Les Papillons Noirs - Season 1

Late author of a successful first novel, Adrien Winckler has his back to the wall. He struggles to give birth to a second opus, to the chagrin of his companion Nora who wishes to start a family and is exasperated to see him stall. Stuck in jobs as a feather-lender, he agrees to write the memoirs of Albert, an atrabilair and frighteningly intelligent old man. His client turns out to be a former serial killer, ready to recount the crimes he committed forty years earlier with his partner Solange.

Albert recites the morbid list of his crimes, gradually drawing the contours of a wild ride through France, made up of murders and sex. Adrien is torn between the disgust he feels at the old man's apparent detachment and his fascination for this story which makes him find an unexpected inspiration. As he tries to put an end to this perverse relationship, his publisher offers him a new contract, convinced that this text is his new novel.

Obsessed with his usurpation of Albert's story, Adrien plunges back into his old demons, between alcohol, uncontrolled aggressiveness and attraction to Nastya, a provocative painter whom he meets thanks to Albert. Meanwhile, Carrel, a policeman esteemed by his superiors despite his alcoholism and his provocations, leads an unofficial investigation into the crimes of Albert and his companion Solange, to which he seems intimately linked.

The actors in this macabre dance between memory and lies begin to lose their footing without realizing it. Adrien, devoured by a writing intoxication, reassures himself in Nastya's arms. The policeman Carrel, intimately linked to this case, confronts Albert with his past as a murderer. The latter reveals crucial points of his murderous odyssey, with irreparable consequences.

Albert, physically weakened and cornered by the policeman Carrel, comes to the end of his story, and reveals a last secret to Adrien, the most intimate and the most shocking of all, throwing a raw light on his genealogy, which pushes the latter to commit an irreparable act. Despite this dramatic confrontation, a year later, Adrien, now a father, enjoyed success with the publication of Les Papillons noirs. Despite public recognition, the writer is eaten away by the secrets he carries within him and refuses any contact with his mother.

A year after Albert's death, the questions surrounding his personality and that of Solange remain numerous. But suddenly, the answers explode in Adrien's face, overturning everything he thought he knew about this criminal odyssey that has become an intimate obsession. At the same time, policeman Carrel is found by his colleague, a discovery that puts her on the trail of Adrien. He sees his world crumble: his mother holds the keys to the bloody mysteries of his past.