The Canadian crime drama Cardinal returns to BBC Four on Saturday 11 May at 9pm with a new case involving a double murder.
But that’s not all… Detective John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) of the Algonquin Bay police is a broken man. At the end of season 2, his wife committed suicide after a long struggle against depression. Cardinal keeps turning it over in his mind, and begins to suspect that she might not in fact have killed herself.
The main problem with the murder investigation is that there are no bodies. Initially, the police find a bloody murder scene with forensics indicating that there have been at least two victims. It’s not clear whether Cardinal is in a fit state to investigate the two murders, so his partner Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse) takes the lead and her workload is added to with a series of robberies that take place at ATMs in the town.
Meanwhile, a girl in Algonquin Bay, who may have witnessed something up at the cottage, is being followed. The police worry that they have a serial killer on their hands, and further clues point to a possible doomsday cult. A woman called Sharlene ‘Mama’ Winston becomes a person of interest, while threatening letters Cardinal has received continue to draw his attention to his wife’s death as a possible murder case.
The series, which has won numerous Canadian television awards, is based on the books by Giles Blunt. Season three blends together elements from the 2006 novel By the Time You Read this and 2010’s Crime Machine.
Shown in Canada in January, the season 3 received praise for its complex and gripping plot line, and gives viewers a taste of Northern Ontario’s lakes, landscapes and forests turning autumnal, which contrasts with the freezing winter of season 1.
Giles Blunt’s Forty Words for Sorrow is the first book in the Cardinal series and is one of Canada’s top crime novels of all time. Season 3 is six episodes long.
What a great program
Started watching series 1 got hooked by episode 2
halfway through series 2 not as gripping as S1 but still very good, both main characters are well acted, cant wait for S3
Hopefully there will be S4 S5 & S6
Thos sseries was flawed by a major error. The minute that the Police would know that the murderer has the girl’s cellular telephone they would be able to track him with the phone’s GPD.
This flaw made the police look like novices.The murderer looks completely stupid. He would know that he would be tracked with the cellular telephone so why keep it? Many flaws occur in this Series. The arc of Catherine’s doctor is bogus. He would have been struck off long before he treated Catherine. It was a labor to continue to watch the entire Series.
Another flaw. The woman in charge of the murderous “family” told the older man who is assumed to be the pilot of the plane that she had someone watching his daughter and granddaughter and that if she did not contact that person they would kill. Nothing is every said again of this threat. the older man does not seem concerned at all sitting in the ambulance .
The older man never explains the importance of his friend who is dead in the bunk house, with a slashed throat. Never mentioned.
They never explain how the murderous gang knew that the older man would be there at that exact time having arrived by plane.
Series 3 of Cardinal is like Swiss Cheese, full of holes.