Review: Spotless Episode 1
One of the eye catching sets I witnessed at New York Comic Con 2016 was definitely the Spotless interactive crime scene area. There were crime scene cleaners walking around, encouraging attendees to pose in fake pools of blood and chat about the premise of the show. While I didn’t pose at the crime scene (If I did, I would’ve passed out from con exhausting), I was hooked on the premise of the show.
Spotless is about a crime scene cleaner Jean Bastières (Played by Marc-André_Grondin), a family man with a troubling past that he hides from his children (Played by Jemma Donovan & Nially Hayes) and wife (Played by Miranda Raison). Jean has his world shaken when his estranged brother Martin (Played by Denis Ménochet) visits Jean with a favor. Martin’s criminal life style and attitude towards Jean’s clean family image causes Jean to slowly unravel his traumatic memories and forces him to associate with the criminal underworld that he was a part of before he used to clean up after it.
The first episode of Spotless does an excellent job of introducing the key characters and the drama that surrounds Jean Bastières. Jean is skillful crime scene cleaner that helps him cope with his past experiences, but now services a more sinister purpose. Martin appears in Jean’s life with a favor of helping him remove drugs from a dead body, a dead body that Martin has stored in a refrigerator he has drive across the country. Jean despises Martin’s reckless nature and crashing his way back into Jean’s life with an unexpected task, but their brotherly bond keeps them together during the roughest of moments and Jean will go to extreme lengths to protect Martin. Jean is forced help his brother and get involved with the criminals that want the drugs and deal with keeping a false appearance to hide has wife and children.
Jean Bastières is an interesting character that only gets more fleshed out as the series progresses, his childhood experience that traumatized both brothers slowly reveals itself and it adds more complications to their situation. I highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys black comedies and crime dramas such as Dexter and Breaking Bad. There are moments filled with a mix of tension and comedy that works well to show us how much trouble Jean has gotten himself into because of his bumbling brother.
You can catch the latest episodes of Spotless on the Esquire Network or catch it here at the Esquire website.