After a frenetic television winter which was turned upside down by a cabalistic serial killer, two murderers of racialized joggers and several ricin poisonings, it’s easy on the heart – and on the nerves! – to settle into the soft second season of Raspberry timean excellent miniseries whose 10 episodes are currently sparkling on Videotron’s Club illico.
Raspberry time, it’s beautiful, it’s touching, it’s comforting and it’s beautifully poetic. I think I liked the second season better than the first, which was put online in spring 2022, then resumed on TVA last fall.
In this second chapter, which begins on Christmas Eve, a few months after the finale of the initial season, authors Florence Longpré and Suzie Bouchard delve deep into the past of the members of the dysfunctional Conley-Daveluy family, exposing several well-kept secrets, including a major one about matriarch Martha Conley (Micheline Lanctôt), a stupid woman who is very harsh with those close to her.
The second episode, dedicated to Martha and her children, moves back to 1976 and gives us a window into the complicated, and quite twisted, dynamics within this English-speaking clan rooted near a field in the Eastern Townships. It’s honestly well acted and well written.
These “flashbacks” resemble sequences from Fragments where the protagonists of today looked at each other in significant events from their past.
Yes, there is drama in Raspberry time, but never too strong or too heavy. There are evocative silences, magnificent dream sequences and lots of music, oscillating between So Whatby Pink, and Song about my funny life, by Véronique Sanson. I buy all of this.
Six months have passed since the sudden death of farmer John Conley (Anthony Lemke), who bequeathed his shares in the family farm to his wife Élisabeth Daveluy (amazing Sandrine Bisson), at first little interested in the land. , even less to its immigrant workers. That will change thanks to the handsome Francisco (Edison Ruiz), whose heart always beats for Élisabeth and vice versa.
With the help of her brother-in-law Denis (Paul Doucet), Élisabeth built a gigantic greenhouse for growing organic fruits and vegetables. This risky investment has put them up to their necks in debt, which displeases the complaining Martha, always at loggerheads with her daughter-in-law Elisabeth.
And things don’t get better on Christmas Eve, the first without John, a celebration that destabilizes the Conleys, torn between the desire to preserve their traditions and that of looking to the future and creating new rituals.
The character of Denis, the fifty-year-old with Bluetooth permanently stuck to his left ear, is gaining ground in Raspberry time 2. His married life with Boris (Philippe Racine) collapses and poor Denis, like Élisabeth, is looking for his bearings.
Toured in English, French, Spanish and sign language (the character of William is deaf), Raspberry time is one of the rare multilingual series in Quebec.
It is also one of the rare productions to take place in the whiteness and coldness of the Quebec winter. Moreover, the first two Mexican employees of Conley Gardens, who live in a white trailer, arrived in the middle of January to set up the new greenhouse. They have never seen snow or put on big warm boots. It’s fun and touching to see them run on a Crazy Carpet or play king of the mountain like kids.
Raspberry time 2 also travels to Mexico to visit the families of seasonal workers to show how the wives and children live with the long exile of their men in Quebec.
Like 5e Rankit is not so much the agri-food intrigues that captivate us in Raspberry time 2.
What moves us are the inner dramas of the characters, what they do not reveal and what we discover about them over the course of 10 one-hour episodes.
Junior Conley (Elijah Patrice), Elisabeth’s eldest son, is given an important piece of the story. Lost since his father’s death, Junior dropped out of school and has an unhealthy relationship with food. Elisabeth’s second boy, William Conley (Xavier Chalifoux), the one who is deaf, is still as endearing and charming. It’s good to see, on Quebec television, families who love each other, despite their differences and conflicts.
Speaking of family, I had a bit of a hard time, two years after the first season of Raspberry time, to unravel the four Conley sisters, namely Rachel, Estelle, Maureen and Peggy. Which was which again? It still recovers quite quickly.
In the third episode, winter gives way to spring in a naughty montage filled with pheromones and blooming buds. Behind the camera, Guillaume Lonergan (Audrey came back) succeeds Philippe Falardeau, and the transition goes smoothly.
There will be no third season of Raspberry time. So this is the last one. To quote the cantankerous Martha, “we don’t always do what we want in life.” It’s true. Because we would have happily served ourselves a third serving of this sweet series, with the perfect dose of acidity.
reference: www.lapresse.ca