Review for Season 1

I watched this out of curiosity, subtitled to English as I like Karine Vanasse, the camera loves her and she is wholly believable. In this she is poised and convincing as a power-player and deal-maker.

The acting from all the cast is pretty good, the plot develops after a slow start and several of the characters fall into black holes of their own making. The group of male friends at the start are completely atomised at the end, and only one emerges unscathed, triumphant.

Most of the characters are pretty horrible people, selfish, destructive to their friends and family, and I did start to wonder why somebody wrote this (to fill empty schedules, obviously and win some Canadian specific funding) and why I was watching it.

Is drama alone enough justification for the frustrated house-wife going off with a female porn-star and destroying her family? For excruciating sexual harassment at work by both men and women, calculated rather than loving relationships, blatant and hidden affairs, and sadly unbelievable and preposterous BDSM sex scenes between the lynch-pin characters, the power couple Francois and Evelyne, a power play that turns nasty when Evelyne seeks to have the father of her child, Francois destroyed financially and go to jail, because he was jealous of her success at work. If you say yes, this is the series for you. But I wouldn't really call it entertainment, it's not so much drama as a soap-opera as it limps along with multiple story-lines, and plays more like a manual in unhappiness, deceit and toxicity.

This show is like a reminder of why you shouldn't bother dating, or marrying, or having kids as unhappiness, betrayal and despair will stalk you, unless you are lucky enough to date an unpretentious bar-tender or civil servant (both adorable characters) - the rest of these awful people should be dropped on a desert island and see how far their finance knowledge gets them.

I can't watch Season 2, they all deserve each other.