HIP - Ermittlerin mit Mords-IQ

This rating is for the 3 first seasons.

I like the premises and the acting in the first 2 seasons, especially from the leading lady.

High Intellectual Potential is seen by many as an advantage in life. In this series, it is shown in an hyperbolic fashion. The main character has superior memory and associative intelligence that allows her to solve deep mysteries in an instant, when unrelated triggers are put in place. This is not very realistic.

What is more realistic is how possessing high intellectual potential can be detrimental in life. No one understands her, she is a constant misfit and a societal failure, in part because her super-smart aura makes everyone around her feel stupid. She is also unable to set her mind to a long-term task and stick to it. She is easily distracted and very easily bored, and so she has no qualification, no diploma, no job, no money and everyone who has tried to live with her has given up on her. She has no fear of consequences and does not care for anyone's feelings, even when people genuinely try to help her, and even for her own children. She is also very good looking and uses that to her advantage, yet comes across as uncouth and gaudy with a very poor sense of taste.

That should have made her a profoundly unsympathetic character, yet, the main actress manages to overcome all this and show that her character is actually trampled over and used by everyone to her detriment, in particular by her family, and most particularly by her father, who has the same problems as her, even worse in a way. So in the end, she is rather lovable in spite of many flaws. This is quite a feat.

So I feel this is rather a good show. The down side is that the rest of the cast is basically a support cast. No one else is remotely as interesting as she is. No one rises to her level even the various love interests with rare exceptions. There is a main story in addition to each of the episode storyline, and this is one of deep sadness and betrayal.

The third season, however, magnifies all the downsides to a point where it become an unfunny caricature. I recommend the first 2 season, not really the last one.

The kind of humour reminds me of Death in Paradise. Very funny, quite original, certainly not your average detective. All players perform wonderfully. Each part is great and they work together impeccably. You have to watch it in French, with subtitles, dubbed would be less funny. The voice of Audrey can't be dubbed good enough.

Morgane is brilliant and the totally chaotic, graphic and anti procedural way she figures everything out, is captivating to watch. Fleurot is a beautiful actrice, but they only thing that annoys me tremendously is the long fake shiny transparent nails she wears, that appear over a hundred times in closeup on the screen, each episode. It is really very annoying, way too much. Fleurots hands are really made ugly this way, which they aren't in real life at all.

Apart from that, the 8 episodes produced are great and I hope we will see more of them.

First, do yourself a favor and watch the French version with subtitles. The English voices are terrible! I get that they're trying to sync the voices to the video but it makes the characters sound like imbeciles. The added laughing and "oh ho" every time Morgane speaks is ridiculous. Makes her sound like a lunatic.

I found the subtitled version and it's much better. The voices are authentic. Those dubbed ones don't remotely match the personality of the character.

It's a very good show and I'm rewatching with subtitles. Makes a whole lot more sense and not as annoying. I love the characters. You can actually learn something from watching this show. The way Morgane explains her process is quite fascinating.

/refers to Season 1/

Mrs. Fleurot is a really versatile actress, I have seen her in several other series (Engrenages, Un village français, Safe, etc.) and here she is so different - not frigid, not serious, but frivolous and careless... And she steals the show in every episode, even Mehdi Nebbou (a good actor as well) is not totally fitting/merited companion to her.

The cases are of different smoothness, but yet with twists, and even if you figure out the wrongdoer soon, there is always something behind until almost the very end. All in all, 8 points from me - 9 for Fleurot´s performance and 7 for script (realism included). And I am looking forward to Season 2.

PS Season 2 and 3 are as pleasant, with many unexpected twists included and an expected solution not included :) Crimes and criminals are never pleasant, but circumstances and/or people investigating them can be...

PPS Season 4 included more sad and confusing moments, but still - the quality is maintained. And more stuff to come, apparently.

Audrey Fleurot makes the series worth watching. The concept is somewhat old - think Holmes + Will Hunting + saucy House and you get the idea, but after a few episodes the cast chemistry begins to show and as mentioned, Fleurot goes all-in for the quirky character. If the continues to improve, definitely worth the time.