When we last left Assane Diop and Lupin on Netflix, he was just about to turn the tables on his nemesis. That is, until his son, Raoul was kidnapped right in front of him.
The French import — which happened to be the most popular title for Netflix in the first quarter of 2021 — is back for Part 2 on June 11 and has dropped its first trailer ahead of the release.
The series tells the story of Diop, who's seeking revenge and retribution against the man who framed his father in the disappearance of a multi-million-dollar necklace decades ago. Diop's father had led to his fascination with the gentleman burglar Lupin, who was born from the tales of Arsène Lupin in the 1905 novels by Maurice Leblanc, and Lupin (the character) is what carries Diop through adulthood after his father's death.
The whole thing is driven by the characters — Diop and Raul, along with Diop's ex and Raoul's mother, Claire, played by Ludivine Sagnier. Then there are the police who are simultaneously hunting Diop while recognizing that everything may not be as it seems. There's also the antagonist Pellegrini family, from patriarch Hubert, to daughter Juliette.
Everything is intertwined and related, with all the characters touching on each other in some way, and the plots and capers and twists expertly weaving through a couple time periods as they crescendo toward the finale.
Here's how we put things in our Lupin Part 1 review:
Each episode has been carefully balanced with exposition and present-day action. And while you go through the whole thing with the understanding that everything's probably going to work out fine for our gentleman thief Assane/Perenna/Sernine every time he's in danger — this is a series, after all, and nobody's going to kill off the protagonist — it's still a great ride. So much so that it's worth watching a second time, because there's a lot going on. At time perhaps a little too much — there are a lot of characters in the two time periods, and Assane's multiple names don't alleviate that confusion any.
The series is best digested in its native French, but Lupin is available in English, too.
