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• Maigret
• Takeaways from Tuesday’s elections: Democrats win across the spectrum as voters reject Trump | CNN Politics 

00:00

Intro

This is Julio's Corner, my corner of the internet, where I talk about whatever is on my mind. I'll mostly talk about stuff I've watched, read, or listened to, but sometimes I may ramble on about the news or politics or in society at large.

This episode is being recorded on Sunday, November 9th, 2025. Welcome back to the show, and let's get right into it.

0:36

News items

And we are back. And I am happy to say that Zoran Kwame Mamdani is New York City's new mayor-elect. Huh?

Huh? That deserves an applause, doesn't it? I might be sound effects heavy today in this episode, because god damn it, Zoran is my new mayor of my city, my Big Apple, New York City.

Zoran Kwame Mamdani is the new mayor. And there was actually a bit of a blue wave this election cycle. Other electoral wins for the Democrats, you have in Virginia, you have a former representative, well, former, I guess she was a Republican.

That's why it says former REP. So a former Republican turned Democrat Abigail Spanberger. And of course, another moderate in New Jersey won the mayor, the governorship of New Jersey, Mickey Sherrill alongside Zoran Mamdani.

And of course in California, they voted on the proposition that will allow Governor Gavin Newsom to do a redistricting.

It was called Proposition 50 that will allow him to gerrymander California for a Democratic-friendly result in the next election, where Proposition 50 will take effect in order to combat the gerrymandering that Texas is doing to get more Republicans

into office. So those are the four big takeaways. Zorah Mamdani, Abigail Spanberger, Mickey Sherrill and Proposition 50 in California. And of course, the big one is Zorah Mamdani, because he represents change in politics in the US at large.

He is a Democratic socialist. He is left-leaning and progressive.

But of course, the media is going to spin it to not put too much of a shine on Zorah Mamdani and instead focus on Mickey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, who represent moderate Democrats, which is what they always say is the candidates that you

should choose. You should choose a moderate. Someone that can go to both sides of the, to both aisles, you know, to be able to be bipartisan and all that nonsense, which of course, Republicans never want to do fair dealings.

They always want to bully you into getting their terms across without any compromise.

And that is why Zorah Mamdani, who is not compromising his ideals, and he is pushing left-leaning agendas for a more affordable New York City, that is his campaign affordability. So we're going to, he's going to do some rent freezes.

He's going to try to bring up free buses. He wants to have city run groceries, supermarkets in, you know, five, one in each borough in areas where there are no supermarkets to be had. So there are food deserts.

What else? Oh, he's going to raise the taxes on the wealthy. The 1% are going to pay 2% more taxes, which is the same level of taxes that are being paid in New Jersey.

So it's no different than what's already happening, you know, in the tri-state area. And of course, corporate tax is going to go up to, I think, 11%.

So yeah, Zoran, out of all the victories, is the most critical and important one because it's going to send ripples through the Democratic Party, that it's finally proof positive that you can win on a progressive platform and a very left-leaning

platform that's helping the working class, helping those that need it instead of catering to your billionaire donors and the people who lobby to corrupt you with money. So yeah, I'm very happy about that.

Oh, of course, he's also going to be against ICE. Oh, the other agenda on his platform, which isn't really part of being more affordable, but because everyone always wants to talk about crime, he's going to reform the police department.

Because the way he explained it, the police force deal with a lot more than actual police work. They deal with healthcare, with mental health cases, with domestic abuse cases, things of that nature, which police are not trained and qualified for.

You can have social workers and people who are trained for mental wellness case scenarios. Those are the type of people that you need in those situations.

And so they're going to transfer some of the police funding towards that, to a new department that will deal with mental wellness situations like domestic abuse, mentally unstable people in the subways, child care, child services, those kinds of

things. He's going to have a force that's dedicated for that, so that the police can get back to the work that really matters for them, which is homicides, narcotics and things of that nature. Actual crimes that they should be dealing with.

So anyways, just wanted to talk about that. That really made my year, because 2025 has been somewhat depressing. We're at the 11th month.

We're almost done with this year of 2025. So 2025 is ending on a good note for now, at the very least. We don't...

I mean, obviously, there's still a lot of crap that's happening, such as, what's the term? Well, inflation is going up, and the whole tariffs, people are losing jobs. There are massive layoffs happening.

Government shutdown is still going on. Stagflation, that's the big word of these past few weeks.

Stagflation is happening, meaning that there's no job, there aren't any job increases, there's no cost of everything is going up, the tariffs are not helping in that manner. And of course, people are losing jobs.

So people are suffering and have to tighten their wallets.

And not to mention all the Medicare cuts that are gonna happen, and SNAP benefits that are getting shut down nationwide, even though there's been some court cases that are trying to stop that from happening.

