#but also i love guédira so much!

[cambrioleur]

In the interest of making this blog a bit more intelligent and less of a collection of dumb memes, here's an actual "hot take" that I have...

Ben is likable but he's also jaw-droppingly underdeveloped in the official canon of the show. Basically he's what TV Tropes terms a Satellite Character, in that he's almost always shown in the context of his interactions with other characters, with these scenes being from their viewpoint and not his. He never gets a real arc or storyline of his own: Claire and Guédira are consistently the central POV figures of the assorted B and C plots, while Ben appears in the A plots but in an exclusively supporting role.

The show actually DOES have opportunities to expand on his character a bit more but for whatever reason it never takes advantage of them. You'd think that Ben getting sold out by Assane and tossed in prison would have been a perfect candidate for this, but he appears in like three scenes in the last few episodes of Part 3, with these once again being mainly from the perspectives of Guédira, Claire, and Assane (not to mention that the audience still doesn't know exactly how he sustained all those injuries).

An additional issue is that so far, Ben hasn't had any meaningful conflict in his relationship with Assane, which seems unrealistic given what an utter mess Assane is a lot of the time. Claire has the obvious conflict of desperately wanting to believe in Assane but being let down by him over and over again, and also having to deal with how his antics are negatively affecting their son. Guédira is an Assane Diop stan while also being a police officer who's supposed to be trying to jail him, which is a comedic conflict but it's a conflict nonetheless. We never get any of that with Assane and Ben; their friendship is fun but it's weirdly smooth-sailing. We don't know if they can survive the kind of turmoil that arises between Assane and Claire on a regular basis, because up until Ben gets thrown to the wolves at the gala, he's never been on the receiving end of Assane's dishonesty and erratic behavior. (This is why I actually think that the betrayal was a good narrative choice.)

So Ben's characterization is that he's the technically-competent friend who's also a loyal, solid dude...and that's it. We don't really know who he is in the same way that we know who Assane, Claire, and Guédira are. And the result is that the fans can project pretty much whatever they want onto him. If they want to say he's in love with Assane, fine, because there's nothing canonical that obviously confirms or refutes it. (In contrast I think it's fair to say that any notion of Assane reciprocating these potential affections is 100% fanon; the showrunners clearly view him as someone who can charm anyone he wants to while also being completely heterosexual, although one could argue that they're attempting to have their cake and eat it too.) The same is true if they want to say that Ben is in love with Claire, which is a theory that I've seen crop up a few times. My own opinion is that he's probably aroace or something along those lines, but at the same time I find the interpretation that he loves Assane to be plausible enough, although I have absolutely no emotional investment in it.

Anyway, bottom line...Ben's character should be developed more. Also I personally think he should turn on Assane. But that's just me.

#lupin netflix #benjamin ferel #hot take #assane diop #claire laurent #youssef guedira

[imliterallyjustarock]

hello void I got a Lupin update for you midway through part 3 and

AAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH okay full disclosure, I did know about Assane betraying Ben because I browsed the lupin netflix tag here, but I dipped before I learned the full context. I assumed it'd be over some misunderstanding where Assane thought Ben was gonna hurt him so he struck first, bad but potentially fixable if the misunderstanding was cleared up but nooooooo, Assane knew exactly what he was doing and that is so much more painful and hard to fix, Ben's face when he hit the dead end broke my heart, poor, poor guy I think I picked up on Manon being one of the kidnappers about partway through the episode, though I'm not sure what Keller could have against Assane, I suppose I'll have to wait and see. She could be working with Bruno given the whole "friends betraying friends" theme, but Bruno's beef with Assane seems like teenage shit he'd have gotten over years ago I'm enjoying Claire having more to do this season, I always liked her, but I like her being a more active participant in the plot as opposed to someone that things happen to, or as a signifier as to the harm Assane's actions have on his loved ones. She does still represent that(and I don't have an inherent issue with it), but she is also up to her own scheming and it's fun(she got some scheming last season as well and I enjoyed that too, it's just getting more screen time now) Fleur is very fun, I like her a lot, and her and Guédira have a great rapport. We'll see if she'll end up being on side with Assane like Guédira or not, but Assane having a reporter as an accomplice sounds like a blast lol I guess I haven't really talked about Assane's mom much but idk if I have much to say besides "it's interesting that she's around". Considering she's been kidnapped for most of the season she obviously hasn't gotten to do much, and I don't yet know her motivations for not contacting Assane for the better part of three decades, so I can't decide how I feel about her as a character, as opposed to a plot device She did mention that she felt Assane would be better off living his own life without her, so maybe it was just that she felt ashamed for being in prison and not able to live with him, or that he was left on his own for so long and she didn't know how to approach him. Idk I guess I'll find out

#lupin netflix #lupin part 3 #rock watches

[runbymachinesandclones]

Just finished watching the first chapter of Lupin Partie 2 and I just cried my eyes out for nothing 🤡🤡🤡😢

[insert ‘pero hice toro este llanto por nara’.jpg]

#i blame bbc luther for giving me trust issues with shocking character deaths #i thought they were going to follow the same path #so happy they didn’t #i hate this #but also i love guédira so much! #youssef is my freaking hero! #lupin netflix #lupin partie 2 #lupin #spoilers #lupin spoilers

[cambrioleur]

Expanding on the LUPIN + B99 crossover that we deserved but never got

Premise: Jake and Rosa get sent to Paris on a cross-cultural exchange program; Guédira and Belkacem are sent to New York in their place.

Boyle tries to befriend Guédira by talking to him about French haute cuisine; Guédira isn't that interested and Boyle is crushed (his hair turns white again and he starts counting down the days until Jake returns). Also, to add insult to injury, Guédira keeps pronouncing "Nikolaj" wrong.

Belkacem continuously offends Holt (Andre Braugher RIP) by blowing up and swearing all the time. Santiago is horrified and keeps trying to get Belkacem's temper under control.

At one point Guédira decides that Terry is Assane in disguise trying to mess with him; Terry gets REALLY upset and Guédira has to spend the rest of the program attempting to get back into his good graces by buying him every flavor of yogurt.

Needless to say there's a Doug Judy episode; mirroring the situation with Jake and Rosa, Guédira thinks he's awesome and Belkacem hates his guts. Guédira also tries to get him into Arsène Lupin.

Meanwhile in Paris, Jake immediately becomes obsessed with Assane and starts headcanoning all kinds of weird adventures they'd get up to. Captain Laugier (he's in this; he's not written out in the crossover) is like, "oh for fuck's sake, not again!!"

Rosa decides that she is going to follow Ben absolutely everywhere because she's convinced he'll lead her to Assane. In response to her hanging around him threateningly, Ben barricades himself in his antique shop and like Boyle starts counting down the days until the exchange program finishes.

Assane has disappeared but has been leaving cryptic clues for Claire and Raoul about his whereabouts. Jake quickly befriends Claire and decides to do everything he can to help her and Raoul reunite with Assane because he's a sucker for emotional reunion scenes. Working together, the three of them successfully decode the messages.

Jake gets his wish and Assane, Claire, and Raoul are reunited. Claire cries, Assane cries, Jake cries, and Raoul doesn't cry because that kid never cries. And then Assane looks up at Jake and winks, and Jake is like "omg omg omg this is so cool I love Paris so much." But then he gets in trouble with Captain Laugier for neglecting his actual police responsibilities. AND THAT'S THE END.

#lupin netflix #youssef guedira #sofia belkacem #assane diop #benjamin ferel #claire laurent #raoul diop #b99 crossover