Series / Lupin (2021)

"Arsène Lupin is more than a book. It’s my heritage. My method. My path. I am Lupin."

—-Assane Diop

Lupin is a French mystery/caper thriller series created by George Kay and François Uzan, and directed by Louis Leterrier, Marcela Said, Ludovic Bernard and Hugo Gélin. It began streaming on Netflix on January 8, 2021. It is not related to Lupin III, although they share the same inspiration. Upon its release, Lupin became Netflix' most successful non-English-language series of all time, maintaining this distinction until Squid Game came out later that year.

The show stars Omar Sy in the role of Assane Diop, a professional thief whose father Babakar, an immigrant from Senegal, died by an apparent suicide in his prison cell after his employer, the wealthy and powerful Hubert Pellegrini, framed him for the theft of an expensive diamond necklace that once belonged to Marie Antoinette.

Twenty-five years later, Assane, inspired by his love for Arsène Lupin novels after Babakar gifted him one for his 14th birthday, uses his charisma and his mastery of thievery, subterfuge and disguise, as well as some help from his best friend Benjamin, to get revenge on the Pellegrini family and to find proof of his father's innocence. However, Assane struggles to balance his quest for vengeance with his duties to his estranged wife Claire and their young son Raoul. And to complicate matters further, a shrewd police detective—who is also a huge fan of the Lupin stories—has begun to connect the dots regarding Assane's activities.

In addition to Sy, the series stars Ludivine Sagnier as Claire, Antoine Gouy as Benjamin Ferel, Soufiane Guerrab as Detective Youssef Guédira, Shirine Boutella as Lieutenant Sofia Belkacem, Hervé Pierre as Hubert Pellegrini and Clotilde Hesme as Juliette Pellegrini.

A second season^note Technically the second part of the first season, as the two were written and shot together. The upcoming Part 3 officially begins the second season. was released on June 11, 2021, and a third is scheduled to be released on October 5, 2023.

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Lupin provides examples of:

A to H

• The '90s: The flashbacks to Assane's youth with his father, the Pellegrinis, Claire and Benjamin take place in 1995. The cars seen in the streets, the fact that francs (rather than euros) are being used as currency, Benjamin's shaggy hairstyle and Claire's double-denim outfits are all era-appropriate.
• Accents Aren't Hereditary: In the flashbacks, Babakar has an accent typical of French speakers from West Africa, but Assane just sounds like an average kid from the Parisian banlieues (even though it's implied that they had both moved from Senegal not too long before 1995).
• Actor Allusion:
  • There are a number of possible references to Intouchables, the film which first made Omar Sy (as Driss) an international success:
    • Assane's dancing to the Four Tops in his apartment seems to be a nod to Driss dancing to "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind & Fire.
    • In Intouchables, Driss steals a Fabergé egg from Philippe, his wealthy employer. In Lupin, Assane repeats the feat while scamming a rich older woman.
    • There's also a scene in which Fabienne states that Hubert Pellegrini is "untouchable."
  • Assane's final disguise as a fireman looks a lot like Omar Sy's Bishop get-up from X-Men: Days of Future Past.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Generally averted for Assane, with the exception of one moment when he's pretty much forced to grovel and pester in order to get an increasingly irate Belkacem to reveal that Raoul wasn't incinerated in Léonard's BMW.
• Alleged Lookalikes: Lampshaded heavily with Assane and the man whose place he takes in prison; both are of west African origin but don't look alike in any way, and both are aware of this. Even so, none of the prison officials seem to notice the switch.
• All for Nothing: Assane's decision to appear on The Other Edition. Not only does it fail to take down Hubert, it also leads directly to Fabienne's murder as well as essentially every major problem that Assane faces from there on out.
• All That Glitters: The necklace that the three Loan Sharks attempt to make off with is a fake that was made for Assane by Benjamin.
• Alternate Universe: The series is set in 2020 (as seen on various newspapers and with a mention of Raoul's birthday on December 11, 2020), but there isn't a single visible sign of the COVID-19 Pandemic (restaurants are open while they weren't in France back then, and no one wears a protective mask), which 2020 will be forever associated with. It would probably have been too impractical to include it in the plot, and half of the series was filmed before it broke out.
• Amicable Exes: Assane and Claire have remained on good terms. Well, until Raoul gets kidnapped. Although by the end of Part 2, they appear to have made up.
• Anachronic Order: The present timeline is regularly intercut with flashbacks which contextualize the events occurring currently, or represent analogous situations which Assane remembers in order to figure out the best course of action.
• The Annotated Edition: Assane gives Raoul his old copy of the Arsène Lupin book, which has his own notes scribbled all over it.
• Apathetic Citizens: While Assane and Claire's backs are turned, Raoul gets abducted by Léonard. From a crowded beach, in broad daylight. And none of the many people standing near him seem to have noticed or cared, aside from Guédira.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Played straight with Hubert Pellegrini, but downplayed for his wife and daughter, who respectively come across as being Weak-Willed and a bit snobby but generally well-meaning.
• Artistic License:
  • Raoul's fourteenth birthday is established to be on December 11th, 2020. However, this fell on a Friday, and December 11th is not typically part of the Christmas holiday as observed by French schools, which means that Raoul would have had to have skipped school in order to take a day trip to Étretat with his parents. No indication is given that he did so.
  • The Wikipedia of the show's universe apparently has some very lax editing standards, given that Assane is able to create entire detailed entries for nonexistent people such as Paul Sernine. Were this Real Life, something like that would have been removed immediately.
  • Had Guédira actually read all of the Lupin stories as he claims to have done, he'd have been well aware that the Significant Anagrams "Luis Perenna" and "Paul Sernine" are both canonical aliases of Arsène Lupin—which is to say, he shouldn't have needed to put any effort into decoding them. The series likely ignores this to give him his first "Eureka!" Moment.
• Artistic License – Biology: Assane and Claire's conversation on "Raoul's bridge" in the 2006 flashback suggests that they are aware that their unborn child is going to be a boy. However, it's strongly implied that Claire had discovered that she was pregnant very shortly before revealing it to Assane, meaning that it would have been too early for the baby's biological sex to be determined.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • The series suggests that there are train connections directly from Le Havre to Étretat; these were discontinued years earlier.
  • The various journeys taken between Paris and Normandy seem to last anywhere between 2 and 7 hours, given the changing daylight hours. An actual car ride from the middle of Paris to Étretat would take around three hours.
    • The sun should have been starting to set at the time of Raoul's kidnapping, given that it happens in the middle of the afternoon in northern France, less than two weeks away from the winter solstice. However, in the series, there are evidently several more hours of full daylight even after this.
  • Benjamin's antiquary is in Saint-Ouen, a suburb located just north of Paris. However, right after he flees the shop when he and Assane are found out, he's suddenly walking around Bercy, a neighborhood in the southeast of the city.
• Artistic License – History: The Marie Antoinette necklace doesn't look like its historical counterpart (which has disappeared, but copies have survived).
• Artistic License – Law: Because Hubert's confession to all of his crimes was clearly coerced under duress by Assane, it would almost certainly be considered inadmissible as evidence in Real Life.
• Assassins Are Always Betrayed: Léonard is murdered on Hubert's orders after having screwed up too many times.
• At the Opera Tonight: A lot of the tenth episode takes place at a fundraising concert thrown by Juliette.
• Auction: The necklace heist takes place during the object's auction sale. The price starts at €17 million.
• Avengers Assemble: Assane, Benjamin and Philippe in Chapter 10.
