Les Bracelets rouge on TF1: “It was quite difficult to bring this mourning to life”… How did the writers of the series imagine the return of Benjy?

The Season 4 finale of Red Bracelets marked the death of Benjy (Léo Lorléac’h), a teenager suffering from a severe degenerative disease that left him confined to a chair.

This young man, both charming and optimistic, was finally able to fulfill his last wish before succumbing to his illness. The choice of script, with which the actor was in complete harmony.

“I’d be a little disappointed if he didn’t die“, Leo Lorleac, Benji’s translator, explained to us during the Season 4 broadcast.I think this is well done and makes sense. He had to die, it was inevitable, we knew it. That was the whole message of the season. And at the same time, we say it from the beginning without stopping too much. The main thing is everything else, his relationship with others, what brings them“.

And if the faithful of the program thought that they would never see the character again, the authors of Red Bracelets decided to prepare a pleasant surprise for them for the final season.

Indeed, Leo Lorleac is definitely present in this new episode, despite Benjy’s disappearance. Indeed, the latter is always there in the form of an appearance on screen, thanks to a very strong bond with Emma (Cally Boyson).

But why did the writers decide to bring Benjy back? We asked Marie Madinier, one of the screenwriters of Red Bracelets.

“It made it pretty clear what Emma was going through.”

Bringing back a dead character to a series is never easy, and Benjy’s return sparked a lot of discussion among the writing team, as Marie Madinier tells us.

“We talked a lot with the authors. The questioning was quite in relation to Emma’s character and said it was part of hospital life. And we’ve seen in previous seasons that sometimes there are characters we love who die. It was quite difficult to experience this mourning because we had established a love story between Benjy and Emma in the previous season.“.

Therefore, the authors thought about how they were going to show the absence in the picture and how this mourning would affect Emma’s health.

On this topic, the screenwriter explains: “How does this ghost drive her to neglect her cares and put herself in danger? She has a form of temptation, sheltering Benjy’s memory, even if it means forgetting to be among the living. That’s why we decided to make him a ghost. It made it pretty clear what Emma was going through, but also that Benjy was a form of refuge for her. It’s a comforting refuge from the past compared to the present, which is quite troubling for him “.

Therefore, Benjy’s appearance helps highlight the emotional challenges Emma faces, while emphasizing the deep bond that binds them together even after death.