Well. This is the darkest episode yet of Carême and where almost all of the various plot points from earlier in the season have finally converged. Our hero Antonin (Benjamin Voisin) finally has it drilled into his skull not only that actions have consequences, but also that he is not as smart as he thinks he is – though he is pretty smart. The choices he makes in this episode mean there is no turning back for him, but as long as he gets what he wants it seems this is a choice he is happy to make.
It’s hard to say how long that will last, though, since Fouché (Micha Lescot) seems to be making it his business to personally wreck Antonin’s good time. Fouché is much more central to the action, not least because he thinks that by hovering over Antonin he can prevent the clever young man from getting away with anything. And while he stomps around being mean to his underlings and yelling “Arriviste!” in huge frustration, giving Mr. Lescot an opportunity to have some fun with his villainy at last, Fouché eventually has to accept that in Antonin he has a worthy opponent.
But that, of course, minimises Talleyrand’s (a beautifully soft-spoken Jérémie Renier) expertise as a master manipulator. A royalist is in prison who is being tortured, and if he gives up the real identity of the person who goaded him to commit his crimes, then Talleyrand will have a big problem. The solution? Obviously it’s to send Antonin and Agathe (Alice da Luz, who does wonderful non-verbal work here) into the prison with a gorgeous meal for the condemned man, one which has a secret message providing the identity (through a handy coat of arms) of the person the prisoner should denounce instead. An innocent man, though that’s hardly the point. Perhaps he is not entirely innocent. But he is indeed innocent of this, though in arranging for him to be denounced Antonin is saving his own neck. The trouble is whether or not that is the right thing to do. And we all know that absolutely no one can play with fire without getting burned.
The motif of the kitchen mouse and kitchen cat is a pretty basic metaphor, but it also gets the key ethos of the episode across without any big speeches being necessary. Antonin’s upset at the absence of Henriette (Lyna Khoudri) is also not exactly improved by Agathe’s coy decision to strike while her iron is hot. But the key confrontation is the one right at the end, when a massive, major plot twist shakes our cutie hero down to his foundations. He might be a lot of things, our Antonin, but for the most part he has always played fair, being forthright and honest about who he is and why he is doing what he does. It’s crushing to realise that other people have taken that directness and turned it against him. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Antonin that people lie, and they also lie to him. The question of what he will do about it will clearly be the focus of the season’s final two episodes.
So while Trompe L’Oeil is not nearly as much fun it has some of the best use of food so far with, the prison meal a fascinating example of how food can be a metaphor. Lamb for sacrifice, coffee for bitterness, and a cheeky message sent as the charm in a Christmas cake are all an unusual depiction of a language of taste and desire that is rarely considered in the modern world. The fact that Antonin must eat each of the dishes first, to prove to Fouché and the warders that nothing has been poisoned, is somehow the icing on this cake. Food can be tremendous pleasure or a source of awful pain. The beauty and the bloodshed all together. And while there has been quite a bit of bloodshed so far in Carême, that final cliffhanger leaves no doubt there is still more to come. But whose?
Carême is now streaming on Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
Learn more about the show, including how to watch, on the official site for the title.
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