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No Second Chance

No Second Chance

MINI SERIES 6 x 52'
Action/Adventure / Thriller / Cop/Investigation

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Harlan Coben's bestseller book -6M copies worldwide - Translated into 42 languages

Directed by

François Velle (Bones, The Narrows, New Suit, Maverick Judge)

Starring

Alexandra Lamy (Rolling to You, Back to Mom's, Brice de Nice)
Pascal Elbé (No Second Chance)
Lionel Abelanski (Cyrano, My Love, Red Band Club, On the Other Side of the Tracks)
Lionnel Astier (Kaamelott, A Gang Story, Julie Police Commissioner)
Hippolyte Girardot (Christmas Tale, Caos Calmo, Lady Chatterley, Dolmen)
Lorant Deutsch
Fanny Valette (Little Jerusalem - Nominated for the Most Promising Actress at the Cesar Awards 2006 - Most Promising Young Actress at the Lumiere Awards - Official Selection, Critics week, Cannes 2005)
Charlotte des Georges

Production

Sydney GALLONDE (VAB)

2014 / Original language: French / Color / available in hd

COBEN'S FIRST TV ADAPTATION

A mild mannered mom turns into an action hero to retrieve her kidnapped baby and solve her husband's murder in this mini-series.


Early one morning, Dr. Alice Lambert (Alexandra Lamy) gets up early to fix a bottle for Tara, her six-month old daughter. Suddenly, two gunshots ring out. Everything goes black. When Alice emerges from a coma a week later, a nightmarish reality awaits. Her husband was murdered and her baby is missing.
Suspected by the police and hunted by ruthless hitmen, Alice refuses to give up. She can feel it, she knows her daughter is alive out there somewhere, waiting for her. Alone in her search for Tara, Alice turns to Richard (Pascal Elbé), her first love and a former criminal investigator. And more importantly, the only person she can really trust.

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Episode 1

A woman between life and death, hooked up to hospital monitors, is rushed into intensive care.
Flashback to just yesterday, when woman, Alice, was at this same hospital, in her capacity as a compassionate, competent doctor.

She is married to Laurent, a handsome illustrator. They have a baby girl, Tara.
As she is about to leave work, Alice’s sister Claire shows up, upset and clearly battered. Alice tries to help, asks who did this to her. But Claire changes her mind and runs off. This is a pattern they’ve been through before.
Later, Alice celebrates her daughter Tara’s 6-month birthday, surrounded by her friends Louis and Sophie, her husband Laurent and her parents.

Next morning, as Alice prepares Tara’s bottle, two shots suddenly ring out and everything goes black.
She regains consciousness a week later. A man is leaning over her. Richard. She loses consciousness again.
When she comes to again, she learns that Laurent is dead and Tara is missing. The two police detectives on the case, Tessier and Romano, ask her questions. Tessier is suspicious, Romano is empathetic.
When she’s well enough to go home, Richard, her lover from 15 years back, who left her to pursue his career, shows up at her place. Someone watches them, takes photos.
She receives a package with a piece of Tara’s pajama. The kidnappers want a million euros. Alice goes to Laurent’s parents, who gather the money for her. There clearly is tension between Alice and her mother-in-law, who blames her for driving a wedge between them and their son.
But when Alice tries to make the drop, with the cops monitoring the operation, despite the kidnappers’ warning, something goes terribly wrong. Alice ends up in the trunk of a mysterious car, on the phone to Tessier, who follows as best he can.
But when the car stops, a man with a repair on his front tooth opens the trunk, takes the money and says: “We said no cops. You get no second chance”.


Episode 2

Now back home, Alice gets an unpleasant visit from her mother-in-law, upset at the failed rescue of Tara and now the lost money. The cops bring Alice a surveillance video from a pawn shop connected to the gun that shot her. On it, Alice is shocked to recognize her sister Claire. She tells Tessier and Romano about Claire’s current boyfriend, Vince. The cops find out he’s a notorious dealer.

Alice goes out on her own to look for Claire, and ends up finding Vince, who holds her prisoner. Richard goes after her, but Romano and Tessier are also hot on Vince’s trail. The cops break in to Vince’s and he gets away but Alice manages to catch up to him after he is badly wounded. She refuses to help him unless he takes her to Claire and Tara. Needing medical assistance, he agrees.

Chased by the police, Vince and Alice are spotted by Tessier. Desperate, Alice points Vince’s gun at him. But someone else shoots Tessier in the leg. Richard!

Alice and Vince flee in a car, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Desperate to keep him alive, Alice goes to her best friend Nadia, a surgeon, to operate on Vince and save his life. When he comes to, he denies knowing where Claire and Tara are, but thanks to a clue he gives her, Alice figures it out.
She races to a chalet where they vacationed as kids, and finds Claire. Dead.

There is evidence of a baby having been on the premises, but no sign of Tara. Following the same lead, the police arrive and arrest Alice.
At the station, Alice is now the prime suspect in the case, and accused of shooting Tessier. But when the bullet turns out to be Richard’s he is arrested and Alice is released. All hope seems lost when Tara’s pajama is found in the river, near the chalet.

