Agathe (Laura Sepul) is a happily married former midwife with two children and a loving husband, Fred (Lannick Gautry), who you might recognise from ‘Killer By The Lake'). They’ve been married for 15 years and live an idyllic life in their nice house. The eldest child – Mathias – isn’t her child but is from Fred’s first marriage to Laura (Laura Van Maaren).
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
Whilst Fred is away at a conference, Laura – who is not allowed to see her son – turns up at Agathe’s house demanding to see him. She is distraught and manages to break into the house. As she climbs the stairs, Agathe grabs her, causing her to fall and hurt herself. Laura is admitted to hospital where she admits to Agathe that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Understandably she wants to have a relationship with her son before it’s too late. Agathe’s takes pity on her and agrees for them to have a reconnection.
Agathe and Laura build a friendship of sorts and start talking, and Laura starts sowing doubts into Agathe’s head about her husband’s behaviour, particularly when she mentions the “conferences”, which had been nothing more than a deception for his affairs whilst she was married to him.
When Fred returns from his conference in Marseilles, Agathe – disturbed by what she’s learned from Laura – quizzes him about the trip and discovers that not only was her husband involved in a fight with a colleague in a bar, but also that a woman had apparently hanged herself in the hotel where Fred was staying. Her suspicions are further heightened when a police detective turns up at the house a few days later to interview her husband and mentions that there are concerns about the apparent suicide as no fingerprints of the victim were found on the cable she allegedly used.
When Agathe realises that Fred has bought a replacement cable for his laptop and has bruising on his back (and is doing laundry at odd times of the day – a definite “tell” in crime drama), she starts to believe that her husband isn’t being honest with her about his involvement with this dead woman. And when she threatens to call the police detective to tell him what she knows, Fred confesses that he was with the woman, but that her death was an accident.
This is an intriguing Belgian thriller (also known as ‘Attraction') that’s nicely acted by all the major players, well scripted and has an absorbing plot. The long-suffering wife and philandering husband storyline is a tad overused, but nevertheless, this is a well-written and engaging ride so far. I look forward to seeing how this pans out over the six episodes.
Walter Presents: ‘For Better or Worse' is available as a boxset on C4 Streaming now.
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