But with the government shut down and Trump being Trump, people are suffering and starving. And it's kind of, it's depressing. But you know, we, like I said, we have this little bit of hope in these elections that just passed.

And we only hope for more to happen. And of course, that this will incentivize more aggressive tactics to oppose what's happening in Washington. And anyways, on to the next agenda on this episode.

8:37

Maigret

So on today's episode, we're gonna talk about a show that came out recently called Maigret. It came out, I wanna say last month, on PBS in the Masterpiece program. And as you know, I am not one for remakes.

However, unbeknownst to me, I was unaware that Maigret is actually a remake of a very well-known, apparently a very well-known Belgium crime novel series that came out way back when. And it has since had many adaptions in TV and in movies.

So I did take some notes. I'm only gonna focus on the English speaking ones. There were some obviously in France and in Belgium, because that's where the author comes from, from Belgium.

But I'm gonna focus on the English versions of that, of those adaptions. So the series that I've watched premiered on October 5th of this year. And the last episode came out, well, it's coming out as of the recording of the show November 9th.

I, of course, have access to PBS streaming. So I was able to see all of these ahead of time, because they were already available on the on the PBS app. But anyways, on to my show notes.

So as I was saying, the original series of Maigret was. Hold on. Sorry, I'm thinking about the original TV series.

The original novels were written by Georges Semenon, and they were written from 1931 to 1972. So this is a series of 75 novels and 28 short stories.

I'm definitely, this series that I have, this adaption of it that I've, that I watched has made me, has made me very interested in exploring this character. So I might actually look into those novels, but we'll see.

So the original TV series came out in 1960 to 63. The pilot came out in 1959, and then it had a running of from 1960 to 63. It only had, well, actually, I don't even know how many episodes that came out with, but it didn't have that many.

Then there was a film in 1988. Then after that, you had your first reboot in 1992 to 1993, only 12 episodes. Then there was a second reboot in 2016 with only four episodes.

And the star of this version in 2016 was Rowan Atkinson, who some of you may know as Mr. Bean, which I find kind of interesting to have a very famous comedic British actor play such a serious role as Julio's Maigret, a Frenchman.

Which of course then brings us to the current reboot that came out last month in October and ended as of the recording of this show. And there is news of a second season coming. So this this season had six episodes.

It was very interesting to me because again, I'm unfamiliar with Julio's Maigret, the police detective of the French police. And so, it was a novel concept for me, and one that I definitely want to further explore in those novels.

So as I mentioned, the series has six episodes.

So how, oh, another thing about this series that I found out, seeing that as it was a reboot, the way this show was done, it's very much in the vein of, you know, elementary and the most recent version of Sherlock Holmes, in that the characters are

set in modern times versus the time period in which the characters were written. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is originally from the Victorian era, the Victorian era.

So most versions of Sherlock are set in that time, but then you have Elementary, which was a CBS show with Lucy Liu and I forget the name of the guy who played Sherlock in that in that version of it.

Not only was it set in modern times, it was also set in New York City. And of course, Dr.

Watson in Elementary is a female, is an Asian female played by Lucy Liu, whereas the original novels, it's just a British man who was from the British military, who had a leg injury from his time in I think it was in during the Afghan War or

something to that effect. I don't remember the details that clearly. And then of course, so he was, he was, what's the word? He was discharged honorably because of, you know, the injury to his hip in the original writing.

And most adaptions of Sherlock Holmes were set, were kept in that time frame. But Elementary, like I said, was set in modern times and also in New York City.

And same thing with the Sherlock Holmes done by Russell Davies with Benedict Cumberbatch and the guy from the office, the British office who played Dr. Watson. He's also in The Hobbit.

His name escapes me at the moment. But of course, Benedict Cumberbatch played Sherlock Holmes in that rendition of Sherlock, which was set in modern day, but also in England. Same location as the originals in England.

So this Maigret reboot that I saw was set in France, where Maigret is his normal location, but in modern times. And what makes me interested in this detective series as opposed to others is the way he attacks a case.

He's very into the psychology of the people involved in a given case.

And so because he's so into the psychology of the people involved, a given case about murder or a bank robbery or whatever, or a kidnapping, so to speak, he's better able to solve the cases because of his ability to essentially profile the players

involved, a said story. And of course, in this show, again, I can only go by the show. I don't know the original source material. But in this show, he's in charge, he's the chief inspector of his investigation department.

There's an ambitious district attorney or prosecutor, whatever they're called in Europe, that sometimes butts heads with him because she has her agenda in terms of the press and the political machinations of what it takes for her position in that

criminal court system over there in France. But you also have this other guy, this ambitious guy who also applied for the chief inspector position, but because he was inadequate, he obviously was, he wasn't chosen.

It was instead Jules Maigret who got chosen over him. So he's bitter, and he's always trying to undermine Jules Maigret, but he's like a bull in a china shop in which, in that he messes everything up. And his name is Kavra, C-A-V-R-E.

That's how it's spelled. I forget if he had a first name, but I'm looking at the casting in IMDb, and they only have one word names here. So his name is Kavra.

That's usually what they call him anyway. But yeah, he's a pain in the butt, and he's always wrong, and he's always failing upwards, apparently. And he takes credit for anything.

He tries to take credit for any of the successes of Maigret's, and any of his failures.

He's not shy to let them fall on Maigret's lap, and let him take it, take the hit, the collateral damage for his failures, so that he can somehow usurp Maigret's position.

And because of this bitterness and his arrogance and inability to work with the team, because he wants to do it his way, regardless of whether he's right or not, it culminates...

Okay, and of course, spoiler alert, if you're not familiar with this series. Obviously, I'm talking about it, there's going to be spoilers involved, so giving you a spoiler alert right now.

So consequently, because of this guy's inadequateness as a detective, and always just getting in Maigret's way and undermining his, what's the word, his cases and also not following orders and bumbling his orders because he doesn't follow them, and

then bad consequences happening because of it, he eventually is forced to resign because he just makes the whole working environment toxic because he's the only one not playing ball with the rest. The rest are working as a team.

They respect and obviously see Jules Maigret as their boss because he is their boss, but also they know him and they've worked with him and they acknowledge his expertise and that he's leading them to the right course, whereas Kavra, he's just bad at

his job and yet he always wants to get the credit and he always wants to be the one leading the charge even though he's bad at his job and he's never right and he's always messing things up, but he just never learns from his mistakes. He only keeps

being bitter and he keeps being bitter and jealous and envious and always undermining Jules Maigret. And in the beginning of the show, there was a big mess up or fuck up that he did that the district attorney, Carnival, was blaming Maigret for.

Because they had a suspect in question in the hospital for the bank robbery that was going on. So they had one of them. And of course, Maigret charged Kavra for lookout, no sorry, to be stationed there, to be the one watching over him.

But Kavra left his station to do his own investigation. And that was the time when the guy got, their one and only witness or suspect got away.

And so Carnival is naturally upset because you're messing up her case of this very big, of this big bank robbery ring that's going around France. And it's big news. And so this can make or break her career as a prosecutor.

And so their one suspect got away. So she's going at Maigret for this, for this fuck up, which is Kavra's fault. But Maigret just takes it and Kavra doesn't say a word.

He's like, okay, fine. And because of that, he fails upwards. So Kavra was like, well, I can't trust you.

So I'm going to have Kavra co-run the investigation with you. And at that point, you would think someone that's honorable would be like, no, I can't accept the responsibility because I'm actually the one at fault. It's not Julio Maigret.

But instead, he gladly takes co-ownership of the investigation, knowing full well he's the one who screwed up. So because of that, that in the first two episodes, I forget which one, it was a two-part episode, this story line.

So I forget if it was in the first or second.

But that basically sets the tone of how Carver is going to be for the rest of the first series, in which he'll fail upwards and take all the credit, never accept, openly accept the blame for his mistakes and blunders, and always will be jealous and

envious of Maigret and be like, why won't you give me more responsibility? Why do you keep giving me, you don't give me the good parts of the investigation, so to speak, in his mind, the good parts. And it's because he's a screw up.

He can't even do the simple one. So if you keep messing up things like stand watch over the suspect, if he can't even follow those orders, why do you expect Maigret to let you do anything else?

So there'll be times where Carver is going on a wild goose chase. He's obviously following a lead that he thinks is right, but it's completely wrong. And Maigret is like, you know what?

It'll be better to just let him go chase that lead, that red herring, because then he'll be out of my hair and I won't have to deal with him. And he'll gladly let... He's done that a bunch of times in the first...

In this series where he'll let him do the thing and then everyone's like, why are you letting him do that? And for Maigret, he's like, because obviously it's wrong. And they're like, but if it's wrong, why are you letting him?

And obviously, so he won't mess up the rest of the case. And then of course, Maigret will be right. And that will only get Kavra even more angry and resentful.

That he was allowed to chase his leads that were wrong and not be involved with the leads that were good, that were right to capture the criminals. But that's on him, because he won't follow orders.

So when you're even allowed to do whatever you want, you're still upset and butthurt. What you did was wrong.

So anyways, the show ends, the series ended with him, they were chasing a, not a serial killer per se, but a guy who has been killing indiscriminately. And he ends up, because Maigret psychologically profiled him and got in his head.

And that sort of made this killer, who's obviously mentally unstable, made him a little resentful that he was figured out so easily. He decides to essentially kidnap Maigret's wife. And everyone's aware of this.

Well, Carver's the last to know. And it's because he fucks things up. And so, while they were trying to look for that killer, he also left town.

