Lupin (2021) / YMMV

Accidental Aesop:
- When someone shows you who they are, believe them—and don't expect them to change their ways. This theme is explicit in the third episode, in which Dumont reveals himself to be exactly the same cowardly Jerkass in 2020 as he was in 1995, but it's present throughout the series. Most obviously, Claire's hopes that Assane will bring himself to choose her and Raoul over his life of crime are consistently rewarded with heartbreak, despite Assane's own insistence that he'll find a way to turn the corner. There's also Assane and Bruno in the 1998 flashbacks, choosing to ignore every red flag about Keller until he almost gets both of them killed.
- Not everything is politically or ideologically motivated. In-Universe, Assane amasses a large fandom comprised mainly of young people who cast him as a kind of left-wing folk hero attempting to tear down France's capitalist political system by targeting its wealthy elites. In actual fact, this isn't on Assane's mind at all—most of his crimes spring from grudges he carries against people who have harmed him or his loved ones (not to mention that he has a history of stealing items and then handing them over to Benjamin to sell for profit). On the whole, Assane is characterized as a man who skillfully exploits the flaws of the system that he exists in, while not demonstrating any obvious desire to replace said system with something different.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- For Assane:
  - Is his Arsène Lupin obsession due purely to his enjoyment of the stories, or did it arise from his need to morally justify the actions he believed his father to have committed by convincing himself that a thief can still be a "gentleman"? Is it a mixture of the two?
  - Is he truly a lone-wolf maverick who doesn't give a shit about what anyone outside of his inner circle thinks of him, or does he secretly view his Lupin cosplay as a path to gaining the validation from French society that Babakar craved but never received? Assane seems to derive at least a degree of pride from his status as a pop culture sensation—his biggest issue with it is the negative way it affects Claire and Raoul.
  - What exactly was the nature of his attitude towards Juliette before 2006? Comments made by Juliette during their final meeting suggest that their affair has been going on for some time, but was she ever truly competitive with Claire for Assane's affections? Or did Assane mainly keep Juliette around as a backup option whenever Claire became upset with him (before their inevitable reconciliation)?
  - Did he intend his "Coach Alex" persona merely as a way to keep Raoul from getting bullied by the other boys on the basketball team, or was he also conducting a Secret Test of Claire's attachment to him by trying to see how far she'd be willing to take things with a new male companion? Part of the ambiguity lies in the rather confusing and contradictory behaviors he displays towards Claire while he's in disguise—at times he welcomes and even seems to reciprocate her attempts to become more intimate with "Alex", while at other times he awkwardly rebuffs her.
- Why does Claire continuously give Assane chances to change for the better despite the fact that every single time she's done so in the past, he's let her down? Is she clinging to the hope, no matter how unrealistic it is, that Assane has some kind of "no more dangerous activities" switch in his brain that she'll find a way to flip? Or is Assane the one who knows exactly which buttons to press to shift Claire into Love Redeems mode? (In all likelihood it's both—lest we forget, this cycle has been going on since they were teenagers.)
- As the only major adult character whose romantic life is given no canonical characterization whatsoever, Benjamin has been subject to a good deal of speculation with regards to whom he is attracted to. One fairly popular theory is that he's gay and is secretly in love with Assane; another is that he has feelings for Claire. Needless to say, such ideas are heavily influenced by Shipping Goggles.
I Am Not Shazam: The protagonist's name is Assane Diop, not Lupin.
Angst? What Angst?:
- Raoul, after his kidnapping. Considering what actually happened to him—being violently abducted, bound and gagged, held hostage, and nearly burned to death inside the trunk of a car—he seems shockingly unfazed afterwards.
- Assane, too. He's distraught when he thinks that Léonard has killed Raoul, but the moment he finds out that his son is actually alive, he snaps straight back into his typically confident, assured self.
- You'd expect Claire to be angry with Assane, or at the very least shocked and disturbed, after she discovers that he faked his death and then seduced her in disguise as Raoul's basketball coach. Instead, she's mainly just overjoyed that he's alive, and almost giddy at his having demonstrated a modicum of paternal responsibility while in character.
Anti-Climax Boss: Keller has elements of this. For most of Part 3 he's a genuinely threatening Hidden Villain, but once his identity is revealed, it doesn't exactly take much for Assane and company to bring him down, as he commits a series of baffling unforced errors and ultimately falls victim to a fairly rudimentary sting operation.
Anvilicious:
- The very unsubtle critiques of the French upper classes—at best they're depicted as being dense and out-of-touch, and at worst they're pretty much the embodiment of evil.