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: Over the course of the series, we learn that there is an alarming amount of corruption in the Paris police department, starting straight from the top. However, Laugier, Belkacem and Guédira avert this trope.
• Balkan Bastard:
  • Bogdan, the thug who threatens Assane in prison, seems to be one of these.
  • The name of the sex trafficker whom Assane accuses Dumont of having accepted bribes from ("Damir Cilic") indicates that he's of ex-Yugoslav ancestry.
• Bathroom Breakout: After being arrested, Assane escapes Belkacem and her gendarmerie associate Hector by claiming that he needs to use a gas station bathroom. When Assane is alone with Hector in the rather nasty-looking stall, he manages to remove his handcuffs and uses them to attach the unfortunate policeman to a pipe. After leaving, he steals a car and drives off. When Belkacem finds out what has happened, she is extremely angry.
• Batman Gambit:
  • The Marie Antoinette necklace heist has Assane expecting his gang to betray him and turn all the police attention on themselves like thugs of their kind usually do, thereby allowing him to steal the necklace under everyone's noses while throwing the fake one on the ground.
  • Assane understands Juliette's nostalgia for their old fling well enough to know exactly what to do and say to her so that she'll fall further and further into his arms and turn on her father.
• Bear Hug: Assane gives these to Raoul.
• Becoming the Mask: In Assane's words, "I am Lupin."
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Assane and Claire spend a lot of the train ride to Étretat playfully bickering.
• Betty and Veronica: Claire is the caring and down-to-earth Betty to Juliette's more feisty and outgoing Veronica. Since Claire is blonde and Juliette is brunette, they also qualify as Light Feminine and Dark Feminine. Fittingly, Juliette is drawn to Assane's more roguish side, as opposed to Claire, who fell for Assane when he described himself as a "gentleman."
• Big Bad Ensemble: Hubert Pellegrini, his associates, and the police all function as antagonists in the series, although (aside from Dumont) the last of these may be more accurately described as Hero Antagonists, since their main desire is simply to do their job by capturing a notorious criminal. And by the end, the three-officer unit of Laugier, Belkacem and Guédira have pretty much crossed over into being protagonists, as they're the ones who wind up taking Hubert and Dumont into custody.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Guédira, when he saves Raoul from getting burned alive by Léonard.
  • Guédira, Belkacem and Laugier when they arrest Dumont while allowing Assane to walk free, for the time being at least.
• Birthday Episode: Chapters 5 and 6 take place on December 11, the birthday of both Raoul and Maurice Leblanc (the creator of the Arsène Lupin character). It's not one of Raoul's better birthdays.
• A Birthday, Not a Break:
  • Apparently, Babakar died around the time of his son's birthday. After the funeral, Assane finds the present (an Arsène Lupin book) that his father had intended to give to him.
  • Poor Raoul gets kidnapped and nearly killed on his fourteenth birthday.
• Bittersweet Ending: The ending to Part 2, which has Assane, having seen off both Hubert and Dumont, finally reuniting with his family but telling them that he needs to leave town for a while to keep them safe.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Sure, Hubert Pellegrini is a completely unrepentant Jerkass on every level, but Assane has certainly done questionable things as well...
• Black and Nerdy: Assane is a Lupin-loving nerd, and it seems like Babakar was a fan of the stories before him. Raoul may count, too, although he's mixed-race since his mother is Caucasian.
• Black Is Bigger in Bed: A young Juliette invokes this when seducing 14 year old Assane when he comes at the house of the Pelligrinis... even though the thing she ends up saying is that she heard that Black people "can't swim well."
• Blackmail: In order to extract a confession from Dumont about his actions regarding Babakar's imprisonment, Assane threatens to tell the beleaguered commissioner's wife about all of his illegal dealings.
• Black-Tie Infiltration: Assane gets into Juliette's concert dressed in a full tuxedo.
• Bodybag Trick: Employed by Assane to get out of prison after faking suicide.
• Book Safe: When he was 14, Assane hollowed out the Bible he was given to hide Arsène Lupin novels in it.
• Boring Insult: After Assane breaks off his and Juliette's affair in order to commit to his relationship with Claire, Juliette complains that Claire's name is boring, and that this means that her personality must be boring as well. Later on, when she and Assane meet in the present day, Juliette insinuates that Claire's life is dull and unfulfilling.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Assane has every right to be pissed off at Claire for agreeing to sell him out to Hubert Pellegrini in order to get Raoul back, although Claire did make sure to tip him off before he could get caught. On the other hand, it's not really unreasonable for Claire to think that cutting Assane off is a good idea, considering that he's a clear, if unintentional, threat to her and Raoul's safety. The series doesn't really present either as being firmly in the wrong, and it's not too long before they reconcile.
• Bottle Episode: A large portion of the third episode takes place in Assane's interrogation room in the basement of one of Paris' town halls.
• Brand X:
  • "Deli + Eat" stands in for Uber Eats.
  • Dumont's Siri/Alexa-like virtual assistant is called "Circe."
• Break the Badass: Assane spends much of Chapter 6 in an anxious rage while hunting down Léonard and Raoul, completely unlike his usual self.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Assane, during the period in which he thinks that Babakar was truly responsible for the necklace theft.
  • Juliette experiences this when she finds out that the father she's been close with her entire life is a murderous monster who wanted to steal millions of euros from her own foundation.
• Brutal Brawl: Assane gets involved in several, but his fight with Pascal in the final episode stands out in particular.
• Call-Back: Part 2's final scene on "Raoul's bridge" is a reference to the 2006 flashback sequence in which Assane and Claire choose Raoul's name.
• The Cameo: Mathieu Lamboley, the composer of the series' soundtrack, can be seen conducting the orchestra in Chapter 10.
• The Caper: The theft of the Marie Antoinette's necklace at the Louvre Museum at the start of the series, with Assane mounting his own Caper Crew for that purpose.
• Casting Gag:
  • This isn't the first time that Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme have played women in love with the same man.
  • Probably unintentional, but Antoine Gouy as Benjamin bears a passing resemblance to Fred Testot, Omar Sy's former comedy partner.
• The Chase: Assane steals a car and pursues Léonard through Normandy in order to recover Raoul.
• Cheer Up Episode: Benjamin attempts to lift Assane's spirits after Fabienne's death.
• Chekhov's Exhibit: The moment we see Marie-Antoinette's necklace displayed in its transparent case at the Louvre, it's clear that something is going to happen to it.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Two prisoners that Assane meets in Chapter 2 reappear in Chapter 8 disguised as police officers meeting with Juliette.
  • Philippe Courbet, Hubert's young, bespectacled accountant, is actually an accomplice of Assane and Benjamin.
• Chevalier vs. Rogue: The teenaged Claire invokes this trope near verbatim when she suggests that there are two kinds of men (and claims not to like either category, although she willingly accepts Assane as a companion even after designating him as a "chevalier"). Assane later claims that he's a third type, the "gentleman", which moves Claire to kiss him.
• Chilly Reception:
  • Assane gets one in prison.
  • Léonard, Assane and Guédira all experience this in the sleepy Normandy town of Bourneville. It's implied that this is because none of the three are white (Assane and Léonard are Black while Guédira is North African).
• Clear My Name: Outside of getting revenge against the Pellegrini family, Assane's main drive is to prove that his deceased father was not guilty of stealing Marie-Antoinette's diamond necklace and was framed for it instead. By the end of Part 2, he's also forced to prove that he's not a murderer.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The ending of the fifth episode has Raoul getting kidnapped, Claire and Assane desperately searching for him, and Assane finally coming face to face with Guédira.
