Sam Spade’s retirement in the south of France has been turned upside-down by the horrific murder of six nuns at the local convent. The next episode of Monsieur Spade picks up where Monsieur Spade episode 1 left off as the investigation begins. Here’s your recap of Monsieur Spade episode 2.
The town doctor, Dr. Pouchol (Vincent Nemeth) is horrified by the scene of the dead nuns in the convent. Patrice (Denis Ménochet) suggests that Spade (Clive Owen) start carrying a gun to protect himself. There’s a madman about, and he’s likely a target.
Once he returns home, Spade pours himself a drink and sits down. Helena (Clotilde Mollet) is asleep on the couch, and when she wakes up she asks about the nuns. He confirms that they’re all dead and she’s shocked. He asks where Teresa (Cara Bossom) is, and Helena says she’s in the Blue Room.
Jean-Pierre Devereaux (Stanley Weber) awakens from a nightmare from his time in the war. When Marguerite (Louise Bourgoin) comes in, she’s all business, talking about loans and the club. He holds her close and she asks what happened to their marriage. He blames the war.
Spade sets breakfast for two on the table. He goes up to find Teresa but she’s not in her room. He asks Helena, who hasn’t seen her either. He wonders if she left, or if someone took her. He finds his tires have been slashed so he resorts to his wife’s old Rolls Royce. George (Matthew Beard) steps in his way to greet him. He saw Teresa early in the morning and said she looked very upset. George says he’s probably due to what happened at the nunnery, and Spade realizes that the news spread very fast.
He arrives at the convent but finds all of the beds empty. When he hears water and the sound of scrubbing, he finds the groundskeeper cleaning up the crime scene. The kids have been set to neighboring convents. The poor man can’t believe what happened.
Spade goes to Mother Superior’s office and sees that there’s one cigarette left. He goes through her paperwork and files, looking for clues. There are files for each of the dead nuns, so he takes them and goes outside to observe the newly automated bells that are ringing. Climbing the stairs is a task for him, but once he gets there he finds numbers etched into the stone floor of the bell tower. He also finds a cigarette. When he looks up he sees Teresa there smoking. She’s waiting for her father to come, but Spade assures her that he’s not coming. He tells her to wait as long as she wants but he’s going home. She can come back whenever she wants or she can keep waiting. The reverse psychology works and she follows him to the car.
Spade asks how Teresa’s doll ended up in the chapel, but Teresa says she gave the doll away long ago. She notes that the car still smells like Gabrielle’s roses. She recalls how Gabrielle brought her gifts. Their conversation is interrupted when someone shoots at the car. He follows the man, who gets on a motorcycle and takes off on the country road. He gives chase as long as he can, but eventually the masked man gets away.
Nasty business
Patrice says that the car is cursed as he and his brother go through it looking for evidence. Spade says that the bullet wasn’t meant to kill him — there’s no way the man missed. The second shot was in self-defense as he tried to run the man over. He doesn’t think Philippe would try to kill his own daughter.
Teresa comes out and presents her bloody clothes to Patrice, who wants to talk to her. She says she’ll talk, but only if she has a lawyer. It’s one of the things she remembers of her mother. George is listening to the whole conversation, writing notes in a little book.
Henri (Oscar Lesage) reports back to Spade, giving him the few details he’s been able to find. He did find that Philippe is army intelligence, which is why his file is so short. Henri also heard a rumor that Philippe was hiding an Algerian woman in his quarters on base, but no one heard her name. Before he leaves, he tells Spade that he was his hero. Spade drops his bathrobe, fully nude, and suggests that Henri “trade up” when it comes to heroes.
Spade has a flashback of Gabrielle swimming in the nude. It’s a very special memory for him, and the reason he swims nude now.
Spade meets with the doctor. There were six nuns killed but only files for five of them. The doctor knows five because they’ve been his patients, but one of the nuns was newly arrived from Africa and he hadn’t met her yet. The doctor says the bodies were being sent to Paris, but he already examined them and found a necklace on one of them.
Patrice thinks back to a meeting he had with Mother Superior (Martine Schambacher) after Spade left Teresa in her care. She reminds him that they have always fought on the side of goodness, as they did in the war. He reminds her of how justice can lie in a gray area, and she’s fine with that. That’s why she’s comfortable working with Spade.
Back in the present, Patrice refuses to hand over the bodies to the investigator. He says that Mother Superior was his friend and he’s going to find her killer. The investigator is furious, but he backs down.
"All talk, but murder? No."
A mechanic tells Spade it will take time to get the part to fix the window. Marguerite arrives and asks who shot at him. The mechanic has a grudge against the model of car, but he vows to fix it. Marguerite says that no one has been shot at in Bozouls since the war. Marguerite says that Spade has a tendency to make men feel small, and that’s why he can’t connect with Jean-Pierre. She reminds him it also doesn’t make him bulletproof.
Upon returning home, George introduces his mother, Cynthia Fitzsimmons (Rebecca Root), who wants to come inside and see the painting her husband does. On the way to the house, he jokes that Gabrielle got the house for a great price from a man who was guillotined. As they look at the painting, Cynthia asks about Philippe. She heard he was in town, and since they’re living next door she would love to see him. Spade can’t help her, and she looks disappointed.
Jean-Pierre returns home with a rabbit. As he skins it, Marguerite tells him about someone shooting at Spade. Jean-Pierre doesn’t seem concerned by this because he’s still upset about a promise Gabrielle made to him that died when she died.
Spade and Teresa return to the scene of the shooting. He chastises her for slashing his tires, but he’s impressed when they find an empty pack of cigarettes and she surmises that they haven’t been there long enough to be covered by leaves.
He presses her for information about why someone shot at her. He reminds her that none of the story is making sense. She admits that her father was there to see one of the sisters, the new one. His plans changed when he got shot. Spade pulls out the necklace and Teresa says that Philippe arrived with a kid, the same kid whose photo was in the necklace.
She recounts the story of how she hid the boy and then had the kids get into the closet. That’s when she heard the first gunshot. She heard the monk shouting, telling the nun she had to watch. He asked each nun where the boy was, and if they didn’t say, he shot them. Then the monk saw her and grabbed her. She stabbed the monk (Luke Tinson) and ran to the bell tower but the boy wasn’t there. Spade wonders who the boy is and why he’s so important. Before she died, the nun said the Mahdi was waiting for them. Spade asks why her father has gotten her into.
At the club, Marguerite says goodnight. Jean-Pierre hears a noise and finds a frightened child in the dark, pointing a gun at him.
Monsieur Spade airs Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT, with new episodes available to stream the same day on AMC Plus.