- While she certainly isn't wrong, Claire's overt moral objections to the violent machismo encouraged by Keller and his boxing club can feel a little preachy.
Awesome Ego: Assane clearly thinks enormously of himself and is a textbook example of "main character syndrome," but he's just so charismatic that it's almost impossible not to enjoy watching him.
Awesome Music: The show's incredibly stylish soundtrack, composed by Mathieu Lamboley, contains influences of jazz, rock and hip-hop in addition to classical music. Many of the major characters get themes of their own, which are reflective of their personalities—for instance, Assane's (titled "Arsène," and also the main theme of the series in general) is charming and elegant, Claire's is gentle and tender, and Hubert's is dark and foreboding.
Base-Breaking Character: Belkacem is easily the most divisive character in the series. Recurring complaints are that she's a one-dimensional Action Girl caricature whose only two moods are annoyance and rage, and that she constantly picks up the Idiot Ball due to chronic Genre Blindness as well as Aesop Amnesia with regards to taking Guédira's ideas seriously. Others, however, appreciate her no-nonsense tenacity, and view her as an Only Sane Woman who, unlike Guédira, realizes that a police officer's job is to catch criminals, rather than bond with them over shared interests. (Her detractors invariably counter that Guédira's detective work is the sole reason she's in any position to catch Assane in the first place.) The only thing it seems that everyone can agree on when it comes to Belkacem is that she's good-looking.
Broken Base:
- There is a prominent split between viewers who think that the show is silly and requires way too much Willing Suspension of Disbelief, and those who feel that the goofiness and lack of realism is half the fun, particularly in light of the comedic, campy nature of the original Arsène Lupin stories.
- Assane's disguises are frequently mocked for the fact that they don't exactly do much to cover up his distinctive facial features, and in many cases just make him stand out more than he would otherwise. However, some have interpreted this as a veiled commentary on the marginalization of West African immigrants in metropolitan France. The fact that Assane evidently can render himself unrecognizable on certain occasions (e.g. when posing as Coach Alex, because he needs to trick two people who are extremely close to him) may lend some credence to this idea.
- While most viewers like the show's depiction of Assane and Claire as two soulmates in a perennial state of Maybe Ever After, there's a section of the base which finds their relationship so absurdly fraught with difficulties that it verges on being a Masochism Tango. Within this latter group there exists a smaller three-way broken base between those who see Claire as an overly fearful wet blanket who is way too quick to run into the arms of other men (who may or may not be Assane in disguise), those who think that Assane is a selfish asshole who behaves as though he's entitled to Claire's unconditional love despite treating her and Raoul terribly, and those who appreciate both characters but still feel that their dynamic is unhealthy and struggle to understand why Claire keeps taking Assane back.
- Assane's decision to betray Benjamin to the cops in exchange for his mother's life being spared has become arguably the single most controversial moment in the entire series. While many fans protested that it was out-of-character for Assane, others countered that he'd always been depicted as an Anti-Hero whose greatest flaw was his It's All About Me attitude, and that this was just a particularly jarring manifestation of that. With regards to Benjamin, meanwhile, there is disagreement over whether this arc is a needlessly brutal Trauma Conga Line for him, or whether it's a realistic depiction of his finally winding up on the wrong end of Assane's more manipulative side.
Captain Obvious Reveal:
- It's not all that hard to figure out that Anne Pellegrini was responsible for putting Assane through school following Babakar's death. It's more surprising that Assane didn't realize it.
- Likewise, the fact that Babakar didn't commit suicide, but was murdered at Hubert Pellegrini's instructions, doesn't come as much of a surprise.
- Keller being the Big Bad for Part 3 isn't a huge shock, given that his extensive presence in the 1998 flashbacks would be rather odd if he didn't have a role to play in the present timeline.
Catharsis Factor: The arrests of Pellegrini and Dumont. In particular, watching Guédira unceremoniously shove Pellegrini—who finally seems to realize that he's about to face justice—into the back of a cop car, which drives away while an equally humbled Dumont looks on from an adjacent vehicle.
Complete Monster: Hubert Pellegrini is a smug, racist businessman who framed his loyal servant for the theft of the necklace of Marie-Antoinette to claim insurance money on it. Having the man killed in prison, Pellegrini used the proceeds to purchase weapons, arming terrorists to line his own pockets while remaining apathetic to the deaths they caused attacking the French embassy. Blacklisting and later killing the journalist who tried to expose him, Pellegrini murders any who endanger his operation, even having his right-hand-man taken out to frame an enemy. With many high-ranking police officials in his pocket, Pellegrini leaves his country's whole law enforcement in shambles for decades, uncaring for the damage he does as long as he gets to stay above the law.