  • Chapter 6's conclusion leads the viewer (and Assane) to believe that Raoul has been killed.
  • Chapter 7 ends with Claire telling Assane to run away before he can be caught by the police.
• Commonality Connection: Benjamin and Claire are depicted as being good friends due to their both having close relationships with Assane.
• The Con: The series isn't short on them.
• Consistent Clothing Style:
  • Assane and his trenchcoats, flat caps, Fred Perry jackets and Air Jordans.
  • Benjamin usually wears skinny jeans, button-down shirts and brown overcoats.
  • Léonard is easily distinguished by his habit of wearing a long beige trenchcoat all the time.
• Convenient Escape Boat: In the last episode, Assane jumps into a speedboat in order to escape the police, and begins cruising up the Seine.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Just when it seems like Dumont is going to capture Assane, Laugier, Belkacem and Guédira arrive and arrest him for corruption.
• Cool Bike: To help her recapture the adrenaline-fueled days of her youth, Assane takes Juliette on a motorcycle joyride through Paris.
• Crazy Enough to Work: One of Assane's capers sees him hide Dumont in City Hall—the place he'd originally kidnapped him from. It's a completely ridiculous idea and it works exactly as Assane expected it to.
• Cry into Chest: Claire does this to Assane when they meet on "Raoul's bridge" in the final episode.
• Crystal-Ball Scheduling: While it's not a direct adaptation of the Arsène Lupin stories, it essentially updates them for the twenty-first century, with Assane recreating some of Lupin's famous heists, and with many of the other characters being inspired by actual Lupin characters. Usually, in-story, this is referenced by someone in the episode (usually Guédira or Raoul) reading the corresponding Lupin adventure, and at least in the early episodes the stories were in publishing order.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: The other police officers are alternately amused or dismayed by Guédira's attempts to link the crimes they are investigating with the Arsène Lupin stories; however, this makes him the only one who is able to deduce what Assane's plans really are. Eventually, Laugier and Belkacem realize that he was correct about essentially everything and begin to trust his insights more and more.
• Curtain Call: Chapter 10 sees almost every major character converge on the concert hall where Assane plans to expose Hubert's crimes once and for all. The only two that aren't there (Claire and Raoul) get their own mini-arc at the end of the episode.
• Dancing with Myself: While making dinner for himself and J'accuse, Assane dances to "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" by the Four Tops. He doesn't realize that Léonard is being strangled to death by Pascal in the next room.
• Darker and Edgier: The tone of the series shifts towards the somber with Fabienne's death, and becomes outright dark with Raoul's kidnapping. Once the latter plotline is resolved, however, the lightness of the early episodes returns (to an extent at least).
• Dating Catwoman: Assane and Juliette have this dynamic when they're together, since Juliette is the daughter of Assane's biggest enemy.
• A Day in the Limelight: Many of the episodes shift the focus onto Assane's relationships with a particular supporting character: specifically, Babakar (Chapter 1), Anne (Chapter 2), Dumont (Chapter 3), Fabienne (Chapter 4), Claire (Chapter 5), Guédira (Chapter 6), Raoul (Chapter 7), Juliette (Chapter 8) and Benjamin (Chapter 9).
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Dumont's descent into villainy began when he accepted Hubert's proposal to frame Babakar for the necklace theft.
  • Claire agrees to turn Assane over to Hubert in exchange for his giving Raoul back to her, although she regrets it and warns Assane before he can get caught.
• Death Glare: Assane, whenever he's upset with someone. He gives a particularly intimidating one when he's extracting Hubert's confession.
• Declaration of Protection: Assane makes one to Claire regarding their child, after she tells him that she is pregnant.
• Deconstruction: The series gradually becomes one to the Lupin stories, as it shows how Assane's life of crime and habitual lying puts strain on his relationship with his loved ones. By the end of Part 2, Assane gets to experience the full reality of being an internationally famous criminal, including being forced to go on the run for possibly the rest of his life.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Happens in the 1995 flashbacks, where Assane and Babakar both experience fairly blatant, unapologetic racism and classism (Assane is still on the receiving end of this in 2020, but it's a lot less overt). Claire, meanwhile, gets sexually harassed by a group of boys on a regular basis, and the authorities at the foster home she's staying at don't seem to care at all.
• Delivery Guy Infiltration: In Chapter 10, Benjamin gets into the opera house by posing as a worker unloading computer equipment. Once inside, he changes into a security guard's uniform.
• Destroy the Security Camera: Part of Assane's plan for the Louvre heist involves the loan sharks disabling all of the security cameras.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Although a large portion of the series takes place in mid to late December, there is no indication whatsoever that it's Christmas time, aside from a couple of newspaper headlines ("Merry Christmas, Mr. Johnson," in reference to Boris Johnson, at that time the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom).
• Did Not Die That Way: Babakar didn't commit suicide; rather, he was murdered by Léonard.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of the three loan sharks in the first episode is tasked with procuring a getaway car; instead of getting a low-key vehicle with plenty of room for all of them 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.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • Assane whistles his musical motif while dressed in his janitor getup at the end of the first episode.
  • The main themes of the series crop up in the symphony that the orchestra is playing in Chapter 10.
• Disney Death: Assane tosses Léonard out of a window. From the way he lands, it seems like he should have broken his back, but he manages to get up with little difficulty and lights his BMW on fire, with Raoul locked inside.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: After Babakar dies in prison, Anne offers to help Assane in any way she can. Assane, however, wants nothing to do with the Pellegrinis and tells her to go fuck herself.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas: Averted, as no snow is seen although a lot of the series takes place in December. Significant snowfall in this part of France is rare even in winter. (It's also because many of these scenes were filmed in the summer, due to COVID-related issues.)
• Dude, Not Funny!: When he and Assane are speeding through Normandy while chasing down Léonard and Raoul, Guédira mentions that he needs to make a call to his (fictional) wife, joking that otherwise she will think that he was kidnapped. He stops talking after Assane gives him a withering look.
• Dumb Muscle: Kevin, one of the loan sharks who "helps" Assane in Chapter 1.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Fabienne: "A good journalist never reveals her sources..."
• Early Personality Signs:
  • Assane is characterized by his dislike for formal authority, his ability to think quickly in a crisis and his willingness to attempt daring feats. His fourteen-year-old self demonstrates this by trying to escape out a window rather than being taken to social services by Dumont after Babakar's death.
  • Benjamin is always willing to help Assane out, but prefers to do it in a more "behind-the-scenes" fashion. He assists Assane in his theft of a violin...by offering to stand outside and keep watch.
  • In 1995, Claire tries to stop Assane from fighting their bullies on her behalf (but he does it anyway, and she winds up giving him an After Action Patch Up). In the present, although she still cares about Assane, she prefers to stay away from his criminal life and instead focuses on raising their son.
• Elegant Classical Musician: A number of them appear during the concert sequence in the final episode.
• Elevator Action Sequence: Assane knocks out two Hyatt security guards in an elevator while dressed as a waiter.
• Emergency Refuelling: As Belkacem drives Assane back to Paris, she finds that she is running low on fuel. Her pit stop at a gas station allows Assane to escape captivity.
• Empathy Doll Shot: Chapter 6 closes with a shot of the top-hatted Arsène Lupin action figure, that Assane had given to Raoul for his birthday earlier that day, lying on the ground. Subverted in that although at this point both Assane and the viewer have been led to believe that Raoul was killed by Léonard, the next episode reveals that Guédira managed to save him in the nick of time.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In episode 4, Assane appears suddenly at Dumont's table and announces his presence by biting into his piece of bread and jam. Assane then dips it into his coffee, to deepen the insult.
