‘Maigret’ Makes a Choice in Solving “The Hanged Man”

Part 2 of Maigret’s first case for Season 2, “The Hanged Man,” opens with a nice, if slightly gratuitous shot of star Ben Wainwright’s chest hair, just in case the slow people in the back needed a reminder this ain’t your mama’s Maigret. The technical excuse is that Maigret, having been mowed down by a car at the end of last week, is in the hospital, having suffered a couple of cracked ribs, and we are now at the ER. (The show does not bother to explain why this means he gets to be half-naked instead of in a scratchy, unsexy hospital gown.)

(Look at that chest. We know why.)

Once again, Louise being a nurse comes in handy, even if Maigret tries to lie and say it was his own fault for “stepping in front of a car without looking.” (She is not fooled.) She gives him two minutes with the team, where he tells them Van Damme was driving, but he wants them to chalk it up as a hit-and-run on the paperwork because having their weakest-link suspect owing them is far more useful right now. Lapointe is dispatched to find Van Damme’s car, where he successfully digs out one of Maigret’s bullets from the grill.