Iskander series seasons 1 and 2 – TV Review

Season 2 of Topic’s original TV series ISKANDER debuts Thursday, Jan. 13, with the entire season 1 also available for streaming starting on that date. The four-episode debut season of ISKANDER, a crime drama from French TV, delivers a solid mystery in an exotic setting – French Guyana.

In season 1, we meet Chloe (Stephane Caillard), a police officer banished to this post in the remote jungle setting of Cayenne for some unspecified act of insubordination. On her first day, she’s partnered with veteran detective Dialo (Adama Niane), and sent to the site of a gruesome murder. They find a catamaran adrift up river with the bodies of two white do-gooders who were distributing educational materials to isolated villages. She learns many locals resent such seemingly benevolent acts. Those descendants of African slaves the French imported fear those efforts will cause their children to abandon their own language and culture.

Even so, the crime appears to have been committed as some kind of religious ritual. The husband and wife weren’t just killed. They were mutilated and posed with other objects in an excessively bloody manner. Their young son is missing. Unraveling all of this is fills the rest of the season.

Chloe is smart and tough, but rather arrogant for one thrust into a new and different culture, showing little concern for local customs and key figures. The urgency of rescuing the child denies her the time than needed for a learning curve, even if she were less headstrong about the job. Dialo knows people in all segments of the populace. During their investigations, we learn that he’s troubled by similarities to a long pattern in the area involving child abductions for arcane purposes.

Four episodes is the right length for getting to know these characters, understanding their specific environs, and remaining engaged in this suspenseful plot. The story unfolds with a fair amount of action, and considerable explanation of how present attitudes and beliefs were shaped by the former colony’s history, including the meaning and significance of ISKANDER. Chloe initially seems like a bit of a jerk, but we wind up thinking whoever she pissed off to be sent there probably deserved what she did to him.

Season 2 expands to six episodes, and moves Chloe from the tropics to her snow-covered hometown of St. Pierre et Miquelon – a French territory off the coast of Newfoundland. She returns because of her mother’s suicide, and to provide for her brain-damaged younger brother, Francois (Axel Granberger).

Though watching the first year is not essential to enjoying this second one, a significant carryover element makes more sense for those who have. The season’s opening recap won’t be as effective in linking her past to this present. As before, there are some supernatural/occult aspects to the crimes Chloe confronts.

For starters, her brother is accused of murdering a couple of local louts. Her attempts to clear him are deeply resented and resisted by the local cops, despite her mother’s tenure as their highly-respected leader. Chloe was apparently something of a bad-ass in her youth there, causing many to hold grudges despite her having evolved to the right side of the law.

As the mystery unfolds, Chloe discovers a laundry list of serious felonies swirling in that quaint, idyllic island community, subjecting her to threats on several fronts, with little reliable support. This season delivers more action and plot complexity than the first, maintaining suspense throughout. It serves as another compelling binge one may be spurred to complete in a day. OK. Maybe that’s just me; you may have more stuff to do.

As before, Chloe’s shortcomings are more humanizing than off-putting. Granberger’s performance as her mentally-challenged brother with some fascinating interests is a substantial asset for both our emotional engagement and the suspense factor. The tone of Season 2 is as different from the first as the climate of its setting, but the scripting and breadth of the cast make it even better.

Seasons 1 and 2 of ISKANDER (alternatively titled MARONI), in mostly French with English subtitles, is available for streaming on Topic as of Thursday, Jan, 13, 2022; alternatively titled MARONI)

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars