Streaming series review - Good People

Good People (Des Gens Bien) *** (out or 5) This French/Belgian miniseries plays out as a droll dramedy arising from a scam. The title denotes the fact that good people can do uncharacteristically bad things with what seem like good intentions. They can also rope in other good people who mean well.

We start with watching Tom (Lucas Meister) stage an auto accident in which he barely survives and his wife, Linda (Berangere McNeese), is burned to death. We soon learn why he did it – extreme financial hardship. Then about halfway through the six episodes, we learn how. The motive is to cash in on a big life insurance policy, but events, as they must, soon spin out of control.

One cop, Philippe (Michael Abiteboul), smells a rat, suspecting the accident wasn’t what it seemed. But his boss, Roger (veteran character actor Dominique Pinon), who knows Tom very well, refuses to let him investigate. Roger had lost his wife in a similar crash around that same stretch of roadway, and is completely closed to any other explanation. There’s also an obstacle of cross-border jurisdiction limiting Philippe’s efforts.

Linda and Tom owned a tanning parlor that was failing. They were on the verge of losing that, their home and cars, having exhausted the limits of their credit. The members of a local church kicked in a lot of money its members could little afford to help them stay afloat by updating the equipment, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Thus was the plot hatched… with the best of intentions.

Among the things that go wrong, Philippe won’t give up his digging; Linda’s cousin Serge (Peter Van den Begin), a hulking thug recently paroled from prison, tumbles onto the plan and forces his way in. Tom’s highly devout sister (Gwen Berrou), who’d convinced the churchgoers to help him and Linda sees something she shouldn’t; and a high-profile person accidentally involved in the intrigue brings far more attention to the case than anyone could have expected.

The tenor set by the series’ trio of writers can best be described as a darkly comic, slowly unfolding farce. The cast is excellent all around, especially shining as the plan unravels and actions become more desperate. The plot includes a few surprises in what happens to whom. Van den Begin really dominates in his scenes presenting Serge’s stupidity and conscience-free brutality. Pinon, who has been such an asset as a regular in the recently-reviewed cop series Cassandre, gets too little screen time in this one. There’s also a brief role for Corinne Masiero, who headlined one of my favorite light crime series from ANY country, Captain Marleau.

The series ends without major cliffhangers, but does leave a few open questions. One source indicates they meant it to run three seasons, which may not occur, since this one aired in 2022. I’d welcome more if that happens, but am satisfied with where they ended this one.

(Good People, in French with subtitles, streams on MHz Choice as of 12/23/25)