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'Baptiste' Recap: Season 2 Episode 6

Daniel Hautzinger
Julien Baptiste in season 2 of Baptiste. Photo: Two Brothers Pictures & All3Media International
Baptiste is desperate to stop whatever attack is planned, and fears that Will is in danger. Photo: Two Brothers Pictures & All3Media International

Baptiste airs Sundays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous episode and the previous season.

Now that we know Andras Juszt played Emma and Baptiste, we see how. He briefly blocked the radio signal allowing them to listen in when they first sent him in to Kamilla Agoston’s house after capturing him. He told Kamilla to meet him the following day and play along. Later, he scribbled a message on a scrap of paper and slipped it into his boot while Baptiste wasn’t looking, then gave it to Kamilla when they met again. It set up his “kidnapping” when he returned to her house that evening.

He has recordings that make it seem as if Kamilla knew about the attack in Józsefváros as insurance to make her cooperate. That blackmail also explains why Kamilla drops money off in an abandoned farmhouse for Will to pick up for Andras every week.

Now Andras is planning a sequel to Józsefváros, with Will as accomplice—although Will doesn’t know the plan and is nervous. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, Andras assures him.

Baptiste calls Zsofia in desperation, asking her to find someone on the police force who will help them stop whatever Andras is planning. But when Zsofia arrives at the station to talk to a sympathetic former colleague, she is arrested for attacking Viktor, one of the thugs who killed her father. Luckily, her old boss intervenes on behalf of Zsofia after chastising her for taking part in the violence. You’re part of the problem if you do that, her boss tells her. You must take the higher ground.

Zsofia then asks her boss to help Baptiste and Emma.

Unsure where else to look, they have returned to the abandoned farmhouse where Baptiste found Will. They know from Zsofia that Will must have arrived by foot, so they investigate the only nearby building: an abattoir that has been turned into a crowded refugee camp. Emma has heightened the tension by telling Baptiste that she wants to reveal the truth about her son Alex: that he was one of the gunmen at Józsefváros. Baptiste is against it: Baptiste is the one who lied about Alex for Emma, and he’s also the one who shot and killed him.

For now, however, they have more pressing things than that argument, however. While they are able to convince a guard to let them into the refugee camp after he recognizes a photo of Will as someone who volunteers there, they get stuck in red tape: the camp’s official can’t let them conduct a search. When Zsofia’s boss finally intervenes, he agrees to ask around for them about Will.

He brings back a refugee who has been friendly with Will and explains that Will volunteers there a few times a week. All he knows about Will is that he lives near a waterfall. That’s enough to set Baptiste and Emma off searching nearby—Baptiste fears that Will is in danger. Why would Andras make him volunteer at a not well-guarded refugee camp for so long, when they could easily attack it without such investment?

Will has similar questions about his purpose. Why did Andras make him gather random objects that could be used as weapons from amongst the refugees’ possessions? And why does Andras himself bribe the guards at the camp every once in a while in order to distribute blankets to the refugees from his car?

Andras dons gloves and then answers Will’s questions—while beating the boy with the objects from the refugee camp. He will deposit Will’s bloodied body at the refugee camp along with the “weapons” that bear the refugees’ fingerprints, setting up a fake incident in which the refugees Will has been “selflessly” helping brutally turned on him, the missing ambassador’s son, and killed him for no reason. It will serve as a call to arms, instigating even more hatred and attacks against refugees and immigrants.

With Will lying unconscious and bloody on the ground in the night, Andras begins packing his car. But Baptiste and Emma see the lights—and then Andras sees them and flees. Baptiste follows and is attacked by Andras in the dark woods. He eventually bests Andras, but as he is catching his breath Andras stabs him, twice. Baptiste grabs a rock and knocks Andras out. As he sits in the isolated forest, prepared to die, he puts his wedding ring back on and thinks of his family: his wife Celia, his deceased daughter Sara, his imprisoned wayward son Niels.

Emma is desperate not to lose her own son. She finds Will and abandons her wheelchair to reach him over some steps, quickly applying a tourniquet and administering CPR until he finally begins to breathe again.

Days later, he is in the hospital. He is in a coma, but he’s alive. Emma has given a press conference revealing the truth about Alex, explaining about the radicalizing effect of her daughter’s murder on her son but not excusing his actions, which she terms terrorist.

Baptiste, meeting her on the roof of Will’s hospital, tells her the press conference was brave. He has been to visit Niels in prison. She thanks him for all his help and urges him to return to Celia and show her what she means to him. It’s never too late, she says: look at herself. After everything, her son is alive. She then respectfully says she hopes she never has reason to see him again, and they part.

Meanwhile, Andras is in prison for life but has released the recordings of conversations with Kamilla, perhaps trying to shift blame and strike a lighter deal. The recordings only make Kamilla’s approval ratings go up.

Baptiste returns to France and takes a cooking class, explaining to the teacher that he wants to learn new things and break bad habits. He cleans his apartment and buys a stuffed animal from a toy store, the same one he dallied in with Celia before finding Sara dead of an overdose. He gives the toy to his granddaughter when visiting Celia, and when he prepares to leave for the night, Celia asks him to stay.