The Big Plot Hole In Netflix's Lupin That Fans Just Can't Ignore
Netflix's French drama series Lupin quickly became the first must-watch TV show of 2021 after its debut in January, with many comparing it favorably to the British series Sherlock. The series, which is airing in two parts with the second batch of episodes slated to debut later this year, updates another classic literary character for the modern day, the gentleman burglar and master of disguise Arsène Lupin. However, Lupin is not the series' main character. Omar Sy leads the show as Assane Diop, a mega-fan of Lupin who takes what he's learned from Maurice Leblanc's novels and short stories about the character and uses the same tricks present on the page in his own life.
Assane's tragic backstory is revealed throughout the first five episodes in between impressive heists at the Louvre and undercover missions inside prisons. When Assane was a teen, his father, with whom he moved from Senegal in the mid-1990s, was accused of stealing an invaluable necklace from the wealthy family for whom he worked. Assane eventually learns that he was innocent and had been framed by the patriarch of the family. He is now determined to avenge the injustice that led to his father dying by suicide while in prison.
While many viewers quickly fell in love with the show, others couldn't help but notice that some of the show's puzzle pieces didn't quite fit together like they should have.
Lupin's biggest mistake comes in Episode 4
For most of the show, Assane is portrayed as invincible. He escapes every predicament he finds himself in because of his careful planning and ability to see how things might play out. But that changes as the series nears the end of Part 1. In the fourth episode, Assane tracks down a journalist who previously tried to take down Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre), the man Assane believes framed his father and thus the person who is more or less responsible for his death. After the two retrieve an old VHS tape that features incriminating evidence against Pellegrini, Assane plans to release the video on Twitter. But what he does instead is merely hint at the tape's contents on Twitter. He then contacts a TV station, and Assane, in full old-age makeup, appears on the show, poised to take Pellegrini down once and for all. But that doesn't happen; the tape has been edited to be innocuous because the anchor had been bought by Pellegrini. This wouldn't be bad if Assane had thought ahead to make a copy of the tape, but he didn't, so the evidence is lost.
Users on Reddit have begun pointing out how ridiculous this development is in light of the rest of the series. User BoredomHeights writes, "The video tape thing makes absolutely no sense. It's something I couldn't even see flying on corny network TV shoes (sic) from decades ago. He clearly has skills hacking and understands tech and the internet very well, but he's too dumb to even make a copy of the tape?"
Another user by the name of the-city-moved-to-me points out that Assane is supposed to be 10 steps ahead of everyone else, but that his master plan falls apart "because he couldn't be bothered to make a digital copy of the crucial damning evidence that is the centerpiece of his plan."
Shows like Lupin are going to be subjected to the scrutinizing eyes of their viewers, but this particular decision does seem out of character and thus quite silly in hindsight.