“Three Pines” Cut Down in Its Prime

After enjoying the first, eight-episode season of Three Pines, I’m sorry to receive this news from In Reference to Murder:

“Amazon Prime Video has canceled Three Pines after just one season. Based on the novels by Louise Penny, the series starred Alfred Molina as Inspector Armand Gamache as he investigates cases beneath the idyllic surface of the Quebec village of Three Pines. The series had been left on a cliffhanger, with Gamache’s life on the line as his team tried to find him.

In addition to English actor Molina, Three Pines starred Canadian Rossif Sutherland as Sergeant Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Gamache’s second in command, and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, a member of Alberta’s Kainai First Nation, as Sergeant Isabelle Lacoste. In Penny’s novels, Lacoste is a white Quebecois policewoman, but for this ambitious TV adaptation, she was remade as an Indigenous woman, instead—part of a plan, said The New York Times, to shine “a rare global spotlight on the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples [in Canada], a reality long underplayed, obfuscated or ignored in Canadian popular culture.” That cultural sensitivity, as well as the program’s nuanced portrayals of Indigenous characters, won widespread praise.

Despite it sometimes boasting a quirky air similar to Twin Peaks, I was quite taken with Three Pines and looked forward to seeing what could be done in Season 2. Unless another TV streamer picks the show up, the answer to that question will remain a mystery.

READ MORE: “Surprise Cancellation of Three Pines,” by Bill Selnes (Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan).