Anthracite – Season 1 Episode 1 “Still on Fire” Recap & Review

Still on Fire

Episode 1 of Anthracite begins in 1994, Levionna. After the murder of Roxane Vial who is stoned and covered in anthracite, a SWAT team conducts a raid. They head to Caleb Johansson’s house, the leader of Ecrins cult. They are too late as his followers conduct mass suicide but he survives.

It is 2024 and Solal Heilman is looking into the case. His chirpy daughter, Ida is a proficient web-sleuther with a large community. While they are on call, someone jumps him and he tells her to stay away before he is kidnapped.

So, of course, Ida does the opposite. She lands in Levionna, and with a photo of Jaro in her dad’s file, she finds him at the ski resort shop where he works with his friend, Romeo. She bombards him with her techniques on how she found him and how he may be the key to finding her dad, but he isn’t impressed. Disappointed, she heads to her car where she gets a nosebleed while someone watches her.

One of the customers, Emma, lures Jaro to the hills and tries to make a move on him. He is flattered but since he is on parole, he doesn’t want to lose his job and leaves. She is annoyed and while ranting to her friend, someone grabs her.

Initially from Paris, Jaro is currently staying with his uncle who still has PTSD from Juliette’s death, his sister and Jaro’s mother. Things don’t look good as Jaro’s ex, Anais wants sole custody of his kid, Malia, because she thinks he is trouble.

In Ida’s hotel room, she removes her wig and reveals she is a cancer patient. She finds a key in the case file and asks her followers for help. At that moment, Caleb calls for Solal and wants to meet Jaro. Meanwhile, in a cave, Emma is tied up and anthracite is smeared on her face.

The next day, Detective Gio DeLuca comes for Jaro. His record reveals that he did a favour for a bad group and ended up being caught for possession. He’s been in Levionna for 2 days and she finds it odd that he is the last person to see Emma. Ida shows up as his alibi as it turns out she was following him when he blew off Emma.

In return, she wants Jaro to meet Caleb but he refuses. They tussle till she tases and ties him up in her car. She even threatens to take back the alibi and he gives in.

Inside, Gio believes all of the missing people of Levionna are linked to the cult who are working in secret now. She had a breakdown last year because of which no one believes her. She takes a sniffer dog to look for Emma and finds a mine entrance at La Valette. Two people in yellow suits watch her but before she can get to them, there is a tremor and they disappear.

At the psych ward, Caleb reveals he knows Juliette, and that Jaro is the chosen one. He goes on about flames which makes Jaro furious. A flashback shows a young Jaro finding his mom dead in a burning room. He runs off while Caleb tells Ida that he cannot heal her anymore which surprises her.

A woman is ice skating when she finds Emma under the ice. Gio still finds Jaro suspicious while her husband, another detective reveals that the hillside tremor is thanks to Arcacia miners looking for coal.

Meanwhile, Jaro is shaken and asks Romeo to take him to that night’s party which is at Caleb’s abandoned house. To enter, they need to put anthracite on their face and Jaro finds the whole thing funny.

Elsewhere, Ida gets a call from her doctor as she has quit chemo and refuses to try again. A flashback shows that she has been in hospitals since she was a kid. Solal would keep her company while she watched crime shows and he gave her a computer so she could be in touch with the outside world.

Her followers finally find the key’s purpose which takes her to Solal’s storage room full of computers and interview footage. It seems that under the guise of a TV report, he was secretly investigating. A stray cat drops a tape and it is of Juliette.

At the party, Jaro gets high and recalls Caleb’s words on how the flame will consume his family. He wants to leave when some partygoers pick a fight as they believe he killed Emma. Romeo helps him escape and he heads to Ida’s for help who shows him Juliette’s tape.

She was Roxane’s friend and had gone to Caleb’s cult for the parties they threw. She bonded with Caleb and both she and Solal believed he didn’t kill Roxane. Ida thinks Solal got a new lead on the actual murderer and he must be the one who killed Juliette as well and framed it as suicide as she had depression.

At the end of Anthracite Episode 1, someone sets the hotel room on fire and Jaro freezes on seeing the fire. Ida tries to get him out but she starts coughing.

The Episode Review

Anthracite Episode 1 is an interesting take; viewers would expect a dark and sombre crime show, with amateur PIs who tussle with a detective to find a journalist. But what we get is quite the opposite and while it can be jarring initially, Anthracite deals with it deftly. It makes use of black humour, visual effects and pop songs to create a crime thriller that stands out.

From the get-go, it is clear that this is not a straightforward investigation about a missing person. Ida is quirky, naive and funny while Jaro just wants to toe the line and has a single-minded goal – to avoid trouble so he can get back his daughter. With two opposite characters, we are about to get a fun dynamic as he reluctantly has to team up with this hyperenergetic sleuth who is his only hope to clear his name.