• Engineered Public Confession: The final episode sees Assane enter Hubert's private box in the concert hall and hold a knife to his throat, threatening him with death unless he confesses to all of his crimes. Unbeknownst to Hubert, Assane records the whole thing and sends it to Guédira, who uses it as evidence to arrest him after the concert is finished. (This wouldn't actually work in Real Life - see Artistic License – Law.)
• Epic Fail: Assane's theft of the violin ends up being this when he gets caught in the middle of Claire's audition, particularly since Claire gets apprehended as well, likely destroying any possible future she had as a professional violinist.
• Evidence Dungeon: A rare example in that it belongs to the protagonist, but Assane's apartment is crammed with Arsène Lupin-related stuff. When the police raid it, they realize that Guédira's theory about the Lupin connection wasn't so far-fetched, after all!
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Fabienne's dog, J'accuse, is trained to bark whenever he hears the name "Pellegrini."
• Expy: The crux of the series is that Assane is a modern day Arsène Lupin, as in a Gentleman Thief and Phantom Thief who pulls off high profile heists, but with his own different background. He styles himself after the character In-Universe, having been a fan since his teenage years.
  • Not just Assane, either. Many of the other characters are at least inspired by people encountered by the actual Arsène Lupin.
    • Youssef Guédira is essentially an updated version of Inspector Ganimard, a police officer who makes repeated attempts to catch Lupin. This gets referenced In-Universe, with Assane frequently referring to Guédira as "Ganimard." Somewhat subverted in that Guédira is more clever and insightful than his Lestrade-like literary counterpart, who relies more than anything on dogged willpower (like Laugier and Belkacem).
    • Babakar is largely based on Lupin's mother Henriette d'Andrésy (who was also mistreated while working for a wealthy family); however, his death in prison appears to have been taken from the fate of Lupin's father Theophraste.
    • Claire's name, at the very least, seems to have been taken from that of Clarisse d'Etigues, a childhood sweetheart of Lupin.
    • Josephine Balsamo, one of the major antagonists in the Lupin books, has her characterization split between Hubert and Juliette Pellegrini.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Not counting the flashbacks, the fifth, sixth and seventh episodes together take place entirely on December 11th and 12th, 2020. The series as a whole spans mid-October to late December.
• Fake Charity: Played with. Juliette, like all of her wealthy donors, fully believes that her foundation for disadvantaged children is entirely legitimate. However, Hubert has set things up so that 85% of the donations go to a personal offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands, which renders the entire project a scam. Luckily, Assane and Benjamin manage to reroute the money back to the foundation.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Subverted. At first it appears that Assane's job as a janitor at the Louvre is this, but it's all just an act.
• Family Business: Hubert appears to be mentoring Juliette to succeed him as the head of the Pellegrini business empire.
• Father's Quest: Assane rampages across the Normandy countryside in order to retrieve Raoul from the clutches of his enemies.
• Females Are More Innocent: Anne and Juliette Pellegrini are, respectively, uninvolved in and unaware of Hubert's crimes. Likewise, Claire absents herself from Assane's criminal life, although she does know about it.
• Feuding Families: The Diops and the Pellegrinis.
• Final Battle: The showdown between Assane, Benjamin and Philippe on one side and Hubert and his cronies on the other at the concert hall in Chapter 10.
• First-Episode Twist: When we're first introduced to Assane, he seems to be little more than a down-on-his-luck janitor who struggles to pay alimony to his ex-wife and comes up with a harebrained scheme to rob the Louvre in order to make a quick sum. By the end of the first episode, we learn that none of this is true.
• First Girl Wins: Claire is the first of Assane's love interests that the audience encounters, and the final scene in Part 2 seems to suggest that she's "won" since Assane specifically makes time to go see her and Raoul after he's successfully engineered Hubert Pellegrini's downfall. Averted if you consider Juliette to be the first girl, since Assane met her first chronologically.
• Fish out of Water: 14-year-old Assane—an orphaned Black boy from a working-class background—is this when he gets transferred to the College d'Andrésy, experiencing bullying from some of the largely wealthy and white student body. Fortunately, Benjamin comes to his aid.
• Flashback: How most of the characters' backstories are revealed.
• Flatline Plotline: To get out of jail, Assane pushes himself near death by overdosing on sleeping pills.
• Foster Kid: Claire (seemingly for most of her childhood) and Assane (for a little while in 1995).
• Frameup:
  • Assane's father was accused by Hubert Pellegrini of stealing Marie-Antoinette's necklace in the 1990s. Anne Pellegrini then made him sign a fake confession for the theft, after which he gets sent to prison. The whole ordeal is set up to make it look as if it drove him to commit suicide, but it's later revealed that Hubert's Mook Léonard actually killed him.
  • Assane attempts to frame Léonard for being behind the robbery of the necklace by slipping one of the diamonds into his pocket and then calling the police; however, the cops find out that he bears little physical resemblance to descriptions of the actual thief (which is to say, Assane) and that he has a solid alibi for the time of the theft, so he is released. It's also entirely possible that Dumont called in a favor to get him out.
  • Hubert tries to remove two of his problems at once by having Léonard murdered and framing Assane for it.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many. By pausing at the right point, the viewer is able to read much of Babakar's police file, the Wikipedia page for "Paul Sernine", Hubert's official 1995 statement to the police about the missing necklace, Fabienne's obituary and more.
• Frequently-Broken Unbreakable Vow: Shortly after Claire reveals her pregnancy, Assane promises to stop all his "fuck-ups" and commit fully to being a father. And that's exactly what he does.
• Friendly Enemy: Although Assane and Guédira are operating on opposite sides of the law, the two clearly have a good deal of respect for one another, particularly after Guédira saves Raoul from a fiery death. Guédira, meanwhile, can't help but think that the idea of being the Ganimard in a real-life Lupin story is just so cool.
• Friendship Moment: Right before they pull off their final caper at the opera house, Benjamin perceives that Assane is uncharacteristically anxious. He tries to reassure his friend, telling him that they will be "calm and methodical, as usual," and jokingly reminds Assane that he (Benjamin) is the nervous one of the two. Assane seems legitimately grateful for the support, and manages to regain his confidence.
• Friend Versus Lover: Although Assane claims that he's happy that Claire is trying to move on from him with a new partner, he's pretty clearly jealous, to the point where Raoul calls him out on it.
  Raoul: Stop pretending like you don't care. It's pissing me off.
• Fugitive Arc: After he is framed for Léonard's killing, Assane is forced to leave his apartment and go on the run.
• Gasoline Dousing: Léonard does this to his car, with Raoul locked in the trunk. Fortunately Guédira hears the kid calling for help and manages to get him out.
• Gay Paree: Somewhat subverted, in that you get glimpses of the banlieues and prisons of Paris in addition to shots of the Louvre, the Seine, the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Coeur.
• Generation Xerox: Three generations of Diop males are harmed, directly or indirectly, by Hubert.
• Getaway Driver: Rudy for the Louvre heist, and Benjamin for the opera house showdown (although in both cases, Assane ends up leaving separately).
• Get into Jail Free: The second episode has Assane switch places in jail with an inmate in order to get closer to the inmate who shared his cell with his father, not needing to cause trouble to get in there.
• Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: Assane's first major Lupin-inspired crime has him stealing a violin from a racist vendor to give to Claire.
• Gratuitous German: The auctioneer in Chapter 1 does this as one of the guests is a German aristocrat named Herr Kruger.
• Heist Episode: The first episode focuses on Assane's elaborate plot to steal Marie-Antoinette's necklace.
