Summary
Mortel Season 1, Episode 3, “Nothing Nudes Under The Moon” continues to fail to grab a core story and still feels muddling with its intentions.
This recap of Netflix series Mortel Season 1, Episode 3, “Nothing Nudes Under The Moon” contains significant spoilers. You can read the recap of the previous episode by clicking these words.
I’m still not feeling any impact from Mortel so far. Maybe it’s because the core characters are not likable, or that it flits between different core stories. There’s something just not right about it so far.
Mortel Episode 3 begins with Luisa (Manon Bresch) waking up on a park bench. At his home, Sofiane’s father wants to know why his brother’s scooter is in the garage. “Nothing Nudes Under The Moon” becomes super complicated for our characters rather quickly as Victor sees a vision of Sofiane kissing Luisa.
Luisa is trying to figure out why none of her friends will talk to her. She blacked out at a party, so she exchanges notes with a friend in class. The teacher asks Luisa’s friends to read out the note — “I blacked out, what did I do?” — “Nothing, except f–k Sofiane”. Ouch.
Sofiane confronts Bastiene about his brother on the stairwell, but Bastiene is also angry, asking why he slept with Luisa. Sofiane is eager to find out if Bastiene killed his brother Reda.
As we approach the halfway point, Luisa asks Sofiane if they slept together, but Sofiane is wondering where the accusations are coming from. Melanie is also upset, but later in the girl’s bathroom, Melanie tells Luisa that Sofiane is not the type of guy to force himself on to a woman.
And then the story escalates — a video circulates of Luisa stripping and dancing near a park bench with the subtitle, “want to see the rest”. An upset Luisa cries to her grandma. Her grandma is sympathetic but asks to take control.
Victor and Sofiane decide to rock up at Bastien’s house. They ask Bastien directly if he killed Sofiane’s brother. Bastien admits he threatened Reda to expose that he was a dealer. At the time the art teacher Thomas was annoyed that he couldn’t supply him any more drugs.
Did the art teacher do it? That may have been a segway.
Victor sees more visions of Sofiane looking like he aggressively handled Luisa while she was passed out. It’s still not clear what happened but it does not look good. Meanwhile, Luisa sees a video of herself at the party getting spoken to nastily by Victor and going upstairs clumsily with Sofiane.
The next day, tensions are high as ever in school. Sofiane asks Victor if he thinks he raped her and his response angers him. Luisa shows a video in class of footage from the party, including the nudes that have been leaked as part of a film project. I believe this was Luisa’s way of taking back control of her body. It’s hers to show.
With suspicions surrounding Sofiane, he confronts Thomas about Reda, but bad timing strikes, as counselor Mrs. Jourdan grabs him and asks to come to her office. She shows Sofiane and Victor the footage of the party, and she suspends them both until she finds out the truth. It is clear she believes Luisa was raped by one of them. Sofiane is troubled by the accusations and he rings Melanie, asking her to never speak to him again as he does not want someone who thinks he is a rapist.
In a random scene, Obe approaches Victor after being absent for so long. Victor asks Obe to take his powers away, but Obe declines, stating he has darkness inside of him. Before he disappears Obe says, “you are accusing Sofiane of something terrible without proof”.
Sofiane gives Victor another explanation of that night and asks him to read his mind. The visions show that Sofiane and Luisa kissed, but then she zones out and stands up. His powers activate and she lays down unconscious. Now that Victor knows Sofiane did not rape Luisa, the pair head to school to find out who truly hurt Luisa.
Mortel Season 1, Episode 3, “Nothing Nudes Under The Moon” closes with more drama. Victor reads the minds of everyone in the schoolyard and figures out it was Rodrigue while there’s a commotion between Luisa and her friends. Sofiane and Victor chase after Rodrigue, but every time Sofiane uses his powers, Victor collapses. There’s seemingly a link between their powers. They end up in the counselor’s office with Rodrigue, and Sofiane shuts the door behind them.
Everything feels very made up on the spot so far.
Additional Notes
- Victor’s mother shows Victor’s drawings to the counselor
- Luisa and her grandma perform voodoo on Modibo which releases the darkness from inside of him. He’s no longer putting himself under house arrest.
You can read the recap of the fourth episode by clicking these words.
