Astrid et Raphaëlle–Extraordinary Attorney Woo meets Silent Witness

In the highly unusual six-season (French) PBS  series, Astrid, we see an extremely perceptive woman police officer, Raphaëlle (Lola Dewaere), who is underappreciated by her colleagues–a familiar theme in current police procedurals.  What makes this unique, however, is that the detective quickly surmises that a librarian working in the basement of the department in Criminal Records just may be the most brilliant crime solver she has ever met.  The librarian is Astrid (Sara Mortensen), a quiet young woman, highly functioning on the Aspberger’s spectrum,.with a passion for puzzles.   However, she is not “officially” a police detective.  As a “big sister” protective of Astrid, Raphaëlle has Astrid’s back over and over again when the upper management does not approve, and often is condescending, especially the forensics pathologist.  But Astrid also educates Raphaëlle to analyze  a crime in another way, benefiting from her original way of interpreting the crime scene in a non-neurotypical way. And most invaluable is the way Astrid explains to Raphaëlle that autistic adults are exhausted by always having to adjust to those who do not know how they experience the world, nor curious about their sensory and cognitive processing.  Astrid’s weekly support group (played by actors with autism) is the portal that allows the viewer in.

In a big sister-little sister dynamic the two become friends in a world that really doesn’t accept either.  Particularly  impressive is the kindness and compassion each shows the other in the sensitive dialog and  physical body language.  After all, Astrid is phobic about human touch.   

This sort of double-blindness, emotionally and conceptually, affects an  inability or lack of experience and awareness to understand why those outside our social circle  act as they do, and misinterpret  emotions, way of speaking, choice of words,  sound,  light, or touch.

Each episode, infrequently two, is a stand-alone crime so the viewer can randomly choose episodes after understanding the main characters’ personalities.  However, a romance develops late in season two and is not to be missed.  The crime scene begins with a brilliant correction of the often pompous forensic pathologist’s confident conclusion of cause of death.  Astrid hesitantly offers a different interpretation of the murder victim, usually highly unusual and not easily comprehended, This of course is especially annoying to the establishment’s (and conventional neurotypical) way of approaching a problem.  Some solutions to the crime are better than others. Nevertheless , Astrid and Raphaelle always glow with excitement and support for each other.

 If you have a beating heart, you will be moved by the Astrid-Raphaelle idiosyncratic friendship most of  all. 

Availability:  PBS Passport; on other platforms, the series is often referred to as “Astrid et Raphaëlle”.

Note:  See my review of Silent Witness (August 11, 2020) and Extraordinary Attorney Woo (November 21, 2022)