Meanwhile, in a house somewhere, a mysterious woman leans over a baby in a crib. Tara.



Episode 3

Two years have passed. Still grief-stricken, Alice leads her life as best she can. But someone is watching her: a young, beautiful sociopath named Lisa and her accomplice and lover, Sam.

Richard now works in banking. He turns up at the hospital to reconnect with Alice. It feels good to see each other again.

That night, Alice spots a dark figure, standing outside her house in the dark. She chases the stranger, and catches up to… a young woman. Rose. She says she knew Laurent, tells Alice to look for a yellow notebook he had, where she will find the key to his murder.

Alice finds the yellow notebook and realizes that Laurent was extremely tormented by something she knew nothing about. But what?

A few days later, she spots Pavel, the man with the broken tooth, the one who locked her in a car trunk, two years ago, and took the ransom money. Before she can reach him, he flees, leaving an envelope for her.
Inside is a lock of hair, a phone and a note: Want one last chance?

They’re demanding a million euros again. Alice asks her in-laws, but they cannot help her. So she goes to Richard for help, and stays at his place until the kidnappers’ phone rings. Lisa tells Alice to deliver the money that night. But Alice says she has to see her daughter first.
Richard and Alice meet with a private investigator, whose agency is mentioned in Laurent’s yellow notebook, but he refuses to give them Laurent’s file.

The kidnappers call back and agree to show her Tara, in exchange for the money. Richard comes up with a way to gather the funds by tonight.
The police find out from the PI that Laurent hired him to follow Alice. And that Richard turned up at her work, three months before the kidnapping. Were they having an affair?

Richard manages to steal a million euros in counterfeit bills, from an evidence locker, but the police are now searching for him and Alice and go to Laurent’s parents, who tell them about the new ransom demand. Lisa and Sam leave to meet Alice, with Pavel, who has a small child with him. Is it Tara?
Alice is directed to the meeting point. Richard is hiding in her car trunk. He has planted a GPS tracker in the money. They get to a giant sports arena, but Richard is caught by Sam and just as Alice, is about to be killed by Lisa, the cops arrive and the kidnappers flee.

Alice just has time to see that the child the kidnappers brought is not Tara, but a frightened little boy. The GPS tracker signal appears on Richard’s phone…


Episode 4

The cops are on the scene, they’ve caught Alice and spot Richard, but he gets away. Unfortunately, his phone breaks as he flees; causing him to lose the GPS signal emitted by the tracker he hid in the money.

At the hospital, Alice has lost all hope of ever finding Tara alive. She is questioned by Tessier and Romano, and is stunned to find out from them that Richard was at the hospital, before the kidnapping. They give her other information that cause her to reconsider her trust in him

Outside her room, Tessier gets a phone call. The lab has confirmed that the DNA from the lock of hair is really Tara’s. Nadia overhears this and tells Alice, who escapes with her help. Alice find Richard and after they locate the GPS tracker, they set off in pursuit of the kidnappers.

Tessier wants to put out an APB on Alice and Richard, but his boss tells him to drop Richard. Something is not right. Richard is obviously involved in something that runs deeper. But what?

As they chase down the tracker in Sam and Lisa’s car, Richard explains why he showed up at her work, three weeks before the shooting. He wanted to see her again. He confesses that he works for a secret service in customs authority.
Sam and Lisa reach their destination: an adoption agency, where a lawyer, Bacard, gets a call from an informant at the police station. He tells Sam and Lisa that they are being tracked and finds the GPS beacon in the money.

Sam uses the tracker to lead Alice and Richard off track, while Lisa goes off to prepare a trap for them.
Meanwhile, Rose, the mysterious woman who told Alice about Laurent’s notebook sits outside his parents’ home, watching Laurent’s father. Inside, Laurent’s parents find out that Tara is alive, and his mother leaves Alice a message of support.

Alice and Richard follow the tracker to Alice’s house, right into Lisa’s trap, which they avoid at the last moment, slamming into Pavel with their car.
Richard is wounded, almost catches Lisa but loses her. They pulls out Pavel’s tooth and use the serial number off the tooth’s rod to get an address on him.

Meanwhile, following a lead, Romano checks out the house next door to Sam and Lisa’s. Sam gets her off the scent but is worried. Richard and Alice share an intense moment and kiss. Nadia calls with the address linked to the dental rod. Freaked out, Sam and Lisa prepare to go into hiding somewhere else, while Alice and Richard follow the address to an old farm.

They hear a child crying. Is it Tara? Before they can check, a man steps out of the shadow, pointing a crossbow at Richard’s head, and says: “Give me one good reason not to shoot”.


Episode 5

At the farm, the child is not Tara, but the son of the owner, Thierry. When he understands who Alice is, he lowers his weapon and invites them in. But when Alice sees his other son, she recognizes the boy she saw with the kidnappers, at the sports arena Thierry is clueless about this, but realizes his wife Katarina is involved.

Meanwhile, Katarina is heading to Pavel’s, where Sam is waiting, poised to kill her. Back at police headquarters, Romano identifies Sam and a card found on Pavel is sent to forensics for analysis.