Critical Dissonance: While the series has achieved global popularity and recognition among general audiences, its critical reception has varied, sometimes significantly, from country to country. For instance, French reviews were actually fairly lukewarm (as are the scores on some local user-based review platforms such as Senscritique), while American and British ones were glowingly positive.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- Léonard gets murdered by Pascal in Assane's hallway while Assane is in his kitchen, obliviously making dinner for himself and J'accuse and dancing to the Four Tops' "Reach Out (I'll Be There)."
- Guédira interrupting Assane's funeral and demanding that the casket be opened is hilariously inappropriate (particularly since he's actually right that Assane isn't dead).
Designated Hero: Assane cheats on Claire, shirks his duties to both her and Raoul while also exposing them to danger and relentless media harassment, fakes his death in front of them, turns Juliette into an Unwitting Pawn in his plan before ghosting her the moment she isn't of use to him, and sells Benjamin out to the police. And we're meant to root for this guy? Admittedly, Assane is depicted as a flawed protagonist who experiences multiple Heel Realizations over the course of the show, but some fans still think that he hasn't shown nearly enough contrition considering the extent of his misdeeds.
Diagnosed by the Audience: It's not uncommon for viewers to interpret Guédira as being on the autism spectrum. His obsession with Arsène Lupin can easily be read as a special interest, and his tendency to launch into detailed explanations of Lupin lore at the drop of a hat comes across like infodumping. He also evidently struggles when it comes to adhering to common social norms, with his colleagues at the police department viewing him as the workplace eccentric.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Fabienne Bériot made a very strong impression on viewers (and, apparently, Assane himself) despite only appearing in one episode. Her dog, J'accuse, has also amassed a small fandom of his own.
- Philippe Courbet is probably the show's most beloved minor character, due in part to the memorable and hilarious Reveal of his having been a sullen goth who Assane and Benjamin found attempting to steal Arsène Lupin books from the library.
- Bruno is well-liked for his confident swaggering personality despite his Backstory Horror.
Fanfic Magnet: Benjamin, to the point where there seem to be more fics told from his point of view than there are from Assane's. This is likely due to his being depicted almost exclusively in the context of his working with Assane on various capers, meaning that his deeper motivations and desires are essentially open to audience interpretation.
Fan Wank: Some fans have come up with attempts to explain Laugier's absence from Part 3, ranging from his being promoted to commissioner after Dumont's arrest, to his being fired, to his quitting in disgust at the corruption within the police department.
First Installment Wins: While Parts 2 and 3 have done very well on the Netflix charts, neither has managed to generate quite the splash that Part 1 did upon its release in January 2021. To be fair, some of the first season's success undoubtedly came from the fact that it was one of the very few pieces of new content to drop during a dreary time period in which many were stuck inside their homes due to COVID-19 related lockdowns.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series is one of the most successful French productions in the USA in years, and enjoys great reviews there as well. Some commentators have cited the effect of the Black Lives Matter Movement due to the series coming right after the events of 2020, with the series' themes resonating with it.
Harsher in Hindsight: Léonard getting strangled to death, after his actor Adama Niane died suddenly in January 2023.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Omar Sy's 2012 César win for Best Actor has become this in light of several plot points in Lupin—Sy was presented his award by Nicole Garcia, who went on to play Anne Pellegrini, and the ceremony took place at the Théâtre du Châtelet (the eventual location of Assane's final gambit in the tenth episode).
Ho Yay: Played for Laughs during a scene in Part 3 in which Guédira handcuffs Assane, leans in very close to his face, and tells him that he intends to keep an eye on him at all times.
Jerkass Dissonance: Many fans who find Assane enormously entertaining to watch onscreen will freely admit that he'd be a nightmare to deal with in real life.
Jerkass Woobie:
- The corrupt Inspector Dumont genuinely loves his family and was forced into becoming Hubert's lapdog after Hubert threatened his wife. Even when he is rescued, Dumont tries to keep Assane's identity a secret. Then comes the second season, when his crimes are exposed and he gets arrested.
- Juliette Pellegrini leads a life of immense privilege and possesses a sense of entitlement to match, not to mention that she's a Clingy Jealous Girl who is given to making bitchy, disparaging comments about women she perceives as romantic rivals. However, she does legitimately want to use her foundation to help disadvantaged children, and it's hard not to feel at least a little sorry for her when it becomes clear that just about everyone she cares about is using her for their own means.
