Laure and the rest of the team are shakily recovering from the tragic death of Samy and the literal explosion of their unit as Season 5 opens with one of the saddest crimes on record for Spiral, the murder of a woman and her little daughter, bound together and thrown into the Seine. Her very shady husband makes an obvious suspect. He is perhaps too obvious, as both Laure and Roban become obsessed with proving his guilt to a damaging extreme, going up against his defense counselors, Pierre and Joséphine. The case seems like it’s going one way, but – guess what? It spirals, beginning with…

The complicating factor.
Let’s see: Laure’s one true love was killed in an explosion that could also ruin her career; her boss, Herville, is as ambitious and over-promising as ever; her relationship with the stable Brémont is over; her crew is in various stages of personal discord… so, of course, this is the perfect time to find out she’s pregnant! PS, she doesn’t know who the father is, and is convinced that she doesn’t want the baby, anyway. She is, in a word, a mess, sleeping in her car, eating every piece of junk food she can find, flippantly scheduling and re-scheduling a termination. It doesn’t help that Gilou, once her cynical confidant, has taken to his new role as the department’s Dad so completely, all but begging her to keep the baby so that they can raise it, together. I must admit, my heart swelled nearly to bursting at the thought. It wasn’t the last time I’d be overcome by emotion, like when…

The bad goodbye.
So, Roban is still on the job and in Laure’s corner, as always, but his tunnel vision when it comes to the murder investigation and a connected side case lead him to make a few grievous errors in judgment leading to terrible and shocking consequences. Even Marianne, his trusted supporter, finds herself unable to look at le juge after his actions contribute to the desperation of an accused man, ultimately resulting in the death of their beloved friend, Pierre. It nearly destroyed me, too, Marianne. I’m still not over it. Roban finds solace in a new partnership with a young judge, throwing himself into his work, zealously pursuing a baddie diplomat at the cost of his own health. Still, he and Laure are not the only ones making bad choices. There’s also…

The boys.
Surviving an exploding bomb and dealing with the death of a colleague might be enough to make some people take a hard look at their lives and start living better. On the other hand, it might lead you to, say, ignore your responsibilities at home (Tintin) or entangle yourself in the sheets of a violent informant’s needy girlfriend (Gilou, bien sûr). Guys, what are you doing? Gilou really ends up in hot water after putting himself on the line for Herville, placing illegal tracking devices on a gang’s mopeds. (Incidentally, a lot of Parisian crime happens on mopeds, which is really the most French way to commit a crime that I can imagine.) Wonder of wonders, Herville rises to the occasion, taking responsibility for his team’s actions, admitting they’re all far better cops than he is, and finally throwing his support behind Laure one hundred percent. Well, as the Bard taught us, misery acquaints a person with strange bedfellows, and this is nowhere more true than…