Under a Dark Sun Recap ‘A Little Detour’: A young mother and her son escape into a flower farm, stumbles upon a murder

In the first episode of Under a Dark Sun, currently airing on Netflix, Alba Mazier finds herself a suspect in the murder of her employer.

Under a Dark Sun Episode 1 Recap and Review

When Alba Mazier stumbled upon the dying Arnaud Lasserre on the morning when they were supposed to meet up and talk before work began at the flower farm, she rather notably ran. She did not stay behind to try and render aid or call for help. She had a criminal record and had lived a life that made her perhaps not an easy, but an easier, target of suspicion of a violent crime. She was also the newest seasonal employee at the estate. No one really knew her. A single mother already on the run in a bid to protect her son, she quite naturally did not want to get mixed up in a murder investigation. It was a split second decision that made sense from her point of view, but which led to her getting singled out for suspicion, because she was seen fleeing the scene of the crime. 

It was a nightmare for a woman who only wanted to make some cash before she crossed the border to Spain with her son. But, it was only the beginning, for as she tried to find out who set her up for murder, she found herself buried in the ground with the very man she was accused of murdering.

Well, that was certainly one way to end the first episode of a generational tale of trauma and dark secrets. When I saw this show on Netflix, it took me a few days to decide whether to watch it or not. As I mentioned when I recapped The Waterfront last month, family dramas are not usually my jam. There is, of course, the added hook here of a crime mystery. Having only seen the first episode so far, my verdict for those like me who would not normally watch a show like this is, give it a chance. The first episode leaned into the rough edges of the main characters, and executed the narrative points with confidence. There is enough here to warrant a six-episode watch. 

Alba and her son Leo were on their way to Barcelona when she received an email reminder for an interview for a seasonal flower harvesting job. Her bank account was in the negative, she was in dire need of cash, and though both she and her son were concerned that Leo’s grandfather would find them, she decided to take the scenic drive through the countryside and try to get the job.

What she found was a potential employer, Arnaud Lasserre, who resented her upon seeing her single-page resume that had been folded in four parts. At first, he refused to even interview her. But Alba was desperate for a job, and showed him the email she received, purportedly from Arnaud, asking her to come. Already behind schedule, Arnaud took her to the fields and handed her off to Valentin, who was tasked to show her the ropes.

It almost seemed like an idyllic place to spend the next three weeks. All she needed to do was pick flowers, and not only would she get paid, she and her son had a cabin of their own in the camp where other employees of the estate stayed. But Arnaud was clearly simmering with anger, and after a heated phone call with her son’s grandfather, Arnaud asked her how long she planned on keeping this act. Alba had no idea what he was talking about. Arnaud told her to meet him early the next morning before the other workers came, then joined his daughter Lucie to greet their guests.

The next morning, Alba drove to the fields early but did not see Arnaud. She headed toward a shed, and it was there that she found him, bleeding and barely alive. With his last strength, he reached up with one bloodied hand to touch her cheek, and murmured her name. It was a rather strange gesture for an employer who was a complete stranger to her until the day before.

When Alba heard Arnaud’s son Mathieu enter the shed post-run, she fled. Unfortunately, she was seen by Valentin, who had just arrived in a pickup with the other farm employees. By the time Mathieu found his father, it was already too late. The ambulance came, then the police. The investigation had already begun.

Alba told her son Leo to hide when the police came to pick her up. At the police station, she maintained a personna of defiance as the police questioned her and even showed her photos of her captured by a speed camera as she rushed out of the scene. She insisted she did not kill Arnaud, it was not her on the photograph. Then the police dropped the hammer: she was in Arnaud Lasserre’s will, set to inherit one-fourth of his estate as his daughter. 

Inside the Lasserre house, his family – his wife Beatrice, his son Mathieu, his daughter Lucie, and his grandson whose name was not mentioned yet – were getting a similar shock from Jacques, their family lawyer. Apparently Arnaud changed his will six months ago to include Alba in it. But, should she be convicted of Arnaud’s murder, Alba would not be legally permitted to inherit. 

For the police, Alba’s inclusion into the will provided her with a motive to kill Arnaud. Alba’s criminal record of violence, theft, and drug abuse were very much working against her, as was her desperation for money. The interrogation was interrupted by the arrival of Manon Simoni, a lawyer who also happened to be Arnaud’s granddaughter.

Manon had information the police did not have, information that Beatrice deliberately kept from them. The day before Arnaud’s death was far from ordinary. Maison Oris, one of the biggest perfumers in the world, was set to purchase the estate to gain exclusive access to its roses whilst allowing the Lasserre family to keep running the farm. It was a deal that Beatrice very much wanted to happen. But, at the signing, Arnaud changed his mind and refused the deal. Manon knew this because she was at the meeting. 

Manon’s arrival was enough to get Alba out of the police station and back into the cabin, which had been searched by the police, where Leo waited for her. Alba clearly did not trust Manon, but she had few options. She was still the primary suspect in a murder. She had no money. She knew she was framed, and she needed help to prove it.

There was clearly a fracture within the Lasserre family. Arnaud suspected that Beatrice was hiding something. Mathieu got wasted in a bar the night before his father’s funeral and brought home a lover; his son found the two of them naked on his bed. There was a sadness in Lucie, even when she spoke to a man who seemed to be her boyfriend, Oliver. Now, Lucie had to carry a secret, too, for she found a gun hidden in a toilet in the house. 

At Arnaud’s funeral in a small chapel, Beatrice showed up in a pink suit and read a speech she carelessly declared she generated via ChatGPT. Perhaps it was the revelation that Arnaud had another daughter with another woman that angered her, unbalanced her enough not just to not hide her anger but to showcase it in front of strangers in a ceremony that was supposed to honour her late husband. And of course there was Manon, who told Alba where to find the computer inside the family home so she could copy the files and try to find out who sent her that email that led her to the Lasserre estate.

Alba did not have long with the Lasserre computer, but it was long enough to see that there was a file with her name, and surveillance photos of her and her son Leo. She rushed out when she received Manon’s message that the funeral had ended. As she walked to her car, someone hit her on the head with a spade. She woke up buried next to the man who claimed her as his daughter.

‘A Little Detour’ set the tone for an atmospheric series about a fractured generationally wealthy family and a stranger caught in a web she had no idea even existed until she was in it. We have five more episodes for the familial chaos to unravel amidst an ongoing murder mystery. If the strengths of this first episode are maintained, then we should be in for an interesting, even good, narrative ride. 

Rating: B

You can access Recap Lab’s full coverage of Under a Dark Sun via this link. 

Strays

🌷There was a camera inside the cabin where Alba and Leo lived.

🌷Young Leo found a notebook with plenty of drawings. 

🌷Beatrice thought that they could proceed with the deal with Maison Oris now that Arnaud was dead. 

🌷Who was the man doing all those drawings?

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