Hotel Beau Séjour: Season 1/ Episode 10 “De nacht” [Series Finale] – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

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I’m very conflicted on how this ends and not because of how great the ride has been, but because of who is waiting for us at the final stop. (The killer is revealed below in the footnotes)

Episode Focus: It Was You All Along

After obstruction from Alexander, Charlie’s confession, Sophie drugging Kato, Vanderkerk being the last one to see her, and then the whole “White” thing, the person who killed Kato was [note]Marcus[/note]. His motif? He doesn’t like cheaters. Well, it goes a little deeper than that. He doesn’t like cheaters who remind him of the affair his wife had. So, with Kato being so promiscuous at the Shooter’s Festival, something in him snapped. He, for almost the entire night, hunted her down and then brought her to the hotel. To the exact hotel room his wife would cheat on him in and with him seeing his wife’s face, not Kato’s he hits her like he probably wanted to hit his wife. That’s how she dies. We see everything leading up to it and the actual act itself.

We don’t, unfortunately, see what led up to Sophia and Leon’s death nor get to see what led up to Claudia De Wit’s death, which he is also responsible for.

Commentary

I have a serious problem with it being revealed that [note]Marcus[/note] is the killer. If only because it seems like a “Gotcha!” sort of twist vs. on we have long been building to. Now, maybe my taste in shows like Twisted and How to Get Away with Murder has me thinking that we need to intimately know the killer before it is revealed. That when you are misled, there should still be a trail of breadcrumbs to follow which makes you feel like an idiot for not grasping that so and so was the killer. But I don’t feel like that is the case here.

When it comes to the killer, who is hidden behind the notes above, they shut down any sense that it could have been them early on thanks to the sleep machine alibi. From there, his character was as minor as Renee or Cyril. There weren’t any reason to look his way. Yeah, he had a temper, but he suspected his wife of cheating on him with her ex-husband! Wouldn’t you be pissed about that? Wouldn’t you piss on his desk, if you could get away with it? Much less, ruin his life to make him undesirable? Hell, even if it meant he drunk himself to death?

However, being that I’m currently of sound mind and body, I can’t imagine a festering feeling that would lead me to kill innocent children just because they are being flighty. Especially one which not only leads to murder but me being so meticulous that I leave the body squeaky clean. For a crime of passion, that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Subplot 1: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Kato & Charlie)

With her murder solved, traces of Kato’s time in limbo begin to disappear as does the ability to see her. At least in human form. But one last thing remains, or person rather: Charlie. As you can understand, the need to see why Charlie gave such a performance in confessing to a crime he didn’t commit is something you’d want to be explained. Yet, there is no explanation. Nothing to take seriously anyway. He just was feeling insecure so he decided, rather than kill himself, why not completely ruin his future by being associated with perhaps the biggest scandal the area has ever heard. Something which will likely force him to move far, far away.

Commentary

Another thing which frustrates me about this finale – Charlie’s weak ass explanation as to why he did everything he did. For honestly, I’m of the mindset to believe that some writing decisions were made simply to throw us off. Not to create rich and developed characters, but just to mess with people’s theories. But, refocusing on Charlie’s weak explanation, honestly, it made for a crappy way to end the series. Especially because he is the last one to see Kato and he doesn’t provide her a good send off. This girl who, with binge watching this show, you get absorbed into the life of, and she doesn’t go out with a roar, one which leaves you weeping as she leaves, but a whimper? She forgives Charlie for being an idiot, perhaps sleeps with him, and perhaps is reincarnated as a horse soon after?

Overall, I wanted to like this show and I did. That is until the reveal of who the killer was and it made it seem all the theories you could have come up with was for naught. Not because, in my mind, you didn’t take note of one thing, or this weird act, or another, but because the writers wanted to surprise you. Hence that seriously ridiculous Charlie confession, which had so many holes in it, and then suddenly, someone barely focused on at all, in the grand scheme of things, is the killer.

I’m not sure if I will do a season review for this, but based on the killer alone, more than likely this will be labeled negatively.