Headscratchers / Lupin (2021)

• It's established that in 1995, with his business affairs on the verge of collapse, Hubert Pellegrini was in desperate need of some extra money. So with that in mind, what stopped him from auctioning off Marie-Antoinette's necklace right then and there, or even just selling it? It's a historically significant item, so it's difficult to imagine that there wouldn't have been any takers. This would no doubt have been a whole lot easier (not to mention infinitely more legal and moral) than going to the trouble of hiring a new chauffeur with the intention of using him as the Fall Guy in a rather slapdash insurance scam—particularly since Dumont actually had Hubert's number and was all set to arrest him for committing fraud and framing Babakar until Hubert made pointed mention of his powerful connections and threatened Dumont's wife.
  • That way Hubert gets to keep the necklace for himself. And Hubert may have been too proud to let people know he needed to sell the necklace.
  • Hubert is a bad-bad person.
• From a legal standpoint, what exactly is Assane and Claire's relationship? Are they divorcées? Are they married but separated? Were they ever married to begin with? We know that they weren't married in 2006, but in the present day Claire can be seen wearing a wedding ring, and at one point Benjamin refers to her as Assane's wife. On the other hand, Assane is apparently supposed to be paying child support, and when Claire is questioned by the police, Belkacem calls Assane "the father of your son" rather than "your husband". The fact that promotional material for the show has variously referred to Claire as Assane's wife, ex-wife, or ex-girlfriend obviously hasn't helped to clarify the matter at all.
  • A news report mentions Claire as Assane's ex-wife.
• Why didn't Guédira try to shine a light in Assane's eyes when he was playing dead in a morgue, or to prick him with something sharp?
• Assane deletes his confession video and records Guédira gushing about Belkacem, so the latter video is what Belkacem sees when Guédira tells her to look at his videos after his sting operation. Why doesn't Guédira tell Belkacem about Assane afterwards anyway? Sure, he doesn't have proof and is a little embarrassed, but he was just about to tell her about Assane's survival anyway and she would probably believe him and appreciate his honesty even without proof.
• What happened to the gang member who Cisco threatened after Assane framed him as a mole? He didn't kill him since Assane swapped his deck of cards but he couldn't let him stay on the crew, and Cisco doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would take the time to ask questions first.
• Why is Benjamin so forgiving of Assane after he got him imprisoned?
• How does Assane get a phone and a steak delivered to Benjamin?
• Why are Claire and Raoul completely fine with Assane faking his death and stalking them while disguised as a coach?
  • Being Assane's wife and son means that Claire and Raoul have, to an extent, become desensitized to the insane stunts he constantly pulls. In Claire's case it seems like any negative feelings she would have had towards Assane for what he did were more than cancelled out by her happiness that he was actually alive as well as her recognition of the fact that, with the Alex persona, he was legitimately trying to be a better father to Raoul, albeit going about it in an extremely odd way.
• Why is Bruno's sister mad at Assane in the present? Keller was the one who arranged the boxing match which Bruno didn't even get very hurt in and Keller was also the one behind the jewelry robbery in which Bruno shot a policeman.
  • Considering Assane's history with women, he and her might have briefly dated before he cheated on her or unceremoniously left her. Alternatively, sometime during the interval, she and/or Bruno had to take the fall for one of his crimes and went to prison. There are many ways he could have screwed her over like he does with everyone else foolish enough to care about him, but it's a Noodle Incident for now.
• Why does Assane rarely put on disguises in public when he's a wanted crook and presumed dead?
  • Being presumed dead helps Assane in this regard, since passers-by would be more likely to see him and assume he's just someone who looks a lot like Assane Diop, rather than actually being Assane Diop. Most of the public legitimately believes that he was killed in a fall from a building, so those claiming to have spotted him alive would be treated in a similar way to the likes of the "Elvis is alive" conspiracy theorists.
• How did Assane even get the job as the coach for Raoul's team? One would assume this had a stricter vetting process than the low-level service jobs Assane usually acquires while pursuing his goals, and—being a fictional persona—"Alex" lacked any references at all.
• Why doesn't Assane demand Benjamin be freed alongside Manon? Blackmailing the minister is a lot simpler and quicker than negotiating with the police.
• How did Guédira get Benjamin released?
• Why didn't Keller target Claire and Raoul from the get-go? One would think that this would make the most sense from his perspective considering that they're Assane's most "visible" loved ones, and that Keller and Claire had met in the past and actively disliked one another, whereas he'd never had any encounters with Mariama or Benjamin at all.
• How did Assane recognize present-day Keller the moment he laid eyes on him, after completely failing to pick up on who Manon was despite interacting with her at some length, in close proximity? Sure, Manon has a different hairstyle—or, more accurately, she lacks a hairstyle—but Keller has also shaved his head, and sports a bushy mustache that he hadn't had in 1998.
• Since Assane had always intended to come back for Claire and Raoul, why was he so keen to keep them in the dark about the fact that he was alive? It’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have been able to keep the secret.
• How was Benjamin able to keep operating his antiques business as though nothing had happened, considering that he was literally a confirmed accomplice of Assane's? And for that matter, why didn't the media set their sights on him at all, in light of how obsessed they were with Claire?
• Why was Assane given an explicitly Christian funeral service? Based on his Senegalese origin and the fact that both his and his father's names are West African derivatives of Arabic ones ("Assane" = "Hassan"; "Babakar" = "Abu Bakr"), it can be safely assumed that he's a Muslim, albeit probably not a very devout one. And while Benjamin and Claire almost certainly come from Christian backgrounds, neither of them seem to be all that religious either.