The main plot of season 4 of Spiral will focus on far-left extremists (ultra gauche) who are sort of anarchists, revolutionizers who want 'power to the people' and bring down our institutions.
The two main 'villains' of this season are Thomas Riffaut and Sophie Mazerat :
- Thomas (played by Jérôme Huguet) is part of a collective about the defense of sans-papiers (illegals), but his actions are driven more by his hatred of the institutions than by the fate of people immigrating illegally. He thinks the State is oppressive and liberticidal and he wallows in the destruction of its symbols. He will convince other members of the collective to work with him, who will radicalize after a violent confrontation with the police.
- Sophie (played by Judith Chemla) is a brilliant but discrete student who finds in Thomas a purpose to her life. Influenceable and in love, she follows him in his destructive path, cut ties with her past life and experiences semi-clandestinity. Under the pretend of political action, Sophie will gradually slip to violence and lose control.
On the first picture below, it reads "No cops in our districts / No mercy for the cops" - the pun on 'quartier' loses its meaning in English : that word means 'neighborhood' and it also is a part of the expression "pas de quartier", which means there won't even be pieces of, in this case, 'cops', to put back together after they're done with them. A 'quartier' also means a piece of an apple, orange, or other spherical fruits you can cut in equal portions, but that's not relevant in this particular context.
The second photograph is probably one of the extremists' stash. The red pennon on the right reads "L'État nous brise / Brisons l'État", that means "The State is shattering us / Let's shatter the State". The one on the left saying "Ça fait du bien par où ça casse" is a pun on the expression "Ça fait du bien par où ça passe" (literally "it feels good where it's going through", it means "That hits the spot" or "It feels good all over"), which you might say among friends during a meal if you were starving, or after sipping something fresh on a warm day. In this case, "passe" was replaced by "casse" (= break). It's not a real expression, "ça fait du bien par où ça casse" doesn't make sense grammatically, it's just meant to evoke the original one.
Season 4 premieres in exactly 2 weeks and 9 minutes, on September 3 at 8:55pm on Canal+, later on Netflix & BBC Four.
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