It feels like an ironically apt – or possibly aptly ironic, who knows any more – time to be showing a blackly comic Belgian drama on UK television. The 52% who reckon Albion does fine without imports and other foreign muck presumably won’t be watching, and the other 48% aren’t much in the mood for laughing.
But The Out-Laws is here (More4). The story of five sisters, four of whom are planning to murder Jean-Claude, the obnoxious husband of the fifth, opened last night with a feature-length episode that did fine work establishing its characters, its plot and a man so perfectly and realistically monstrous that you can only hope that when the sisters do finally bump him off, it is in the most protracted and painful way possible.
Jean-Claude is a man who preys on weakness. He has married the gentlest of the sisters and rejoices in making her and the lives of everyone around her as miserable as possible with his effortless, ceaseless cruelties. In one achingly credible scene round the family table on New Year’s Eve, he tells the youngest, prettiest sister she “has her brains in her arse” and when the oldest, Eva, announces she has some news, he cackles, “You’re pregnant!”, when the whole family knows she is infertile.
He is dead by the time the drama starts. Flashbacks explain further family secrets, motives and show the first failed attempt to kill him – an arson attack by Eva and Birgit on Jean-Claude’s chalet, though he has left by the time it explodes – while in the present day, two insurance men are beginning an investigation into his death, in the hope that they can avoid a payout that will bankrupt their family firm.
The family closeness, the everyday tensions and contentment, the sense of layered dynamics evolved over years, along with the power one person can have to ignite murderous hatred in the collective breast, is beautifully done. There’s a powerful naturalism at work that – even if the “comic” bits don’t always fully translate – speaks a universal language and will keep you coming back for more.