- Manon. Yes she's working with Keller to hold Mariama hostage, but it's hard to blame her too much when it seems like Keller groomed and effectively brainwashed her. Eventually she undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and helps get Keller caught.
Like You Would Really Do It:
- No, Raoul doesn't get burned alive by Léonard. He's saved by Guédira.
- Likewise, Assane survives his supposedly fatal fall from the building's roof at the beginning of Part 3.
Magnificent Bastard:
- Assane Diop is a brilliant thief who has modeled himself after Arsène Lupin and is driven to avenge the framing and murder of his father. Determined to bring the evil Hubert Pellegrini to justice for his crime, Assane easily evades the entire French police force along the way, even capturing their corrupt Commissioner and making him confess to corruption on tape. Continuing to gather evidence while playing all who come after him, Assane keeps his identity hidden from the cops for much of the series and even when one finally catches on, Assane manages to charismatically convince him of the despicable corruption in his office, creating a key ally for when Pellegrini has Assane's safe house raided and forces him on the run. Also planting a mole in Pellegrini's organization, Assane destroys his enemy at an charity event Pellegrini had intended to use to line his own pockets by redirecting the electronic donations to go to the intended foundation to help the poor while playing a tape of Pellegrini confessing to insurance fraud and the murder of Assane's father. A charming genius despite his past of infidelity and proclivity for stealing, Assane runs circles around the elitist society so smugly dismissive of him.
- "Phillipe Courbet" plays the role of Pellegrini's brilliant, young banker more than willing to break the law to help his clients profit. In actuality a recruit of Assane's, Courbet takes his role in return for payments of precious diamonds to help Assane break into Pellegrini's corrupt charity fundraiser. Helping Assane sneak into the auditorium, Courbet redirects Pellegrini's money laundering machines to send the electronic donations they receive to the proper charities and his stealthy planning to plant Assane within the building helps him infiltrate Pellegrini's ranks and utterly destroy his master plan, ending the season with the smug businessman disgraced and arrested.
Memetic Mutation: The ease with which Assane fools the police with the bare minimum in terms of disguises has been parodied in several viral Tiktok videos (such as this one).
Misaimed Fandom: The series inspired a man in Italy to attempt to rob a church oratory in October 2021. It didn't go well.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Léonard crosses it many times but it's his decision to incinerate Raoul, seemingly just to spite Assane, that most clearly establishes him as a complete psycho.
- Keller forcing Bruno to murder a police officer in the 1998 flashbacks is the moment when seventeen-year-old Assane truly realizes what an awful person he is.
- Assane betraying Benjamin was viewed as this by a substantial portion of the fandom.
Nausea Fuel: In Part 3, after inviting Assane (disguised as Coach Alex) into her home, Claire proceeds to serve him and Raoul "pasta with ketchup." This immediately triggered widespread ridicule for sounding absolutely disgusting, and even wound up becoming an Ascended Meme when the show's official Instagram account posted a tongue-in-cheek apology to the nation of Italy for Claire's transgression.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Pretty much everything about Raoul's abduction falls under this umbrella.
- The sequence in which Assane escapes his own coffin can be quite disturbing, particularly for those who suffer from claustrophobia. His visibly struggling to breathe as the oxygen starts to run out only makes it worse.
- Claire getting repeatedly stalked by Keller's knife-wielding henchman Ferdinand, and Keller breaking into her and Raoul's apartment with the intention of killing them. It's particularly disturbing when one considers that neither Claire nor Raoul really understood why they were being targeted, although they naturally assumed it had something to do with Assane.
Questionable Casting: Although both Pierre Lottin and Noé Wodecki acquit themselves very well playing Bruno as an adult and a teenager respectively, they don't look much alike. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a huge issue, but the fact that virtually every other adult/teen pair qualifies as Separated-at-Birth Casting makes it stand out rather conspicuously.
The Scrappy: Mariama. She's set up as an unfortunate Woobie who gets kidnapped by Keller and his crew, but the fact that she broke off all contact with Assane during his teenage years makes her come across as Unintentionally Unsympathetic in the eyes of many fans; as a result she's often resented as a Damsel Scrappy who is unworthy of Assane's efforts to rescue her—particularly after these efforts result in the imprisonment of Benjamin and the endangerment of Claire and Raoul. Furthermore, Mariama escaping Keller on her own, and in the process abruptly morphing from The Load into a Pint-Sized Powerhouse, seems less like a reveal of Hidden Depths and more like an Ass Pull, as it begs the question of why she couldn't have shown that side of herself before Assane had nearly wrecked his pre-existing relationships.
