Assane Diop is a dapper, charismatic Phantom Thief who moved with his father, Babakar, from Senegal to Paris when he was a child. In 1995, around the time of Assane's fourteenth birthday, Babakar gained employment as a chauffeur for the wealthy entrepreneur Hubert Pellegrini. However, when an expensive diamond necklace (which had once belonged to Marie-Antoinette) disappeared from a safe in Hubert's study, he immediately accused Babakar of having stolen it; not long after being imprisoned for the crime, Babakar was discovered hanging from a noose in his cell. Devastated by his father's death, Assane became entranced by the Arsène Lupin books and decided to become a "gentleman burglar" like his literary inspiration. Also at around this time Assane met the two most important people in his life—his One True Love Claire Laurent, who is currently raising their thirteen-year-old son Raoul on her own, and his best friend Benjamin Férel, a jewelry expert who runs an antique shop while moonlighting as his accomplice.
It's October 2020, two and a half decades after Babakar died, when Assane wakes up to a news report stating that the queen's necklace has been recovered by the Pellegrinis, and is set to be auctioned off at the Louvre museum. As a final Take That! to the family who turned his existence inside-out, Assane decides to steal it during the auction, enlisting the help of three Loan Sharks in order to do so. Assane winds up with the necklace at the end of the night, but it's fair to say things don't go entirely smoothly. Meanwhile, a police detective named Youssef Guédira notices that the circumstances of the theft look a whole lot like the plot of one of the Arsène Lupin stories.
This is very much a Heist Episode, and serves as a tone-setter for the series overall, establishing its predilection for clever capers, "Once More, with Clarity" explanations, playful Mythology Gags, and Flashback sequences, as well as its unapologetically Parisian setting.
Episode credits:
Tropes that appear in this episode:
- All That Glitters: The necklace that Vincent, Kevin and Rudy, the three Loan Sharks, attempt to make off with is a fake that was made for Assane by Benjamin.
- Auction: The setting for a lot of the episode.
- The Caper: The theft of Marie Antoinette's necklace from the Louvre has Assane mounting his own Caper Crew for that purpose.
- Chekhov's Exhibit: The moment we see the queen's necklace displayed in its transparent case at the Louvre, it's clear that something is going to happen to it.
- Didn't Think This Through: Rudy is tasked with procuring a getaway car. Instead of getting a low-key vehicle with plenty of room for everyone to fit inside, he arrives with an ostentatious and cramped Ferrari, which he barely knows how to drive. Under the stress of being chased by the police, he winds up crashing it in the glass roof of the Louvre museum's underground section, and all three get arrested in short order.
- Dumb Muscle: Kevin, one of the loan sharks, is a big guy who mainly speaks in grunts.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Assane tricks the loan sharks by pretending to be "Luis Perenna," a downtrodden janitor pleading for money, but just when they think they've got him over a barrel, he turns the tables, demonstrating that he could easily beat the shit out of them if he wanted to, before presenting his plan to steal the necklace from the Louvre.
- Claire is first seen meeting with Assane at a café, affectionately teasing him about his disheveled appearance but allowing him to skip an alimony payment out of genuine concern for his well-being. She also reproaches him for repeatedly forgetting about his scheduled visits with Raoul, yet still gives him a tender kiss on the cheek before she leaves.
- Shortly after the loan sharks are arrested, Guédira calls up Captain Laugier and informs him that the entire Louvre burglary reminds him of a storyline in an Arsène Lupin book, mentioning that he's a huge fan and has read them all. Though his idea is dismissed, Guédira nonetheless continues to investigate it in his spare time (and we later see that he keeps various Lupin paperbacks at his desk).
- Fauxreigner: "Paul Sernine," Assane's multimillionaire tech CEO persona, is meant to be from the US state of Michigan, according to the online page Assane wrote up for him.
- Gratuitous German: A bit of it from the auctioneer, as one of the attendees is a German aristocrat named Herr Kruger.
- High-Altitude Interrogation: As a result of Assane's supposed debts toward the loan sharks, the strongest of them holds him over the edge of their several-stories-tall building for failing to pay them.
- Instant Sedation: Gets a good punch of realism during the necklace heist—spraying chloroform on someone's face won't sedate the person instantly, as Assane's crew finds out. Either Assane probably knew this all along and just messed with them, knowing they would betray him, or they were just too dumb to think about using it on a piece of cloth to concentrate as much sedative as possible in the guards' faces.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: How Assane first scouts out the Louvre for the heist.
- Knew It All Along: Assane anticipated that Vincent, Kevin and Rudy would betray him during the Louvre heist, and made contingency plans accordingly.
- Mock Millionaire: Assane's character "Paul Sernine" supposedly has a net worth of €576 million.
- My Car Hates Me: The fact that you can drive a sports car in a video game doesn't mean you can drive one in Real Life. Rudy, one of the loan sharks, learns this in hilariously destructive, and embarrassing, fashion.
- Non-Lethal K.O.: The "chloroform in spray" part of the necklace heist doesn't work as intended so the loan sharks resort to fighting and KO-ing the Louvre guards in the locker room and security camera monitoring room.
- Offscreen Crash: The loan sharks wind up crashing their getaway car through the glass roof of the subterranean section of the Louvre and getting stuck in a large glass sculpture; the actual crash happens offscreen. When we see them next, they are being arrested by the police.
