Dante , the Gothic , the Abject , and the Grotesque in Mathieu Missoffe ’ s Thriller-Crime Drama Black Spot
series ’ building dread is her desire to reconnect , romantically , with Mayor Steiner , whom she has known since high school . Indeed , the script reveals that the Mayor has used an on-again , off-again affair with Laurene to keep her from discovering his and his father ’ s plot : to shut down the local lumber plant , replace it with a local quarry for storing barrels of toxic waste ( and , in the process , supposedly insure the village residents of a new source of income ), and possibly bring to Villefranch other money-making enterprises . At first , Laurene refuses to acknowledge what the viewers cannot fail to see : Mayor Steiner ’ s own duplicitous involvement in projects that will threaten to destroy Villefranche and that stand in bold opposition to the safety and well-being of the people and the village that Laurene must protect . In fact , to Laurene , a single mother in need of male companionship , finding Marion will undoubtedly cement her relationship with the Mayor , who is married to another woman whom he does not plan to leave . The alternative is something she dreads : to live out her life alone , her deputy Teddy Bear , a gay male , and her rebellious teenage daughter Cora as her only companions . Thus , in the third episode , at the Mayor ’ s request , Laurene feels compelled to risk her own life and that of her deputy Teddy Bear in descending into a seemingly bottomless labyrinth of caves . Initially in search of a mystery woman named Natalie Duval , Lauren instead finds�or think she finds�a frantic Marion Steiner bound to a wall of stone and frightened to the point of hysteria by a creature that inhabits the abyss . Laurene sets Marion free , only to watch as the mayor ’ s daughter flees from the sounds of the coming monster and into a network of caves . That Laurene is the only one who hears or sees Marion at the bottom of the caverns , and that Teddy Bear claims that he saw and heard nothing , becomes problematical ; indeed , the script treats Laurene ’ s encounter
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