Un Village Français 6.09

Le Crépuscule avant la nuit

or The Dusk Before the Night

Bériot talks to Anselme, Suzanne, and Antoine in private and tells them about what he was ordered to do. They reluctantly agree to find the men of the militia guilty. The verdict will be announced the next day and the executions will occur soon thereafter.

Bériot goes to see Raymond Schwartz to get wood for the coffins. He doesn't tell Schwartz what it is for but Schwartz figures out what is happening. He gets Bériot to promise that Jeanine won't get anything worse than a fine and in return he promises to keep his mouth shut.

The party happens that night. The American commander doesn't like it and he lets Bériot know he doesn't like it. The war isn't over yet. He tells Bériot that the French need to police the area. Bériot deals with that by hiring Loriot to be the new chief of police. He's the only policeman left whose hands are relatively clean.

Anselme returns with some of his men including Raoul Germain. They beat up a couple of the men of the militia. Antoine gets angry when he finds out about it. 

Suzanne and Antoine dance at the party. Ézéchiel Cohn gets Rita to dance with him while his daughter looks after her son. Three American soldiers are at the party. One of them is African American. Some comments are made but nothing happens. Antoine dances with Alban's sister. They make out after dancing. 

Suzanne sees her husband and his cousin, with whom he lives, coming to the party. Suzanne accuses her husband's cousin of telling the Germans where she and Antoine were. A couple people step forward and seem ready to back Suzanne up but then Loriot steps forward and explains that it was someone else, a neighbor who betrayed them to the Germans, that day.

Bériot goes home drunk. He talks to Lucienne. He wants her but she doesn't want him. He goes looking for more wine to drink. He goes into the room where Kurt is sleeping and smothers him with a pillow, until he is dead.

Thoughts

Edmond, Daniel and Hortense, and Marchetti are not in this episode. 

This was a very dark episode. It got ugly at times but no one got killed until the very end. I could not enjoy the festive mood. I don't think the audience was supposed to feel good about most of the events in this episode. It was dark episode but it was also very good.

Will the sentencing and executions happen in the next episode? I'm not sure. I thought they would happen in this episode. How much uglier can it get?