Alice, Richard and Thierry follow the GPS tracker in Katarina’s car, to Pavel’s place, where they intercept her. But Sam spots them and gets away. As it turns out, Katarina is Pavel’s sister.

Terrified, she tells them that her brother was involved with people who sold babies to a baby trafficking ring. She leads them to a derelict hotel in an abandoned area, where pregnant Eastern European girls are being kept, but none of them has seen Tara. Katarina gets the girl guarding them to summon the gynecologist who looks after the girls.

At the police station, the card found on Pavel turns out to be an access badge to the hotel.

Soon, Dr Vanech, a very chic doctor turns up at the hotel, in response to the call. The girls play ball and when the doctor leaves, Richard and Alice follow her. But the doctor has figured out it was a trap and rings Bacard, the adoption lawyer, who instructs her to destroy her files. Richard tracks the call, while Alice follows Vanech. Meanwhile, Bacard orders Sam to kill all the girls at the hotel. But the police get there before him.

Alice is at Dr Vanech’s home, where she interrogates her at gunpoint, but Sam and Lisa turn up, shoot Vanech and capture Alice. Richard reaches Bacard’s office, but the lawyer has covered his tracks and vanished.

He gets a call from Sam, who tells him he has Alice and Tara and orders him to come to Dr Vanech’s or he will kill them. Helped by Thierry, Richard manages to kill Sam and save Alice, who in the meantime has found out that and Sam and Lisa never had Tara and had nothing to do with her kidnapping!
In police custody, Lisa gets a threatening message across to Alice “You will pay”!

And meanwhile, Bacard is having a secret meeting that ends up getting him killed… by Alice’s best friend, Louis.


Episode 6

Alice is released while the police still hold Lisa and question her. Lisa claims that Sam forced her to commit crimes. Richard is also let go, but in exchange agrees to a dangerous, long-term mission with secret services.

Meanwhile, Laurent’s father breaks into Alice’s home to steal his son’s yellow notebook.

Next morning, Richard and Alice are at her home, trying once again to piece together what happened the day Laurent was shot and Tara was kidnapped. They figure out that the killer must have known where the spare key was hidden, someone close to Alice. Remembering that Rose, the woman she caught outside her house said that Laurent’s yellow notebook would tell her who shot him. But Alice searches in vain for it, while back at his home;

Laurent’s father is burning the precious notebook.

Realizing the notebook was stolen, Alice and Richard go to the park where Rose, the mysterious woman, said she met Laurent and often goes. They find her there. The police meanwhile find out through DNA testing, that Lisa is a kidnapping victim who has been missing for decades.

Rose reveals a terrible secret about Laurent. That his father molested him as a child, and that, driven by jealousy and fear that she would leave him, he was the one who shot Alice. They take this to Edith, Laurent’s mother, who is devastated. Laurent’s father spies them talking with Rose and kills himself.

Realizing that his attempts to see Alice again, two years back, caused Laurent’s jealousy to flare up, Richard apologizes to her. But all this is too much for her and they must part ways. That day, he gets his new mission, with a plane ticket out that night.

Going through Bacard’s files, Tessier and Romano think they may have found who adopted Tara: a family in California. But the police have turned the case over to Interpol, which means it will take years to resolve. Frustrated, Tessier and Romano try to think of a way to find out for sure if Tara is out there.

But Louis is ahead of them. Informed on the name of the family, he picks up Alice and they head to the airport. On their way to the family’s home, Alice pieces together what happened and Louis confesses to the role he played in Tara’s disappearance.

He walked in on Laurent who had just shot Alice. They struggled and Laurent killed himself. Thinking Alice was dead, and knowing the kind of man Laurent’s father was, Louis took Tara so she wouldn’t go to her grandparents, and had her adopted through Bacard.

When she sees her daughter again, at last, Alice realizes that the little girl is happy, and that she can’t take her from these people she thinks are her parents. Devastated, she is about to fly home when Richard turns up, with Tara and her parents, to whom he’s told everything.

After an intensely emotional talk, the two mothers decide to raise the little girl together. Richard vanishes, bound by his mission.

Six months later, Tara’s adoptive parents have moved to France and everyone is happy. Richard returns, this time for good, to be with Alice, the woman he loves.

But meanwhile, in a psychiatry ward somewhere, Lisa stews in her hatred for Alice…



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La Rochelle TV Fiction Festival 2016
- BEST SERIES
- BEST ACTRESS

Shanghai Tv Festival 2016
TV Film/Miniseries Award

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• #1 IN FRANCE
A smash hit on TF1 with 8.5 Million fanbase
Top record on catch up TV with 1.07M viewers for each
episode.

• #1 IN JAPAN

• IN EUROPE
- In Central Europe
Best rated series on Diva Universal skewed 71%
on female, higher than the channel average (65%).
- In Spain
More than 1.5 million viewers on TVE 1 with 13.3%
of market share (4 points above the channel average).

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"Spellbinding fiction"
Le Figaro

"A breathtaking thriller"
Le Parisien

“ A 100% breathtaking and addictive thriller.”
Télé 7 Jours

"Suspense fine-tuned to perfection, topped with grand emotions"
Télérama





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Available in :
Italian

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