“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).

“What Is It With This Place?”

I’m a bit behind in my TV viewing. My wife and I just started re-watching the PBS Masterpiece presentation of Magpie Murders, after waiting for all six of its episodes to finally become available for streaming. (We’d tried consuming the show in weekly installments, but found we forgot too much in between to recall all of the complicated clues.) And of course, we’ve been taking advantage of our PBS Passport subscription to see Season 3 of Miss Scarlet and the Duke more than a month ahead of its broadcast premiere.

Today also brings the much-anticipated debut of Three Pines, an Amazon Prime Video series adapted from Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels. The first pair of one-hour episodes are currently available for screening, with six more to go, two new ones scheduled to drop each Friday through December 23.



English actor Alfred Molina (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Law & Order: LA, etc.) has been cast as Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, the police force serving the Canadian province of Quebec. He’s a much superior choice to Nathaniel Parker, who played that same role in a 2013 CBC-TV version of Penny’s first novel, Still Life. In her blog, book critic L.J. Roberts calls Molina “excellent as Gamache, capturing his compassion, his sense of justice, and his occasional humor. His face is expressive, often conveying more emotion than could words.” Elizabeth Held, co-editor of the Penny-focused Notes from Three Pines, writes in CrimeReads that “fans should rest assured that Three Pines keeps Gamache’s core personality traits. He adores his wife Reine-Marie. He says things like, ‘Grief feels like fear, but it’s not. It’s love with no place to go.’ He quotes literature, in these episodes Frankenstein, liberally and believes that murder cannot be solved on an empty stomach. Molina plays Gamache with a seriousness that ensures his tendency to spout off words of wisdom comes off as genuine, rather than saccharine or overdone.”

As to this series’ plot, Held says the opening two episodes follow Gamache and his team as they solve the murder of CC de Poitiers.

The victim is a miserable woman who has chosen to live in a building that was previously a residential school where Indigenous children—abducted from their families—were abused in the name of “re-education.” No one—not her husband, child or neighbors—liked CC, who was electrocuted at a Boxing Day curling match (the series is set in Canada, after all). Gamache declares it the “perfect crime” and all the villagers suspects.

The beats of the mystery mostly mirror A Fatal Grace, the second book in the Gamache series, although … the [TV] series draws a firm line between the detectives and the townsfolk. Gone are the scenes of Sûreté officers dining at the homes of Three Pines residents, making friends and investigating murders at the same time, and the scene of Gamache driving into [the fictional village of] Three Pines for the first time gave me Twin Peaks vibes. We watch as the inspector takes in the kooky villagers—one carrying a pet duck—gawking at outsiders coming into their village. These characters, so rich and complex in the books, fall flat here. I’m hoping they get more fleshed out as the series progresses.

Held goes on to opine that “Centering the stories of missing Indigenous women—a sadly timely and too often ignored issue—is a smart move for the show’s producers, who also worked on Netflix’s The Crown. It makes a plotline Penny wrote in the early 2000s about police abuse on Native reservations relevant while maintaining a connection to the source material.”

I look forward to spending some time with Gamache and the Three Pines residents, just as soon as I’m done with Magpie Murders.

So what might the future hold for this Prime series? The Web site Distractify reports, “Three Pines has not been renewed for a second season. However, there's plenty of source material to draw from. After all, Louise has written 18 Inspector Gamache novels. The 18th book, titled A World of Curiosities, was actually released on Nov. 29, just days ahead of the series premiere.”

Molina Embodies Penny’s Gamache

This item comes from the blog In Reference to Murder:

Alfred Molina is set to star in Amazon’s police drama series, Three Pines, which comes from The Crown producer, Left Bank Pictures. The project is based on Louise Penny’s novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec (played by Molina), who investigates a spate of murders in Three Pines, a seemingly idyllic village where he discovers long-buried secrets and faces a few of his own ghosts.

The cast also includes Rossif Sutherland, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Tantoo Cardinal, Clare Coulter, Sarah Booth, Anna Tierney, Julian Bailey, Frédéric-Antoine Guimond, Pierre Simpson, Tamara Brown, Marie-France Lambert, Frank Schorpion, Marcel Jeannin, Georgina Lynn Lightning, Crystle Lightning, Isabel Deroy-Olson, and Anna Lambe.

Deadline adds: “The eight-part series has begun production in Montreal and rural Quebec. It will film through to December and launch on Amazon in a number of territories including Canada, the U.S. and UK.”

Meanwhile, Mystery Fanfare quotes Christina Wayne, head of Canadian Originals at Amazon Studios, as saying, “With Three Pines we continue to grow our slate of local originals, and overall investment in Canada. The series will be our first locally produced scripted drama, and we are thrilled to work with Left Bank to bring these layered characters, unique setting, and masterfully constructed mysteries that Louise created to Prime Video. Alfred Molina perfectly embodies the cerebral and compassionate nature of Gamache, and leads a tremendous cast.”

There’s no word yet on when Three Pines might become available via Amazon’s Prime TV-streaming service.