• He Knows Too Much: Dumont kicks Guédira off of the necklace case because the younger detective is beginning to piece everything together about his corruption.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Assane and Benjamin have this dynamic.
• High-Altitude Interrogation: In the first episode, Assane has some debts towards a bunch of Loan Sharks, and the strongest of them holds him over the edge of their several stories tall building for failing to pay them.
• Hollywood Hacking: Assane is a skilled hacker. He easily gets into the Ministry of the Interior's prison files to search for clues to clear his father's name.
• Hope Spot: Things appear to be looking up for Assane, Claire and Raoul on the latter's birthday in Étretat, as all three are joking, laughing and having a good time. And then Raoul gets abducted.
• Hospital Hottie: The nurse at the prison's infirmary is quite attractive (without any sort of fanservice). She wonders if Assane keeps coming back at the infirmary just because he has a crush on her (it's actually just to get closer to the dying inmate).
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Claire tries to trade the diamonds from the necklace for her kidnapped son. Unfortunately for her, Hubert actually wants Assane.
• How Dad Met Mom: Flashbacks show Assane and Claire's lengthy (and fraught) romantic history, from their first meeting up to Claire becoming pregnant with Raoul.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Assane is a full foot taller than Claire. Averted in their teenage years, though, where he's only a few inches taller. Apparently Assane had a massive growth spurt sometime after 1995.

I to Z

• I Can See You: A non-threatening example — Assane calls Guédira as he's walking out of a cafe. Guédira is startled when he realizes who's calling him, and spits coffee down the front of his shirt. Assane concludes the call as follows:
  Assane: Oh, by the way, try cold water.
  Guédira: Cold water?
  Assane: The coffee stain on your shirt? Try cold water.
• Identical Stranger: Assane and the other Deli + Eat deliverymen are indistinguishable to the police due to their identical outfits.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Lorenzo the violin vendor may have been a racist Jerkass, but Assane could still have just asked Benjamin to help him rent a violin for Claire rather than going straight in and stealing the most expensive one in the store.
  • Possible the most glaring example—why on earth didn't Assane make copies of Fabienne's tape?
  • Assane's decision to go on The Other Edition. Even ignoring his failure to factor in the potential issue of the host being friends with Hubert, the "Salvator" tweet was already gaining a lot of traction, and he could have done more damage anyway by just leaking the footage online.
  • Why wasn't Guédira's lead taken more seriously by the police in general? Sure, it was a little...whimsical, but it was the only thing they had, and it made a lot of sense.
  • In attempt to stop Assane from getting away after his successful carjacking at the gas station, Belkacem fires a gun directly into oncoming traffic. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out why that's an awful idea.
  • Pascal and the other officers agreeing to let Claire have a moment alone with Raoul when Assane brought him back home. Upon seeing Assane, she tells him to flee, and the police are unable to find him when they show up.
• If It Bleeds, It Leads:
  • The death of Fabienne, a journalist who hasn't worked in twenty-four years, makes headlines in the French papers the day after her body is discovered. One such article, including a photo of "Salvator813" and detailing the pair's fight against Hubert Pellegrini, is spotted by a distraught Claire on the train back from Étretat. She immediately recognizes Assane and, upon reading the piece, realizes to her horror that Hubert was behind Raoul's kidnapping.
  • Assane's supposed murder of Léonard, when combined with the fact that he was the mastermind behind the Louvre heist, instantly makes him the most famous criminal in France, with his exploits being covered near-constantly both on TV and in print media.
• I'm Not Afraid of You: Claire says this to Hubert when she is trying to make a deal with him to ensure Raoul's safe return to her. Since Claire is quite obviously terrified, Hubert isn't intimidated in the slightest, and gets her to bend to his will with little effort.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Léonard tries to shoot Guédira and Raoul several times as they flee the abandoned mansion, but never lands a hit. Somewhat justified in that it was dark, Léonard was seriously injured after getting tossed out of a window by Assane, and he was using an unwieldy hunting rifle rather than his usual revolver.
• Impersonating an Officer: Assane often manages to enter places he isn't supposed to by flashing stolen police badges.
• Impersonation Gambit: "Philippe Courbet" is really just an emo delinquent that Assane and Benjamin discovered trying to steal Arsène Lupin books from the library. Despite this, he proves to be very convincing to Hubert.
• Implausible Deniability: A lot of the claims Assane makes to Claire about what he's doing come across as being this. Having had to endure years of evasions, half-truths, and outright lies from him, she sees right through it, but is unable to get him to admit to what's really going on.
  Assane: I'm filling out old paperwork.
• Incredibly Obvious Tail: Possibly as an intimidation tactic, Pascal tails Benjamin by walking directly behind him a few meters away.
• The Infiltration: Assane's visit to prison, and his smuggling himself into the opera house.
• 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.
• Internal Affairs: By the end of Part 2, the police department is at war with itself when Laugier, Belkacem and Guédira decide to root out the corruption in their own department by arresting Dumont.
• Involuntary Charity Donation: Zigzagged. Juliette's sponsors believe that they are donating to a legitimate organization; however, unbeknownst to them (and Juliette), 85% of the money is set up to go to Hubert. However, Assane and Benjamin redirect the money to the foundation's bank account.
• Ironic Juxtaposition: In one of the flashbacks, Assane tells Claire that he will do everything he can to protect their then-unborn child. Minutes later, in the present timeline, Assane's actions indirectly lead to Raoul getting kidnapped by Leonard.
• It Was a Gift: The Arsène Lupin book given to Assane by his father, and subsequently given by Assane to Raoul.
• I Will Find You: Both Assane and Claire do this separately for Raoul after his kidnapping. Their respective approaches are...pretty different.
  • After a tense car chase, and the tremendous scare of Raoul possibly having been burned alive, Assane gets his son out of Hubert Pellegrini's grasp in his usual confident and creative fashion, even managing to hilariously troll both Hubert and Dumont as he's doing it.
  • Claire, on the other hand, is both worried sick and woefully out of her depth in the world of crime, kidnappings, revenge quests and ransoms. Unfortunately her attempts to save Raoul wind up causing more problems for everyone involved.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Belkacem comes across like a jerk for not letting Assane check the trunk of Léonard's car when he believes Raoul has been burned alive. But her apparent belief that he was just faking his devastation isn't unjustified—after all, Assane does have a history of trolling others and using emotional manipulation to get his way, and up to that point the police have no reason to believe that he even has a son.
• Just Friends: Assane and Claire's present-day relationship is just platonic. Sort of. Maybe. Not really? They are very physically affectionate, after all...Let's just say that it's complicated.
• Knew It All Along: Assane anticipated that Vincent, Kevin and Rudy would betray him during the Louvre heist, and made contingency plans accordingly.
• Killed Offscreen: We never actually see exactly how Léonard killed Babakar and Fabienne. In fact, the murder of Léonard himself, at the hands of Pascal, is the only death that's shown onscreen.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In one of the flashbacks to Assane's early con-man life, we see him clean out a old woman of all her valuables... while she brags about her family having been involved in colonialism, gushing right in front of him about how the diamonds he's swindling off of her were stolen from people in Africa. He even gains her trust by playing on her disdain for the poor.
• Last Request: Étienne Comet, the dying inmate who knew Assane's father in prison, asks Assane to "make his wife smile". To fulfill his request, Assane slips into her house and leaves her one of the diamonds from the necklace.
