Camille Bordey from Death in Paradise
I finally got around to watching the first season of Death in Paradise to find it’s an extremely formulaic police procedural, albeit one set on the Caribbean Island of Saint Marie. But sometimes that’s exactly what the doctor ordered: a chance to switch your brain off (or at least put it on low-power) and enjoy the lovely scenery while some entertaining characters solve a murder.
Annoyingly, the twist regarding Camille Bordey’s character is spoiled in the opening credits of the very first episode: although she’s initially introduced as the major suspect in a murder case, it turns out she’s working undercover in a drug-smuggling ring – something any viewer could easily deduce since she’d hardly feature in the opening credits if she wasn’t going to be a recurring character.
Like everyone else on the show, she’s a fairly stock character: the easy-going cop to contrast the uptight, fish-out-of-water Richard Poole, who struggles to acclimatize to the culture, temperature, wildlife and very different way of doing police work on the island. Camille’s role is largely to provide local context to the newcomer, but for what it’s worth, I think the show mostly side-steps the bad optics of Camille having to play second fiddle to an Englishman, since she’s a talented investigator in her own right and doesn’t suffer fools – particularly Poole – lightly.
It's hardly a deep character study, but Camille is competent, intelligent and quick on her feet – and like I said, sometimes that’s all you need to enjoy a show (or a female character).
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