Summary
Rocketing towards its conclusion, Baptiste Episode 5 upped the body count and kept the twists coming thick and fast.
I don’t want to say I told you so, but I did tell y’all that Edward Stratton (Tom Hollander) making off with the Romanian mob’s missing moolah probably wasn’t a good idea. In Baptiste Episode 5, with Stratton now in England and determined to protect his ex-wife Clare (Clare Calbraith) and her new fella Carl (David Michaels) by taking them on a tortuously awkward caravanning break, it was pretty clear that things were about to go dead wrong.
And they did.
It’s easy to dislike Stratton thanks to an energetically deplorable performance from Hollander, but it’s easy to feel sorry for him, too. He blames himself for his daughter’s death, and for the love of his life shacking up with his best friend. And now he has the deaths of both Clare and Carl on his conscience, since a baldy henchman, Nicolae (Zachary Baharov), was able to track them down and slash their throats. He was unsuccessful when setting about Stratton thanks to Chekhov’s kitchen knife, but the question must be asked: How did the killer know where to find them?
That’s a mystery for Julien Baptiste (Tchéky Karyo), who was able to track Stratton down and evidently took pity on him for nobly risking everything to save Natalie’s trafficked sister Cristina (Freya Kingsley), even if he did go about it in exceedingly stupid ways. And Cristina needs saving since an attempt in Baptiste Episode 5 to escape went predictably pear-shaped.
Europol officer Genevieve Taylor (Jessica Raine) was also having an unpleasant time of things this week, accosted by Constantin Baracu (Alec Sec?reanu) for a quietly menacing chat and revealing that she was the one who sent Lucas (Marc de Hond) undercover in the Brigada Serbilu despite being his lover. That personal connection to the case is likely what compels her to hatch the audacious plan of turning Constantin into a snitch by leveraging the fact he hasn’t told the Serbilu brothers about their missing dough.
This works relatively well until Constantin is thrown from a balcony to his death. It was worth a try, I guess.
As Baptiste Episode 5 increased the body count, it also revealed one secret after another. And its characters did the same. Martha Horchner (Barbara Sarafian) told her son Niels (Boris Van Severen) that Baptiste was his father, while Baptiste told Celia (Anastasia Hille) the same. Greg (Trystan Gravelle), the grieving boyfriend of the late transgender gangster Kim Vogel (Talisa Garcia), was led to a secret stash that might contain game-breaking information. And Baptiste reasoned that the only person who could have sold out Stratton’s location to the Romanians was Martha.
All the pieces are in place for a wild finale, as Baptiste concludes next week.
