In Place season 2: Jean-Pascal Zadi president! [critique]

The series returns even funnier and more biting in a new season available today on Netflix.

A year and a half ago, following the success of Simply Black, Jean-Pascal Zadi blew up the Netflix catalog with a funny, generous and incisive parody series, In Place. In six episodes, the show told the story of the rise to the Elysée of Stephane Blé, a somewhat loser suburban educator who found himself propelled into the world of politics after a media buzz. A pure pleasure for fans of embarrassing humor (cringe as they say in the US) in French.

In season 2, which has just arrived on the platform, while French political news is at best murky, Blé is now president, but this is not the end of the road for him. Rather the beginning of the troubles. The neophyte faces enormous challenges and he makes one blunder after another. Nobody trusts him. Neither the people, nor the political class, nor his wife. And he must win the legislative elections, without a party, to be able to apply his slogan “eat well, pay nothing” who brought him to power.

A tense reception from the Queen of Denmark, discontent in Guadeloupe, conflicts with his political partners and the opposition, incompetence, marital problems, distrust of the media, betrayal and the threat of insurrection: nothing is spared the new tenant of the Elysée who must dig deep inside himself to take on the presidential role. A breathtaking program for a season 2 ofIn Place better and more written and more rhythmic, where season 1 suffered from some downtime, especially in its second half.

Zadi presides, but he does not govern alone. We find with delight all the small roles that make En Place so special: Eric Judor as a problematic advisor, Fadily Camara as an uncontrollable First Lady, Marina Foïs as a hardcore eco-leader, Pierre-Emmanuel Barré as a far-right leader or Benoit Poelvoorde as a Machiavellian PS executive. We are just as happy to welcome the new faces in the cast, including Alain Chabat as the outgoing president, Raphael Quenard as a descendant of a slave trader and our favorite Vimala Pons (we'll let you discover her role).

In the Ukrainian series Servant of the peoplewhich has some similarities with In Placea history teacher became president of the republic. He was played by an actor named… Volodymyr Zelensky, who actually took over the supreme office a few months later and has been facing the invasion of Russia for two years. A fate that we do not wish on JP Zadi, as the exercise of the State appears to be a poisoned chalice for non-professional politicians. Stéphane Blé can testify to this…

Parody, caricature, farce? Yes and no. In Place plays the humor and nonsense card to the fullest, but does not fail to mention serious and thorny subjects, such as the chlordecone scandal in the Antilles, the rise of the extreme right and the excesses of the political-media system. And we will be in the streets to demand season 3, clearly teased by the finale of season 2, if Netflix makes the mistake of not listening to the people.