Liaison (Season 1), Episode 3 Recap & Ending Explained: After introducing us to its world of espionage, ‘Liaison’ is now leaning toward its grittier landscape. With the commanding presence of Vincent Cassel and Eva Green at the center, the show becomes gripping despite the evident genre tropes.
Earlier, we saw Gabriel heading to France to learn about his next move. Meanwhile, Alison was planning to go meet Sabine to get a cybersecurity deal signed for UK’s inclusion. While Walid Hamza died in the hospital, Samir was stranded in Dunkirk. Myriam, on the other hand, is stuck in Belgium with her young son.
Let’s find out how these characters navigate their individual goals in the web of shady motives. Please be aware that there are spoilers ahead.
Liaison (Season 1), Episode 3 Recap
Episode 3: Manipulations
Gabriel Delage (Vincent Cassel) travels to Paris to meet Dumas (Gérad Lanvin). Dumas brings up the subject of Alison Rowdy (Eva Green) and scolds Gabriel for establishing contact with her. He asks why Gabriel did so even if she testified against him in the past and did things for her sole advantage. Gabriel notes that he has moved on from that past. But Dumas tells him to be cautious. That’s when Gabriel gives Alison’s phone to him.
The next day, they meet at the Telkis office, where Dumas shows the current location of Myriam in Belgium along with her photo. He also shares the contact that she frequently calls on. He considers it to be Samir. Gabriel believes that Samir will be killed when he is found and is unsure whether they should pursue the case. Then Dumas notes that Didier Taraud (Stanislas Merhar) is his client, who is the head of French national security services. Considering his position, they discuss what his motives would be.
To learn in specific what Taraud’s motives are (and whether he is trying to play both sides of this conflict), Dumas summons Gabriel to meet Sabine (Laëtitia Eido) – Taraud’s mistress and EU member. Gabriel sees that he is being asked for more than what was initially discussed. So he asks for more pay. Eventually, he goes to meet Sabine at a café in disguise and charms her. That’s when he gets Alison’s call. He discretely reveals both Samir and Myriam’s present locations to her.
Gabriel eventually reaches the refugee camp in Belgium to meet Myriam. He manages to get a one-on-one with her and presents himself as Lounès. He entices her with a French citizenship offer for herself and her baby, Hicham. But she needs to make an immediate decision, which is why she chooses to leave right then.
The moment she leaves her camp, two men in hazmat suits try to kidnap her. Gabriel arrives just in time to rescue her from them while the angry crowd topples the car of those men. While Gabriel runs away with Myriam to his vehicle, a man attacks and injures him. Gabriel starts driving even while that man follows him. Eventually, Myriam gets hold of his steering wheel and dissuades the follower.
Meanwhile, Mark Bolton (Patrick Kennedy) and Alison meet with Nadine in Brussels to fix an appointment with Vandermeer (Nikolai Kinski). But Nadine only allows them to be a part of a discussion and does not let them meet Vandermeer, saying that he is in Berlin. Mark gets infuriated by this treatment and heads to another meeting while Alison heads to her hotel room. By that time, Myriam takes Gabriel’s phone, calls Alison, and tells her that ‘Lounés’ is injured. While Alison is unsure about what’s happening, she still decides to rush and help Gabriel.
During that time, Mark goes to meet Bob Foret (Eriq Ebouaney) in a lavish building. He is the same person that informed Didier that the Brits are trying to get a deal with EU cybersecurity. In his meeting with Mark, Bob takes the upper hand. Mark says that he took care of his side of the deal but does not want to risk the lives of British citizens.
Bob, meanwhile, thinks of his bigger goal, to capture all the contracts, from civilian to military ones, from the UK government. That makes Mark realize that the likes of him planned the train crash, and he decides to leave. Bob threatens Mark since he still owes some more time as per the agreement. Mike threatens him back, saying that if he is harmed, he will share a file with the authorities that will expose Bob’s vicious plans.
Alison reaches Gabriel’s car and drives him and Myriam back to her hotel. On her way, she tells Myriam that Gabriel has only noble intentions for rescuing her despite keeping his identity secret. Alison gets Myriam and Hicham a room, which makes Myriam emotional. Then she gets Gabriel inside his room, removing pins from his back and mending his injuries. But she makes it clear to him that she has no intention for their relationship to be the way it was in the past and is happy with her boyfriend, Albert (Daniel Francis).
However, she apologizes to him about her past mistakes and says that she hates who she was back then. She also makes it clear that they can’t be friends or anything else. Later, she sees him taking care of Myriam’s crying baby and feels happy seeing this warm side of him. Still, she decides to stay distant from any romantic entanglement.
Later, Richard (Peter Mullan) calls Alison to inform her about another hack that creates strange patterns of power outages in London. Since they (the Brits) do not have control of the deal by then, he tells her to get it done at the earliest. But, even the next day, Sabine stands by her word that Vandermeer is in Berlin. While Mark tries questioning her about it, Alison manages to find her way to Vandermeer’s cabin. She invites herself in and speaks about the deal. Vandermeer agrees to sign it by 8 PM.
Since Sabine cannot keep the promise she made to Didier, she calls to tell him about this meeting. He gets furious for not keeping her part of the deal even when he has added a huge sum to her Swiss account. He abuses her, cuts the call, and calls Bob to tell him that the deal is moving forward as per the Brits’ wishes. Didier says that it is out of their control now.
Meanwhile, in London, DCI Hobbs comes to meet Albert and shares further observations from the security footage of the hospital where Hamza died. She shows that Gabriel entered Hamza’s room dressed as a nurse. But he could not have killed Hamza since the drag he induced takes 24 hours to work. She presents another revelation that Alison followed him to the room. After 45 seconds of her arrival, Gabriel left the room. Albert is surprised that she did not tell him that someone else was in the room.
Liaison (Season 1), Episode 3 Ending Explained
Back in his hotel room, Gabriel gets Sabine’s call, who asks him to meet in person to talk since she is distressed by her call with Didier. She opens up about getting betrayed by her lover (Didier), while he opens up about his old flame (Alison). Meanwhile, Alison sees Gabriel getting in a taxi with Sabine. While she feels betrayed by this loss, she notices Mark walking toward the EU operations building and decides to follow him. But for some reason, he does not make it to the meeting with Vandermeer.
Even Sabine can’t come and states her absence for personal reasons. Alison understands what she means by that and leaves the room. She goes to the washroom and starts sobbing while looking in the mirror because of getting betrayed by Gabriel. Soon after, she breaks out of her emotional turmoil when she sees two men standing behind her back. While she assumes that they are there to hurt her, they leave without saying a word to her. However, she walks up to the block in the corner to find Mark hanging by the neck.
Bob seems most likely to be behind Mark’s murder since he could not fathom seeing his plan fail. While the ending opens up a much darker tale in this espionage mess, Alison’s character development seems poorly done. She appears stoic and emotionless and only feels something when the rescuer Gabriel arrives in her life. While Eva Green brings life to her role, the writing keeps you wanting more than a stereotypical treatment to show a woman in need and despair.
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Liaison (Season 1) Episode 3 Links: IMDb, Wikipedia
Liaison (Season 1) Episode 3 Cast: Vincent Cassel, Eva Green, Peter Mullan, Irène Jacob, Aziz Dyab, Stanislas Merhar, Daniel Francis
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