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The Reunion has an opening episode which jumps back and forth in time, in which Ioan Gruffudd‘s (Titanic) younger equivalent of his Thomas character, played by Billy Gunnion, has a daliance with a young Russian lady, Vinca, which – because reasons – all comes back to haunt him 25 years later.
In the present day, he’s a successful writer (shame he didn’t write this, in that case), and gets a note, “What did you do to her?” from another Russian woman, who just disappears!
However, the ridiculous premise is such that Thomas and Maxime (Grégory Fitoussi – Beecham House), now reuniting, had to deal with an old teacher back in the day, Alexis Clement (Nicolas Robin), who raped Vinca, she’s now missing in the present day, and somehow just at this moment in time, someone knows what they did last summer! Well, 25 years ago…
But a massive suspension of disbelief is required when… (and I’ll put this behind a spoiler header, since while it’s already on ITVX, it doesn’t air on regular telly until 9am tonight)
That’s not the most stupid part of the initial installment, though, since Thomas’ wife, Annabelle (Dervla Kirwan – The Stranger) is on warfarin. All the best people are! However, for almost 30 years (so far, since it’s life-long) I’ve taken a daily dose of between 3-5mg. THIRTY YEARS!!!!
Meanwhile, Dervla’s been on it for five minutes, tells the doctor everything’s fine (it wouldn’t be the GP making that decision, but the anticoagulant clinic), and doc increases the dosage by TEN MILLIGRAMS!! WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK?! Dervla would be bleeding out by dinnertime!
Now, even if you’re on a general drug that’s working fine, you might get to stay on the same dosage and come back in a few weeks, or instead, start to wean someone off it. And for warfarin, how would I know how well I’m doing on it? That’s what they decide by taking a small sample of blood when I go there, and put it in a machine.
If the output jumps up or down a lot, they always ask if I’ve done anything different or had changes of medication, but I never have. Everything is the same, so it’s a mystery why it’s changed.
So, if that’s how badly-researcher the opening episode is, the rest can seek a second opinion from a qualified physician!
The Reunion begins tonight on ITV at 9pm (two episodes per week), but is available to stream in full on ITVX now. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, it has been on ITVX since January 2023, but first aired in France in October 2022.
Director: Bill Eagles
Screenplay: Marston Bloom
Novel: Guillaume Musso
Music: Scott Shields
Cast:
Thomas Degalais: Ioan Gruffudd
Maxime Biancardini: Grégory Fitoussi
Pauline: Ivanna Sakhno
Annabelle Degalais: Dervla Kirwan
Fanny Brahimi: Vahina Giocante
Manon Agostini: Shemss Audat
Mlle Deville: Salóme Gunnarsdóttir
Francis Biancardini: Cosimo Fusco
Richard Degalais: Rupert Graves
Young Fanny: Stella Lelouch
Young Thomas: Billy Gunnion
Young Maxime: Loyan Pons de Vier
Stéphane Pianelli: Matthias Van Khache
Alexis Clement: Nicolas Robin
Maria: Natalia Dontcheva
Olivier: Stany Coppet
Zélie Bookmans: Clara Simpson
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.