Balthazar on TF1: The unexpected finale of the 4th season, the child of Maya … The designer tells us everything

After a special episode last Thursday, during which Balthazar was followed by a video-documentary team at the Institute of Forensics, the successful detective series, which remains a hit on TF1 from week to week, continues tonight with the first part of the finale. The double episode of the 4th season, which finally explores the family past and the hero’s childhood.

In this case, producer and screenwriter Clotilda Jamin, who co-created Balthazar Clelia with Constantine, returns with us on the highlights of Season 4, and especially the arrival of Camille Costes and Olivia Vesinet. And it tells us more about this unexpected finale, where a pathologist camped by Tomer Sisley returns to his childhood village to investigate the case of a slaughtered cow … and the death of one of his oldest friends.

AlloCiné: The 4th season of Baltahzar was clearly celebrated with the arrival of Constance Labe as Camille Costes. How did you imagine this new character? What did you want to do with Camille?

Clotilda Jamin : Our main desire, first of all, was to redo Helen. And it was not easy, because Helen played a very important role in the series, a relationship with Balthazar, which was based on a romantic relationship between a dog and a cat. We simply rejected this because we knew that changing the romantic relationship with Ellen in the hearts of the viewers was seen as a betrayal of a romantic relationship with another character.

We said to ourselves from the beginning: “The relationship between these two must be extremely different.” So we started with a friendly movie relationship, an almost brotherly relationship between Camille and Balthazar. Since Balthazar and Helen had nothing in common and that was why this chemistry was between them, we wanted to create somewhere for Alter Ego Balthazar that would almost be his mirror.

Camille is quite lonely, bold, has a slightly sour side, but has a gentle heart deep in the heart. He is a character with a lot of humor, quite modern, which we really created as a mirror of the hero.

And unlike Helen, Camille is also shrouded in mystery. Want a new red thread that is not focused, this time, on Balthazar?

We wanted to have two loneliness. Balthazar is one who is somehow locked in loneliness. We wanted Camille to be another form of loneliness. This is a kind of lucky Luke, he arrives, we do not know how long he will stay, nor where he comes from.

We understand that something happened that cut him off from the rest of the world. It connects very tightly. We wanted to stage a meeting of these two loneliness and see what it was all about. This is a secret that will continue into Season 5. We will understand why Camille is Camille.

Balthazar and Camille had a brief affair a few years ago. Should we take this as a sign that at least something between them can happen one day? Or do you deny this opportunity to the authors?

At least what we did not want to happen. The fact that this happened somehow closes the debate. And we laughed so much that Balthazar remembered and not the other way around. That once he does not hold the reins of the tempter.

Then the rest, I do not want to talk about it. This is what salts the principle of the series: I do not know the fact. We can be very good friends and it can get out of hand, or vice versa we can be friends and nothing can happen. Everything is very open I think.

Another novelty of the season is the arrival of Katerina Mourinho in the role of Olivia Vesinet, who comes to evaluate Balthazar at the IML. Did the introduction of this character give you a pre-determined “fall” of Balthazar, which is losing more and more space in connection with the episodes of the 4th season?

We wanted Balthazar to get a professional alter ego. He devotes his time to the fact that he is the King of Forensic Medicine, that he is the youngest director of the Paris Medical-Legal Institute, he is truly God in his kingdom. And we found it quite interesting in front of him someone who represents the authority of the institution, whom he never respects because he is 5 years old mentally (laughs).

In addition, he is someone who, in terms of the profession, is at his level. Not necessarily the one who wins against him. And the sternness of the character, and its formal side, is brilliant in terms of comedy. There was great potential.

Will Katerina Mourinho be in the series for the 5th season?

We are currently working on the 5th season, I can not say anything about that. It is too early to talk about this.

Was it hard to find Lisa and Maya’s place in the fourth season when the common theme of Lisa’s death was resolved in the third season?

Lisa (Pauline Schwiler), for us, is one of the mainstays of the series. In fact it is Balthazar. But what was interesting this year was the redesign of Lisa’s character to treat her differently. As much as it is a projection of Balthazar, what he imagines for Lisa develops according to his mental state. And in Season 4 he is clearly not in top form.

So Lisa takes another form. We are really good and bad demons on every shoulder. And we went to the wrong side, it was very interesting.

As for Maya (Leslie Medina), she still has a lot to play with. Season 4 shows this. Maya is not the only one who killed Lizzie, or Balthazar’s ex-wife. This woman is also carrying her child. And when we talk about the renewal season, the renewal is really announced with the birth of this baby. The notion of a child must be challenged at some point. And Maya represents that.

Season 4, like previous seasons, still has a lot of very strong special episodes. We think of an episode on a plane, a hostage-taking episode, or even an episode in which a documentary team follows Balthazar to the IML. Is it the spirit of the series to reconsider the genres of police or medical fiction or imposed figures and to wrap them in Balthazar sauce?

The spirit of the series is really fun writing. We are five or six screenwriters, we work in groups, we write episodes together. And we always start with “Does this idea excite you?”. And enthusiasm often comes from very powerful objects, strong concepts, powerful systems. And, of course, these concepts are often already covered because there are so many series, so many stories being told.

But what makes us happy is putting our characters in very strong situations and seeing what happens. And that gives us footage that is sometimes a script challenge, like an episode that happens almost entirely on a plane. The hostage-taking was also, and above all, a desire to see Balthazar as a professor. But he had to be integrated into the story, so something powerful enough had to happen in this university environment for the viewer to want to watch the whole episode.

But, yes, we want to play with genres, with codes. For the screenwriter, this is an incredible playing field. Especially since Balthazar is an ubiquitous character that allows us to take him anywhere. We could not do a plane episode with any of the characters in the series. But he has this almost superhero side sometimes. We are very happy with him.

The last double episode takes us to the village where Balthazar grew up, finally meeting his parents. Is that what you have long wanted to study?

This is basically what Tomer told us. Of course, we wanted to go into the thriller at the end of the season and study the psychology of the character. And Tomer said to us, “But in the depths of our hearts, we do not know where it’s coming from. Could we not trace Balthazar’s past?”

So we came up with the idea of ​​this village and going back to the village, which allowed us to get to know the character in depth. He is very much in the present, in the image he portrays, and it was interesting for us to explain why he is like that. I really like this finale because it really is the culmination of the season in every sense of the word.

Without saying much, recent episodes have also called into question the mental health of Balthazar, who has suffered several setbacks during the season. Basically, that’s not what the series tells us from the beginning: that Balthazar is on the verge and madness awaits?

Is there a standard? This is also the question we ask this character and TV series. Everyone can change one day. And, indeed, Balthazar will move.