. But it is inconclusive evidence, and they are back to square one.
‘Three Pines’ Episode 1: Ending Explained – Who Does Inspector Gamache Suspect Of Killing CC?
The night the Inspector arrives in Three Pines, he sort of confronts the residents about their true feelings about CC. He knows that she refused to let Clara Morrow meet Saul Petrov for her career. She had also been furious at Myrna for not letting her host her book-signing party at her store. Not just that, the day after she had been denied using the bistro for her launch party, she had reported them for food poisoning. Overall, she was just a very unpleasant woman and had given each and every one of the townspeople reasons to hate her. But he is told off. The next day, he shifts the pictures of all the people from the witnesses’ section to the suspect’s section. He thinks each and every one of them had reason to hate her, so what is to say they did not all collaborate on one big mission of murdering her away? “Three Pines,” Episode 1, ends on this very “Agatha Christieish” point.
What To Expect From The Next Episode?
We know that the case of CC is connected to that of Blue Two Rivers, so we would like to find out how. Does it have something to do with the fact that CC’s house was previously a school for indigenous women, and we have come to understand that it was a place of racist cruelty? Also, we believe that the hatred for CC is for reasons deeper than the petty ones we heard in this episode. There was something deliberate about letting CC’s paintings and books stay around their places before burning them down with a vengeance as soon as she was dead. It was almost as if the townspeople were putting on a show to get something out of her. We will have to tune into “Three Pines” Episode 2 for the answers.