He left to go to the town that he grew up in, Sant Fiacra. I'm butchering it, I can't, I don't know French. So it's, you know, Saint, S-A-I-N-T, Fiacra, F-I-C, F-I-A-C-R-E.

So he went to his childhood town because the nobility, the countess, or whatever her title is of that town, called him for help. And so he left and she very much needed help.

And he got there too late, she ended up being murdered by her close circle of supposedly friends, but it was, they were all pitted against him.

Her lover, the guy who's supposed to be her trustee, running the, you know, managing the lands and the properties, and her own doctor, all three of them were in cahoots, to basically steal from under her, kill her off slowly by poisoning her, by

giving her the wrong medication. And of course, the lover just distracting her with sex and, you know, giving any juicy information to the trustee, so he can continue swindling and embezzling money from her.

So while he solved that case, that murderer who we also figured out, he was on a, you know, a direct line, you know, they were talking to each other by the phone.

During that point, he, the killer, kidnapped his wife, well, went to his house, followed her home and basically held her hostage.

So, and of course, Kavra was following a false, a wrong lead as to who he thought was the killer, because he, I figured who he was convinced was the killer. Oh yeah, it was the, this ring, this like drug ring or another, I think it was a drug ring.

Yeah, it was a drug ring. He kept thinking that the drug ring was the killer of this victim that they were trying to solve. And Julio's Maigret was like, fine, let him do that, because he's wrong and I don't want to deal with him.

So let him chase that bad lead, whereas I know who the real one is. And obviously psychologically, they were talking to each other, but now his wife, because of it, his wife is being held hostage.

So anyway, Kavra realizes, oh, I was wrong the whole time, and now his wife is being endangered. But why would he let me do my thing?

So while everyone is trying to get to Julio Maigret's house, not secretly or privately, but they didn't want to make a scene, obviously they didn't want the news reporters to be there. They didn't want to make a big deal about it.

But Kavra being the resentful asshole that he is, bitter that Jules Maigret bested him again and knew who the killer was, and his wife is being held hostage, but fuck that, I don't care.

I'm gonna call the media, and I'm gonna let the media know, actually the killer is holding Maigret's wife hostage, and this is where he lives.

Go there, make a big scene about it, because I'm an asshole, and I don't give a fuck, because I'm bitter, I'm butt hurt, that I was once again chasing a wrong lead, that I convinced myself was the right one.

So fuck Julio's Maigret, if his wife gets killed, I don't give a fuck. So anyways, Maigret gets there, he gets to his house, and he's eventually able to talk down the killer, well him and his wife.

His wife being, I think she's like a psychologist, she works in the medical field, I think she works in psychiatric wards, and so that's why she was also able to psychoanalyze the killer, who obviously is mentally ill.

And Maigret being a profiler, was also able to empathize with him. Anyway, they were able to talk him down, and then get him arrested.

And then Maigret's team, when they return to the precinct, or the police department, one of them clocks Kavra, because fuck you for almost blowing this shit up and making it worse than what it was, because obviously your chief inspector's wife is

being held hostage. We told you we have to keep this hush hush.

And you call the fucking news reporters to make a scene in that area, to have helicopters hovering over the place and make noise and alert the killer that his location is publicly known nationwide. So fuck you.

They clock him and then he resigns because it's a toxic environment. Well, idiot, who the fuck you think did that? It was you, you motherfucker.

You deserve to get beat up. Fuck you. So that's how the show essentially ends.

Maigret obviously decides to take a leave of absence, take a vacation. He solved several high stress cases in this six week, in this six episode story arc.

However, I don't know what the time frame was, but obviously with his wife being held hostage, being the most high stress situation, he earned a vacation of sorts. So obviously in the second series, they won't have to deal with cover anymore.

Now you have a good team of a supportive cast. In your, I don't know what the name of the department is, Special Ops or whatever it's called for serious, major cases, major crimes. That's usually what it's called, major crimes.

So his major crimes team is gonna be a harmonious one because you don't have this toxic cover in the picture anymore. So I enjoyed the show. It was well done.

And I am gonna look into reading these books because as I mentioned, probably two episodes ago, reading helps curb dementia, you know, fend off dementia.

And I'm all about fending off dementia, keeping my brain as healthy as possible to avoid dementia from happening, because yeah, that's one of my biggest fears, if any. So yeah, 75 novels, 28 short stories, still need to read Dracula.

And so yeah, so that's all the rambling I have for this episode.

32:05

Outro

And that wraps up the show. If you are watching this on YouTube, don't forget to like, comment and subscribe.

If you have any questions, comments, or any thoughts you'd like to share, you can reach me by clicking on the Contact Me link in the show notes. SMS rates may apply.

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This means you can share the episode, remix it, do whatever you want, just say where you got it from. And as always, thank you for listening.