• Late to the Tragedy: Assane arrives at Fabienne's apartment just after she is visited by Léonard, and finds her lifeless body hanging from a noose.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Raoul was an unplanned child, and Claire is shown to have been quite anxious about Assane's reaction when she told him she was pregnant.
• Let Off by the Detective: At the final showdown at Juliette's concert, Belkacem wants to arrest Assane, but Guédira persuades her to allow him to walk free. Temporarily, anyway.
• Let's Get Out of Here: Benjamin and Philippe use the frenzy created by Assane's crashing Juliette's concert to make a quick getaway. Benjamin assures Philippe that Assane will catch up with them.
• Locomotive Level: Assane fights Léonard on a train.
• Long Game: It's slowly revealed across the final three episodes how involved Assane and Benjamin's plan to get Hubert to face justice at the charity concert was, from Assane's courtship of Juliette, to the disguising of Philippe Courbet, even down to Assane leaving an electronic watch in Claire's apartment that would go off when the whole thing was finished so that he would get to see her and Raoul one more time.
• Loser Son of Loser Dad: Raoul becomes incensed when Hubert tells him that Assane is a loser son, while Babakar was his loser dad.
• Lost in Translation:
  • In the English dub of one of the flashback scenes, Assane tells Claire that he's the man of her dreams. However, what he actually says in the original French is "Je suis l'homme de ta vie," or "I'm the man of your life." Understanding that helps make Claire's response (that he technically is, since he's the only guy whose company she enjoys) make a lot more sense.
  • At another point, teenaged Claire sees Assane reading his Arsène Lupin book and says, "c'est un chaud Lupin, non?" This is a Pun based on the French expression "un chaud lapin," literally meaning "a hot rabbit" and used to refer to someone who is a real Casanova. The subtitles try to get around the impossibility of directly translating this by having her say that Lupin is "kind of a Romeo," but the cleverness of the original joke is lost.
  • Surprisingly inverted when Hubert tells Dumont that Babakar is "malin comme un singe," an expression used as an equivalent to the English "sharp as a tack" (although Hubert was no doubt using it in an ironic fashion). The subtitles translate the phrase literally and have Hubert say that Babakar is "clever as an ape." This only adds to his characterization as a smug racist.
• Makeover Montage: Philippe is transformed by Assane and Benjamin from an emo teenager into a respectable, if youthful-looking, broker.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Downplayed. While Guédira can't really be called "feminine" (he's more of a nerd), his thoughtful and intellectual nature contrasts sharply with his more action-oriented, aggressive female partner Belkacem.
• Master of Disguise: Assane and, apparently, Benjamin. Although in Assane's case many fans consider this to be something of an Informed Ability, since his disguises often fail to cover up his distinguishing features in any way at all.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Assane" sounds a lot like the French pronunciation of "Arsène," although it's not entirely clear whether or not this was intentional.
  • Fabienne's dog is named J'accuse ("I accuse"). This was the title of famous letter by Emile Zola that became part of the Dreyfus Affair, a racially-motivated Miscarriage of Justice in which a Jewish man was falsely imprisoned for theft, not unlike what happened to Assane's father.
• Men Can't Keep House: Assane's apartment is a dingy place filled with costumes, books and other random Arsène Lupin memorabilia, while Benjamin seems to live in his cramped little antiquary. Claire, by contrast, maintains an inviting home for herself and Raoul.
• Minority Police Officer: Guédira is explicitly stated to be of North African descent, and Belkacem is Ambiguously Brown (the actress, Shirine Boutella, is from Algeria).
• Mirror Character:
  • Guédira and Dumont. Although their motivations and rewards couldn't be more dissimilar, both are police officers working with those regularly carrying out illegal acts (Assane and Hubert, respectively).
  • Assane and Léonard. Both are crafty career criminals who regularly experience racial prejudice.
  • Claire and Juliette. Both women have lengthy (and difficult) romantic histories with Assane, and both struggle to reconcile their feelings for him with protecting what they hold most dear (Juliette with her foundation, and Claire with her son).
• Missing Child: Claire and Assane get a major scare when Raoul disappears in Étretat. in Chapter 6 and part of Chapter 7. It gets worse when Guédira tells them that he saw Raoul getting kidnapped by Léonard. The entire sixth and seventh episodes revolve around both parents' desperate attempts to recover him.
• Mistaken for Racist: Played with in that Assane uses his wealthy but socially conscious targets' fear of this to his advantage.
  Auctioneer: I must admit, Monsieur Sernine, that I wasn't expecting someone like you as a buyer.
  Assane: (frowns) Like me...what do you mean?
  Auctioneer: (laughs nervously) Well—so young.
• Mistaken for Suicidal: Assane deliberately induces this with the prison nurse. Her belief that he is on the verge of doing himself in leads to her letting her guard down around him.
• Mock Millionaire: Assane attends the auction for the necklace disguised as a rich bidder named "Paul Sernine", complete with a fake Wikipedia page stating that he has a net worth of €576 million.
• Mood Dissonance:
  • Assane makes dinner for J'accuse while dancing to the Four Tops' "Reach Out (I'll Be There)." In another room, Pascal strangles Léonard to death.
  • If Johnny Nash's jaunty reggae song "I Can See Clearly Now" begins playing, it's a sign that something bad is about to happen to whoever is onscreen.
• Mood Whiplash: Assane pauses his interrogation with Dumont to have an emotional phone conversation with Claire about the state of his relationship with their son, and her worries about him.
• Motherhood Is Superior: Downplayed. Although Assane loves his son, his unstable lifestyle means that Claire is basically raising Raoul alone.
• Mundane Object Amazement: While searching Assane's apartment for evidence following Léonard's murder, Guédira is fascinated by his extensive collection of Arsène Lupin memorabilia. Laugier and Belkacem find this amusing.
• My Car Hates Me: The fact that you can drive a Ferrari in a video game doesn't mean you can drive one in Real Life. Rudy, one of the loan sharks in the first episode, learns this the hard way, leading to the arrests of him and his accomplices.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Assane, when he thinks that he's gotten Raoul killed.
  • Claire when she sees Assane returning with Raoul after the kidnapping, knowing full well that the decisions she made in the meantime will result in his arrest—or worse—should he enter her apartment.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The name of the Andrésy school that Assane attends after his father's death is taken from the maiden name of Arsène Lupin's mother.
  • "Raoul" is canonically Lupin's middle name, and one of his aliases.
  • "Horace Velmont," the name of the businessman whom Benjamin and Assane make up in order to fool Juliette, is another of Lupin's aliases.
    • So are "Jean Daspry" and "Guillaume Berlat," the names Assane gives to Fabienne upon initially meeting her.
  • The number "813," the name of a Lupin book, crops up a few times.
  • "Léonard" was the name of an assassin employed by Josephine Balsamo, one of the primary antagonists in the Lupin books.
  • Benjamin's yellow Fiat 500 is a reference to Lupin III.
  • "Gentleman Cambrioleur," the Jacques Dutronc song that plays as Assane ditches the cops in a speedboat in Chapter 10, was the theme tune to the Arsène Lupin TV series that aired in the early 1970s and starred Georges Descrières in the title role.
• The Nameless:
  • The old woman who gets swindled by Assane is named Agathe Van Der Meulen. Her name is never actually spoken in the series; it is only through the credits that she can be identified as such.
  • In a milder example, Claire is the only major character whose last name is not given.
  • We never do find out Philippe Courbet's real name.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Of the police officers, Guédira is the Nice while Laugier and Belkacem take turns being the Mean and the In-Between.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: The "chloroform in spray" part of the necklace heist doesn't work as intended so Assane's crew resorts to fighting and KO-ing the Louvre guards in the locker room and security camera monitoring room.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In order to get on Assane's good side, Dumont attempts to claim this about himself and Babakar (i.e. both did questionable things for the sake of their children).
• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: Assane and Claire's relationship gets put through the wringer across the series, from Assane ruining any chance of Claire being a professional violinist, to his cheating and lying, to his not spending enought time with Raoul, to Raoul getting kidnapped as a result of Assane's actions, to Claire betraying Assane to Hubert Pellegrini because she thinks it will save her son and then trying to cut Assane out of their lives. Even so, it's made clear by the end of Part 2 that they'll never really stop loving one another.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The last episode ends with Assane visiting his family one more time and then running off into the night before the police can catch up to him.
• 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.
• Oh, Crap!: A major one for Assane when he sees Léonard's burning BMW, which, he believes, his son is trapped inside.
• Old, Dark House: After kidnapping him, Léonard brings Raoul to a creepy abandoned hunting lodge in the countryside of Normandy.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Episode 1: Assane got his Louvre janitor job because the woman in charge originates from Senegal just like him so they easily bonded over it, he lied about his identity to the loan sharks and threw the necklace in a trash can in the struggle in order to retrieve it later as a janitor. And he expected them to betray him all along.
  • Episode 2: How Assane fakes suicide to get out of prison — he built himself a safety harness with a basketball basket's net so the hanging won't be fatal, and swallowed some meds to reduce his heartbeats.
  • Episode 8: Assane planned every bit of his supposedly "spontaneous" date with Juliette, up to faking her meeting with an investor and bribing the wait staff at the restaurant, as well as faking the heist of a painting at a museum.
• The Oner: Chapter 10 opens with an impressive two-minute-long tracking shot that variously showcases Philippe, Dumont, Hubert and Juliette preparing for the fundraising concert.
• The One That Got Away: Assane is this for Juliette.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Assane is generally a highly confident and capable person, so the few times he seems to genuinely lose the plot, it's a sign that something has gone incredibly wrong. The most obvious example is his absolute devastation when he thinks that Raoul has been burned to death in the boot of Léonard's car. When Belkacem arrives to arrest him, he's too upset to even fight it, and basically just lets himself be taken in.
  • When Claire finds out that her child has been kidnapped, her typically quiet and forbearing nature temporarily disappears as she has a public emotional breakdown and even gives something of a "Reason You Suck" Speech to Assane (as well as a pair of cops who, in her view, aren't taking the situation seriously enough). The next day, after she's made aware of Hubert Pellegrini's involvement in the kidnapping, Claire is desperate enough to pay a visit to him directly in order to negotiate Raoul's release, despite having spent the previous two decades doing her best to avoid any association with Assane's myriad of dangerous exploits.
  • Raoul is a stoic kid who is extremely difficult to faze. So when even he starts getting on Assane's case about taking forever with his revenge quest, Assane is legitimately perturbed.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: While interrogating Dumont about Babakar's imprisonment, Assane briefly loses his cool and yells about "my father," instantly revealing his identity.
• Opposites Attract: Assane is an outgoing, confident, charismatic and vengeful. Claire is forgiving, patient and prefers to stay away from danger. The two find one another irresistible.
  • Also applies physically—Assane is a tall and muscular Black man while Claire is small, blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
• Outgambitted: Happens all over the place. Generally Assane is the one doing it to his foes, but there are also moments where Hubert Pellegrini manages to outsmart him.
• Out-of-Character Alert: In episode 6, Assane figures out that Léonard is pretending to be Raoul in a text by making a deliberate error in reference to one of Lupin's stories^note specifically, referring to Lupin's daughter when in the story he had a son, since the real Raoul would immediately correct him.
• Pac Man Fever: Assane is seen playing video games with Raoul. The footage onscreen is Horizon Zero Dawn, a real game, but the show acts like it's a multiplayer game (it's not), and at the end of the scene Raoul claims that he headshotted Assane's character, despite the footage on the screen not being split-screen.
• Phony Newscast: Assane and Benjamin make one to convince Juliette that a Pissarro painting has been stolen from the Musée d'Orsay. How? By taking a video of the museum's curator discussing the 2019 Notre Dame fire in vague terms and then manipulating the text carousel to contain information on the "missing" painting.
• Plot Parallel: Chapter 6 contrasts Assane's quest to get Raoul back from Léonard with his theft of a violin in his teen years. In both cases, he winds up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
• Police Are Useless: With the exception of a few officers (e.g. Guédira), the cops aren't depicted as being particularly brilliant at their jobs.
• Pop Culture Holiday: In-Universe, the town of Étretat holds an annual festival to celebrate Maurice Leblanc's birthday.
• Pop the Tires: Assane does this to Belkacem's police car when escaping from her at the gas station. It's the only time he uses a gun in the series.
• The Power of Friendship: As talented as he is, Assane couldn't have accomplished much of what he did in Part 2 without Benjamin's help.
• Prank Date: Juliette gets stood up by the French-Canadian businessman "Horace Valmont," a character created by Assane and Benjamin.
• Prison Episode: Chapter 2.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Assane's (and Babakar's and Raoul's) surname is spoken aloud numerous times over the course of the series. The pronunciation is not "DEE-op," as native English speakers might suspect, but is instead closer to "Jopp."
• Public Secret Message: Assane writes a comment on a news story about himself under the name "Ganimard." When Guédira sees this, he immediately suspects that Assane is trying to contact him, and manages to find a clue in the apparent gibberish Assane has written.
• Punk in the Trunk: Léonard puts Raoul in the trunk of his car after kidnapping him.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes:
  • Played for Laughs when Raoul and Assane jokingly do this to Claire while trying to get her to come to Étretat with them.
  • Later Played for Drama when Claire begs Pascal to let her have a moment alone with Raoul in order to tip Assane off about Pascal and his minions' presence in her apartment.
• Put on a Prison Bus: Hubert and Dumont are last seen being arrested and driven to the police station in squad cars.
• Racing the Train: Assane does this during the pursuit of Léonard in episode 6, much to Guédira's horror.
• Razor Floss: How Pascal kills Léonard.
• "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: Assane's father encouraged his son to read when he offered him a Arsène Lupin novel, and Assane does the same with Raoul, who virtually stops playing video games as a result.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Monsieur Bouchard, the director of the Andrésy school, is a genuinely nice man who wants to see Assane succeed in life.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Charismatic, confident Assane is the red to Benjamin's more sarcastic, nervous blue.
  • Confrontational, aggressive Belkacem is the red to Guédira's logical, geeky blue.
  • Outgoing adrenaline junkie Juliette is the red to Claire's sentimental yet conflicted blue.
• Revenge by Proxy: Léonard targets Raoul, both to bait Assane and out of spite. After Assane rescues his son, he and Benjamin try to weaken Hubert by going after Juliette.
• Rewatch Bonus: In the prison flashback scene in the first episode, there's a brief glimpse of Léonard through the visiting room window... right before Assane's father is found dead as an apparent suicide, hanging in his cell. A few episodes later, in the present, Fabienne is murdered by Léonard who makes it look like a suicide by hanging. It's revealed in the final episode of Part 2 that Léonard was indeed the one who killed Babakar.
• Roofhopping: Assane does this to get away from Léonard at the beginning of Chapter 5.
• Running Gag: Fabienne's dog, J'Accuse, barks any time "Pellegrini" is said around him. This eventually becomes a major nuisance for Benjamin.
