Three Pines – Season 1 Episode 2 “White Out – Part 2” Recap & Review

White Out – Part 2

Episode 2 of Three Pines begins with CC taking a pillow and murdering an old lady in her bed. A creak from the doorway seems to hint that someone ended up watching this take place.

Fast forward to the present, and two days have passed since CC’s murder. With all the villagers together, Gamache organizes everyone to sit exactly where they did during the Curling match. Gamache tries to work out how the electrics play into this, and it could well be Richard Lyons. He has a number of patents for electrical inventions. Given he knows how electric circuits work, he could have devised this electric chair himself.

While Nichols run a background check on Lyon’s finances, Gamache ends up speaking to Bea about CC’s book, learning that some of the words are from the Bible but a couple of words have been changed. Furthermore, CC seems to have built a whole philosophy around a Christmas ornament, potentially the same one that we saw Crie smash last episode.

According to the coroner’s report, CC’s blood had 20 times the normal dose of niacin. A high enough dose can actually promote hot flushes, explaining why she took off her gloves. This would denote that her drink was spike at the Curling match. Even more bizarre though, there’s no birth certificate in the name of Cecilia de Poitiers. It’s almost as if CC doesn’t exist. If that wasn’t enough, CC also lied about her parents’ names too.

Jean-Guy comes bursting in though with Saul, who was on the verge of destroying crucial evidence before being tackled to the ground. Once together, Gamache and his team find dozens of photos of Saul and CC together, along with numerous pictures from the Curling match. There’s also one of Richard Lyon getting CC her coffee.

CC’s real mother apparently made her life hell, but Saul points out he and CC had just broken up, right on the edge of this Curling match. After the interview, Gamache rules out Saul as the killer. He’s too in love with her and doesn’t really have a motive. Richard though, most certainly does. He was in financial dire straits and leaking money. CC was insured for close to a million so with her now dead, it actually sorts their family finances out completely – and puts Richard Lyon in the spotlight.

Gamache immediately goes on the offensive and confronts Richard Lyon with Jean-Guy. He points out that CC became a bully who liked causing pain and he’s glad she’s gone… but he didn’t kill her. He’s adamant that murder wasn’t on the cards and given he didn’t even know what CC’s real name was either, it seems to add up.

As we soon find out, CC’s real name was Cecilia Longpre, which seems to hint that her mother’s name is Emilie Longpre. The same Emilie Longpre we caught glimpses of last episode.

When Gamache dives deeper into this, it turns out the lady is actually CC’s aunt. CC’s mother was called Eleanor. El was always troubled and it deepened her depression, having a breakdown and even striking CC as a child. El died in a shelter in Montreal about a year back. Apparently they couldn’t find a cause of death, but it seems this is the scene we saw at the start of the episode.

Gamache is clever and figures out the meaning of this “Be Calm” statement that’s been repeated throughout the past couple of episodes. It’s actually a combination of four names. Bea, Kaye, El and Em. They adapted a psalm, meaning that they weren’t strangers after all. They must have been super close to come up with all of that. “Don’t leave the villgae will you, Bea.” The Inspector finishes.

In the morning, Gamache shows up at Emilie’s place where she has video footage of her confessing to the crime and doing so to save Crie from CC as she’s a monster. While Jean-Guy puts the evidence in lock-up, Gamache hurries over to try and find Em. Only, she’s out in the freezing cold, almost dying of hypothermia.

As a result of this, Gamache doubts Emilie’s story, and even more so when he realizes that whoever did this must have known about the metal claws on the boots. This denotes someone super close to CC, which rules out Emilie. It could well be that Emilie is covering for the real killer who may have confessed everything to her.

Gamache shows up at Richard Lyon’s place and speaks to Crie. He susses out that she’s the one responsible given she learned what she knew from Richard. It also turns out that Crie was the one who witnessed CC killing her mother in the past, and conspired with her to cover everything up. Police take her away and arrest the girl.

As for this Blue situation, apparently a small time drug dealer claims to have sold meth to Tommy two days ago. And Blue was with him. Blue’s mother Missy is convinced that the police haven’t done enough to help her daughter. She waits outside the police station all night, but when Gamache shows up, she’s standing on the edge of the roof. He hurries up to try and stop her but it’s too late. She jumps. Gamache is shocked and helpless.

The Episode Review

There must be more to this CC case than meets the eye, surely? This just feels too tidy and wrapped up a little too neatly after so many potential suspects. Then again, we could be looking at an episodic series with different cases every week so we shall see.

It seemed a little obvious that Crie is the one responsible, and given the elaborate method for setting up this murder, and the whole “unseen” element of the case, does this not seem a little too obvious to anyone else? Or maybe I’ve just watched and read one too many murder mysteries!

Either way though, everything here is set up nicely for next week’s continuation, with plenty of drama, shocks and thrills to come. The show has done well so far to set up an eerie atmosphere for itself and Three Pines has been a solid watch overall.