TF1 launches this Thursday evening “Syndrome E”, its new event series with Vincent Elbaz, Jennifer Decker, Emmanuelle Béart, Kool Shen, and Bérengère Krief. A dark and breathtaking thriller adapted from the novel by Franck Thilliez centered on Sharko and Henebelle.
What is it about ?
Franck Sharko, 45, is a gruff and lonely cop. Only his daughter is with him on a daily basis: Eugenie interferes everywhere. Especially in his new investigation in which children mysteriously disappear while an old film from the 60s provokes strange and dangerous behavior in those who watch it.
Lucie Henebelle, meanwhile, is 35 years old. She too is a cop, a single mother. When she realizes that her past may be related to Sharko’s investigation, she joins his team. The meeting of the two police officers therefore promises to be electric… But this investigation will above all lead them from Morocco to Canada to shed light on troubled scientific experiments.
Every Thursday at 9:10 p.m. on TF1 from September 29, and already available in full on Salto.
6 episodes seen out of 6.
Who is it with?
To embody on screen the two leading cops from the novels of Franck Thillieznamely Sharko and Henebelle, who meet for the first time in E-syndromeTF1 and production called on Vincent Elbazwho becomes a series hero again seven years after the end of No Limitand the actress Jennifer Deckerresident of the Comédie-Française, seen on screen in Hellophone, FlyboysWhere Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour.
Alongside them, we find in particular Emmanuelle Beartrare on television, in the role of commissioner Leclerc, Kool Shen and Berengere Krief into fellow Sharko cops, and Michele Bernier in the skin of Henebelle’s mother. Without forgetting Anne Charrier, Samy Seghir, Richard Bohringeror Dominique White in a Machiavellian role.
Caroline Dubois/Escazal Films/TF1
Well worth a look ?
After Rebecca, such a long nightor more recently Aim for the heart, which mixed a love story and already rather dark investigations against a backdrop of childish fear and deeply buried trauma, TF1 pushes the cursor a little further from what we are used to seeing on the small French screen in terms of thriller with Syndrome E, which begins this Thursday evening on TF1. And that’s good, because we want more!
Accustomed to series with atmosphere with Blank Zonewho had already brought a breath of fresh air to French productions a few years ago, the screenwriter Mathieu Missoffe adapts for the first time on television the work of Franck Thilliez, who today is one of the undisputed masters of thriller in France, in the same way as Jean-Christophe Grange and Maxime Chatham. And who had seen his novel The Chamber of the Dead (centered on Lucie Henebelle) to be brought to the big screen in 2007.
Recalling at times The Crimson Rivers, although it is more daring, more unpredictable, and more enjoyable, both in its story and in its execution, Syndrome E propels us from its very successful first episode into a dark, gloomy, and disturbing universe that connects the revelations chilling and shocking sequences. And which, with its characters damaged by life but nevertheless endearing, its actors in tune, and its many bewitching mysteries, manages without difficulty to make the general public rhyme with risk and quality.
Tamalet Christine/Escazal Films/TF1
Corpses with their brains ripped out, heroine whose eyes begin to bleed, subliminal images hidden in an old amateur film at the Ring which arouse outbursts of violence, disturbing clinics, or even experiments on kidnapped children… nothing is spared us and lovers of sticky and bloody thrillers had to be won over.
Obviously, the set does not escape certain more formatted sequences, but Syndrome E ventures close enough to horror and the strange to thrill us and stand out from the lot of French television dramas.
To Mathieu Missoffe’s mastery of rhythm and suspense is added the polished and stunning realization of Laura de Butler. A young director who cut her teeth on Profiling in particular and which, after The promise, confirms all the good that we think of her. And proves once again that she has a real touch and a real sense of human drama, capable of transcribing on the screen both the darkness of the investigation and the wounds and torments of the souls of her characters.
Caroline Dubois/Escazal Films/TF1
Screenplay and formal qualities complemented by a high-level cast. Starting with the two main actors of the series, perfect in the roles of Sharko and Henebelle. For his big comeback as a series hero on TF1, Vincent Elbaz, who we recently saw in a comic register on France 2 in Everybody liesdemonstrates once again his wide range of games and is simply excellent in the skin of this tortured cop, haunted by the ghost of his daughter, and ready to explode at any minute.
Faced with the ticking time bomb Sharko, Jennifer Decker, a resident of the Comédie-Française, is the real revelation of the series in the role of Henebelle who, faced with a case that is not normal, will begin to arise. questions about the brain surgery she underwent as a teenager. Determined to save those who can still be saved – including herself? – before it is too late.
The rest of the cast has nothing to envy them, from Kool Shen to Bérengère Krief, amazing as a young cop, via Samy Seghir or Dominique Blanc, brilliant in the skin of a truly chilling antagonist. And we already hope to find the heroes in other seasons adapted from the following volumes signed Thilliez. Because, after all, TF1 presents Syndrome E as being “an investigation by Sharko and Henebelle”, and we say to ourselves that everything is already surely planned to ensure a season 2 in the event of success.