Sumith Prasad
Amazon Prime Video’s thriller series ‘Three Pines’ revolves around Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who ends up in the Quebec town of Three Pines to investigate a series of murders. Along with these murder investigations, Gamache investigates the disappearance of Blue Two-Rivers, an indigenous woman who has been missing for a long while. Gamache promises the Two-Rivers family that he will try his best to find out what really happened to the young woman and fulfills the same by discovering her dead body, which gives Blue’s family much-needed closure. The investigation, however, ends up threatening Gamache’s life severely. As the eighth episode of the show ends with alarming developments, the viewers must be concerned about the detective’s fate. Well, let us share our thoughts concerning the same! SPOILERS AHEAD.
What Happened to Armand Gamache?
In the ninth episode of the show, Gamache discovers the dead bodies of Blue and her partner Tommy. He discovers several bullets with dead bodies and sends the same to a lab to determine the gun the bullets are fired from. The results astound Gamache since the bullets that killed Blue were fired from the gun of Chief Inspector Pierre Arnot, Gamache’s best friend for forty years. He confronts Pierre about the same and realizes that the latter killed Blue for filming his involvement in the illegal tobacco trade with his accomplice Dan Chowski, another police officer. When Pierre realizes that Gamache discovered Chowski’s involvement in the murders, he kills his subordinate officer and tries to pin down the two murders on him.
Gamache, who knows Pierre for over four decades, asks him to stop lying to him. Although Pierre is his best friend, he doesn’t try to turn a blind eye to the former’s actions and murders and tries to convince the murderer to surrender. Pierre, fearing that his relationship with his partner Estelle and his police career will get destroyed if he surrenders, shoots at Gamache. The first season of the show ends with the Chief Inspector trying his best to stay alive. His subordinates Isabelle Lacoste and Jean-Guy Beauvoir arrive at the scene in no time and try to help him as well.
Considering the closing shot of the season, Gamache hasn’t died yet. Since Isabelle and Jean-Guy are there to help him, he may get the required medical attention within the window of hope. If that’s the case, Gamache may survive the bullet wound and stay alive. There is a possibility that the detective gets shot right outside the “chest kill zone,” near the right shoulder, which may give him a bit more to fight for his life. Pierre must have even shot Gamache out of the region intentionally not to kill his best friend but to stop him. If the detective manages to stay alive for a short period, Isabelle and Jean-Guy may succeed in bringing an ambulance into the secluded region.
‘Three Pines’ is a television adaptation of mystery writer Louise Penny’s ‘Inspector Gamache’ novels. If the show is faithful to the source novels, we may not need to worry about Gamache’s death just yet. In the novels, Gamache doesn’t die amid an investigation and even grows old enough to retire from the police force. Thus, the detective’s fight for life can be considered as a typical cliffhanger at the end of the first season. Although Amazon Prime Video hasn’t yet renewed the show for a second season, there are enough novels in Penny’s series that can serve as the source texts of a possible sophomore round.
If the second season materializes, we may see Gamache surviving the bullet wound and staying alive. He may capture Pierre and bring him to justice for the sake of the promise he made to Blue Two-Rivers’ family.
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