5 out of 5

Creator: Alexandra Clert, Guy-Patrick Sainderichin

‘Spiral’ is the rare example of a show that hasn’t shifted gears or its general template or its cache of characters and has yet gotten richer and better written and more effective season to season. As a police procedural, perhaps, initially, its easier to allot it extra interest because we’re not as familiar with the French legal system, and so are all these wayward judge / D.A. / police interworkings and violent smackdowns of prisoners and continual scrambles to cover up procedural botches for the sake of achieving justice the status quo in France-land? We have violent cop dramas here, but there’s definitely a brutal edge to Engrenages that floods every scene, a dark, descending path that leads to tiny victories that could’ve been greater ones if we could climb out from ‘neath this messy pile of political b.s. But that’s the ‘spiraling’ aspect of the show – each season focuses on a main case (and the troupe of 3-4 police who must catch the baddie) and, except for part of season 3, we almost always know who ‘did’ it. The tension and tension and TENSION comes from all the believable close calls, the screaming-at-the-television moments of frustration when the killer gets to walk away just because. Season 1 starts out a bit over-French, and they definitely gritted that season up with sex and violence, but the roots of all the characters are there, and after a break and some BBC involvement for season 2, the show really finds its footing. I don’t often watch shows back-to-back, but this is one that you do. You can’t turn away. And it’s rewarding – it doesn’t waste time with episodes that derail from solving the case, but details start to stack up and you feel like you’re seeing a real, dark world portrayed on the screen, a network of criminals on both sides of the law, shades of good and bad, people you’re supposed to love, supposed to hate, supposed to feel conflicted toward. Such good stuff. But reserve a chunk of time to get addicted to it.