Sumith Prasad
Amazon Prime Video’s mystery series ‘Three Pines’ follows the death of CC de Poitiers, a celebrated writer who moved to Three Pines, Quebec, to write her next book. CC dies after getting electrocuted. Although the local police officer Yvette Nichol and the witnesses of the incident conclude that CC’s death is an accident, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache garners enough evidence to prove that the writer was killed. Since the first two episodes of the show follow CC’s death, her relationships, and her past, we have tried to find out whether she is based on a real writer. SPOILERS AHEAD.
CC de Poitiers is a Fictional Writer
The character was conceived by Louise Penny, whose novels serve as the source texts of the show, for her novel titled ‘A Fatal Grace,’ the second book of the ‘Three Pines’ novel series. Penny conceived CC as an “awful” person intentionally since the victim in the first novel of the series titled ‘Still Life,’ was a loveable character. “My first victim from Still Life was a very likable character, so the question becomes, why would someone kill someone so beloved? By the next book, I wanted a character that everyone wanted to kill. The whole town wants to kill her,” Penny told Vanity Fair about the origin of the character.
The characters in Penny’s novels often deal with intricate emotional turmoil and CC is no different. Since she had a very troubled childhood, CC blamed her mother Eleanor, and even killed the latter when she had a chance. When her husband Richard and daughter Crie try their best to keep their family afloat despite several obstacles and difficulties, CC outrightly avoids them and has an affair with her photographer Saul Petrov. These intricacies make her a typical Louise Penny character.
Be Calm Based is Not a Real Book
Although there are several books published with the name “Be Calm,” none of them is the same book shown in ‘Three Pines.’ In the show, CC writes ‘Be Calm’ to become a celebrated philosopher of her generation. She aspires to make an enormous amount of money to be financially stable with the sales of the book since her husband Richard nearly becomes broke. CC’s ‘Be Calm’ is not very different from the uncountable self-help books that get released in contemporary times. Rather than trying to offer any life lesson through her book, CC tries to use ‘Be Calm’ as a stepping stone to her stardom.
In addition, ‘Be Calm’ is connected to her mother Eleanor’s friendship group which also included Bea Mayer, Kaye Thompson, and Emilie Longpré, who were collectively known as “BKLM.” Armand Gamache reads “BKLM” as “Be Calm,” which helps him connect the writer to the surviving trio of Eleanor’s group. Although CC hated her mother and even killed her, she maintained a complicated relationship with Eleanor, which is evident in the way the writer protected a La Bien ball Eleanor made. Writing a book titled ‘Be Calm’ must have been CC’s way of reconnecting with her dead mother.
Read More: Three Pines Episode 1 and 2 Recap and Ending, Explained