Shipping:
- Assane is very much the Launcher of a Thousand Ships...
  - The show's Official Couple of Assane/Claire is easily its most popular romantic relationship (although see Broken Base above), but there is also a substantial minority of the fandom, mainly consisting of those who dwell on sites such as Tumblr and AO3, whose preferred couple is Assane and Benjamin, in spite of the fact that Assane, at the very least, is canonically heterosexual. Fics depicting this pairing often have Claire supporting it for I Want My Beloved to Be Happy reasons.
  - The humorously wholesome Friendly Enemy dynamic that Assane and Guédira share has led to their gaining popularity as a Foe Yay ship.
  - Assane/Juliette had some fans after Part 2, but this seems to have faded away due to Juliette being unceremoniously Demoted to Extra in Part 3.
- Guédira/Belkacem is well-liked, even by those who find Belkacem to be irritating on her own. This is helped by the fact that by the end of Part 3 they're about one more Ship Tease away from becoming the series' Beta Couple.
- There's also a segment of the fanbase that ships Claire and Benjamin, mainly due to their being a Nice Gal and Nice Guy who are close friends and who both frequently have to deal with Assane-related stress.
Spot the Victim: Fabienne is an ageing female journalist with a vendetta against the show's primary villain. Many fans correctly guessed that she was doomed the moment she appeared onscreen.
Subbing vs. Dubbing: International viewers can choose to watch the series either in French with subtitles, or dubbed into a whole array of languages. The English dub is not popular amongst more dedicated fans due to a rather intense case of Dub Personality Change: many feel that Assane's English-language voice sounds oddly stoic and even bored, with Omar Sy's trademark Large Ham charisma completely gone.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The rivalry between Fleur Bélanger and Arnold de Garmeaux seems like it's being set up as a significant dynamic in the first two episodes of Part 3, but is barely explored at all after that.
Toy Ship: The Puppy Love between teenaged Assane and Claire is pretty adorable.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Assane meeting Mariama at the metro station is presented as a heartwarming Big Damn Reunion between a mother and son who haven't seen each other in thirty years. And it would be...except that Assane skipped out on Raoul's big basketball game in order to be there. It gets worse when you remember that Assane had been posing as Raoul's coach, meaning that his absence nearly led to the team forfeiting. Not to mention that he had previously promised Claire, who was justifiably anxious about being followed, that he'd be there to protect them.
What the Hell, Costuming Department?: Upon the release of Part 3, viewers complained that Assane's prosthetic disguise as Coach Alex fell squarely in the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. Luckily for Assane, this doesn't seem to have bothered Claire at all.
The Woobie:
- Babakar does his best to excel in his job in order to provide for Assane, stoically enduring Hubert's rude, dismissive and frequently racist treatment. He then gets accused by Hubert of a crime he didn't commit, is emotionally manipulated into signing a false confession, gets imprisoned, and because he is too proud to let it go, he winds up being murdered by Léonard shortly afterward.
- Fabienne Bériot. Once a respected journalist, she gets blacklisted and ruined by Hubert Pellegrini after writing an exposé on his shady business dealings. After two decades in which she basically exists in a state of depressed squalor, she becomes revitalized after teaming up with Assane in attempt to bring Hubert down again...but their plan goes wrong, and she ultimately gets killed by Léonard for refusing to reveal Assane's whereabouts.
- Bruno, in the 1998 flashbacks. While many of the misfortunes that befall him are the result of his failure to use even a hint of common sense in his decision-making, it doesn't change the fact that he's a disadvantaged, parentless kid whose surrogate father figure is exploitative, controlling and violent towards him.
- Claire—always Locked Out of the Loop no matter how much she begs Assane to be honest with her. Even moreso in the 2006 flashbacks, where she's shown desperately trying to find a way to make her relationship with Assane work despite his constantly lying and blowing her off (and unbeknownst to her, being unfaithful).
- Raoul! The poor kid gets abducted by Léonard on his birthday. And then he almost gets burned alive.
- By Part 3 Claire and Raoul have become a Woobie Family: Claire is hounded constantly by journalists while Raoul is getting bullied by his schoolmates, all for the crime of being intimately connected to Assane. Then they have to deal with the trauma of Assane's death, although they both later discover that he faked it, as well as being attacked in their own home by a murderous Keller. By the end of it all they're legitimate Action Survivors.
- Benjamin, after Assane betrays him to the police in episode 3.04. Made worse by the fact that he seems to have suffered a beating in prison.

YMMV / Lupin (2021)

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