The Sins Of A Father
Episode 5 of Black Butterflies begins with Albert continuing his story with Adrien, revealing Nastya’s fate. He and Sol decided to leave her in Genoa and head home. Sol’s sister grew up and became a really promising young artist, exhibiting her painting in Arras, 2002. Albert felt compelled to go, and in doing so, the pair talked and actually got along really well. Adrien is shocked, especially as he’s got himself romantically linked with Nastya and become fully invested in this story beyond his wildest dreams. Alan arrives to see Nora and after the pair have oral sex, she has second thoughts and hurries upstairs, grabbing her coat and eventually falling down the stairs. Adrien is obviously none the wiser to this and shows up that night to see Albert. He brings up how he knows exactly who Nastya is now and it changes everything. Albert is super calm and decides to finish the story that very night for him. The thing is, Adrien and Albert are also more connected than we initially thought. It turns out they both have the same DNA, meaning that Solange is his birth mother and Albert is his birth father. This is why he tracked down Adrien originally, under the guise of telling this story and trying to connect with him. It’s a massive revelation and Adrien is shocked. Adrien grabs a pillow and begins choking out Albert, all of which recorded I may add. Adrien grabs his recorder and heads out the house after killing the old man, and as he does we cut back to Nora. It turns out she’s actually pregnant, which is quite the shocker too. She gets a scan done at the hospital to confirm as much, and she begins sobbing, “I’m sorry.” Adrien leaves Albert’s place but the memories of the past begin to come into view and show the true face of what’s happened. His mother, Catherine, is actually Sol and has been in disguise this whole time. We then skip forward in time 1 year, to the sunny beauty of Corsica. Nora and Adrien are back together and both are looking after their child. Adrien struggles to hold his son though, while Albert’s story “Black Butterflies” has been a success and printed in the mainstream. In fact, he’s even won the Femina Prize. Adrien heads out for a book reading, reciting passages from the book and ending with “her name is Solange.” However, he’s frazzled and caught off-guard by Catherine showing up. After taking her outside and getting into a heated argument, Catherine passes out on the floor. When she awakens, she’s in hospital and Adrien is there, ready to take her home. At Albert’s grave, Catherine (who’s actually Sol) reveals that after coming back from Genoa, they set fire to the salon and ran away. Adrien saved her in a way, and made her strong. She was hopeless after what happened with Hans but Adrien gave her something to hold onto and protect. Adrien is worried that he’s just like his father, revealing teary-eyed that he killed Albert. He’s afraid that this won’t stay a secret forever and eventually everything will come crashing down. If anyone knows anything about secrets then it’s Catherine, and she reassures him, as the pair eventually hug. Adrien does, however, bring up that there are some witnesses that could connect the dots to Albert and Adrien’s past. That is, of course, Nastya. Interestingly, neither of them are aware of Carrel’s connection to this though. Mathilde continues to try and find her partner, and with water damage at his apartment, Mathilde uses this as the perfect cover to break in and try to find clues over his whereabouts. And she manages to do just that, having found an address in Carrel’s notebook relating to Albert.
The Episode Review
The penultimate episode to Black Butterflies begins to piece everything together, with the understanding that everything is connected after all. Adrien’s mother is actually Sol, while Mathilde and Carrel are growing to be a larger part of this as everyone else. It’s a nice way of tying the past and present together, and with Albert now dead, the attention turns to this investigation, which has largely been kept on the backburner for big parts of the run-time. The acting has been good all round and seeing Adrien slowly slip down this dark path is an interesting notion. The idea of killing and murderous impulses being hereditary is explored nicely across the episodes that have been shown so far, although it could well be that Adrien’s son is what stops him from slipping into old habits again. Either way, the ending leaves everything wide open for how this one may end.