• Safe Zone Hope Spot: Turns out Benjamin's secret bunker wasn't so secret after all...because when he fled his shop following Léonard's murder, he accidentally left a card detailing its location out in the open. When the police are called to investigate the shop, they quickly find it, and use it to locate him and Assane.
• Scenery Porn: The aerial shots of Paris and Étretat certainly qualify as this.
• Ship Tease: A few moments between Belkacem and Guédira hint at the possibility for a developing romance between them.
• Show Within a Show: The Other Edition, which seems to be a play on the shows which can commonly be seen on the right-leaning French TV channel CNews.
• The Shrink: In a flashback sequence, Claire visits one to express her frustrations about her relationship with Assane.
• Significant Anagram: The aliases Assane takes, "Luis Perenna" and "Paul Sernine", are both anagrams of "Arsène Lupin".
• Silly Reason for War: Assane's untrue claim about why he was held up on the train to Le Havre certainly falls under this:
  Claire: Where were you the whole time?
  Assane: I got in a fight.
  Claire: What?
  Assane: Yeah, but listen. I met a guy who said that The Mysterious Traveller is the best Arsène Lupin story.
  Raoul: So? It's good.
  Assane: But it's not the best. So I explain it to the guy, nicely and politely. He got worked up, and took it all wrong.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Raoul is kidnapped by Léonard because of the actions Assane took against Hubert.
• Skipping School: Assane and Benjamin often did this together when they were teenagers.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: Both Claire and Juliette for Assane.
• Stolen by Staying Still: In order to convince Juliette that he means business, Assane has Benjamin fake a priceless Pissarro painting. The two send it to Juliette and create news alerts that suggest that it has been stolen from the Musée d'Orsay. Juliette falls for it completely.
• Strong Family Resemblance: According to Babakar, Assane takes after his deceased mother.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Assane's James Bond-esque lifestyle wreaks havoc on his family life: he and Claire have separated, he isn't around for his son as much as he wants to be, and worse, Pellegrini has Léonard kidnap Raoul at the end of Part 1 and nearly kills him, which further strains his relationship with Claire, who considers cutting Assane completely out her and Raoul's lives for the sake of their safety.
  • The chloroform spray Assane gives the loan sharks for the Louvre heist doesn't knock out the security guards right away, forcing them to beat the guards unconscious.
  • Assane assigns one of the loan sharks (who's into racing games) to be the getaway driver for the Louvre heist. However, come the actual heist, the guy gets a red Ferrari as a getaway car, that while fast and cool looking, ends up attracting the police when the heist goes south. Also, it turns out that video games are the only experience the dude has in driving fast cars, leading to the escape going wrong when he can't handle driving the Ferrari and ends up crashing into a statue under a glass skylight.
  • Assane is able to fool people with disguises, but when the police find out his identity and post his picture everywhere, he has difficulty fooling people with his costumes, especially with his distinctive features (his wide nose and his height).
  • In Chapter 10. Sure, Assane managed to clear his and Babakar's names (for Léonard's murder and the theft of the necklace, respectively), while also getting Hubert and Dumont arrested for conspiracy and collusion, but he's still wanted for multiple high-profile thefts that he was genuinely responsible for, meaning that he has to go into hiding after stopping to say goodbye to Claire and Raoul.
• Switching P.O.V.: The opening minutes of Chapter 6 show the events of Chapter 5 from Guédira's perspective, including his witnessing Léonard shoving Raoul into a BMW and driving off.
• Sword over Head: Technically a knife, but this is how Assane gets Hubert to confess to his crimes.
• Take It to the Bridge: A small footbridge crossing the Port d'Arsenal holds a special significance for Assane and Claire, as it was there where they chose Raoul's name (as such, they refer to it as "Raoul's Bridge"). After completing his revenge quest against Pellegrini, Assane arranges to meet both Claire and Raoul on the bridge before going into hiding.
• Technician vs. Performer: Assane is the Performer while Benjamin is the Technician.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: When the police try to interview those who had seen Assane personally, they wind up getting wildly different physical descriptions of him, much to their dismay.
• Time-Shifted Actor: The younger versions of Assane, Claire, Juliette and Benjamin in flashbacks are played by age-appropriate actors and actresses.
• Tricked into Signing: Babakar is made to believe that confessing to stealing the necklace will reduce his sentence. It doesn't.
• Trojan Horse: In Chapter 10, Assane is smuggled into the theater in one of a set of massive crates which, Philippe tells Dumont, are full of computer equipment. Dumont is suspicious because Technology Marches On, pointedly remarking that "this isn't The '80s anymore", but ultimately lets it go, much to the relief of the protagonists.
• Tunnel Network: The Catacombs of Paris, which Assane and Benjamin use to escape the police after Assane is framed for Leonard's murder.
• Undercover as Lovers: Guédira attempts to conceal his identity from Assane while the two are chasing Léonard and Raoul, and tells him that he needs to make a quick phone call to his wife. After Assane agrees, he calls Belkacem from a pub; when Assane comes near him, Guédira is forced to awkwardly tell Belkacem that he loves her.
• Unflinching Walk: Assane walks away from Léonard without looking back while the latter is being arrested by the cops at the Le Havre train station.
• Using You All Along: Unfortunately for Juliette, Assane's whole courtship of her was done with the express purpose of turning her against her father. And it works like a charm.
• Vehicular Kidnapping:
  • Subverted. To throw the police off the trail, Assane pretends to offload Dumont onto a van heading for a Parisian suburb, while actually bringing him to a room in the depths of City Hall (which is to say, the same building he'd kidnapped him from).
  • Unfortunately played straight with Léonard's kidnapping of Raoul. Then again in a more positive light when Assane uses a Van in Black to re-kidnap him from Hubert's goons.
• Visit by Divorced Dad: Assane takes Raoul on a walk and offers him the Arsène Lupin novel he got from his father at the end of the first episode. Later, he visits Raoul and plays video games with him.
  • These end when Claire, furious with Assane after Raoul's kidnapping and horrified by the danger that he has brought into their lives, bans him from contacting them. This doesn't last too long, though, since Claire can seemingly never stay upset with Assane for much time.
• Voice Changeling: Assane fools Dumont with a recording of his voice that has been doctored to sound identical to Hubert.
• What Does She See in Him?: In the 2006 flashbacks, Claire's therapist is flummoxed by her loyalty to Assane, given that he lies to her constantly, frequently blows off their engagements, and generally fails to meet even the lowest possible standard of being a good boyfriend.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Where did J'accuse go after Assane had to run away from his apartment when he was framed for Leonard's murder? Assane is seen with the dog right after exiting the apartment, but J'accuse disappears completely after this.
  • Omar Sy has revealed that J'accuse is fine.
• Where da White Women At?: Both of Assane's major relationships are with white women. In Juliette's case, this causes problems when Hubert bans the two from contacting each other.
• White Man's Burden: While she truly does mean well, some of Juliette's speeches about her foundation have fairly strong overtones of this.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Claire jokingly rejects three of Assane's more ridiculous suggestions for the name of their child ("Maurice" [after Leblanc], "Assane Junior" and, of course, "Arsène") before accepting "Raoul."
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: When in prison, Assane goads another inmate to stab him with a shiv, so he can get to the infirmary and talk to the inmate who shared his father's cell.
• Xanatos Gambit: After kidnapping Dumont, Assane gives him the chance to come clean. Seemingly outplayed by his foe, Assane bugs Dumont's house and makes preparations to release the information he's got on the crooked cop for his misdeeds.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Assane after Léonard's death and Benjamin after he is implicated in Assane's situation.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Prior to Raoul's kidnapping, this was the closest Assane got to coming clean to Claire about his activities.

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