Benoit Blanc: The consulting detective's pursuit of justice
- Dan Hanoomansingh
- Jan 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 4
Benoit Blanc is the latest in a long line of beloved fictional detectives, but he also represents a long-overdue throwback to the true nature of the consulting detective. This archetype began with Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin and Wilkie Collins’ Franklin Blake and – after being made famous by Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes – inspired a litany of famous offspring. The ‘amateur’ brilliance of these detectives is juxtaposed against the bumbling incompetence of professional police officers. The consulting detective is both dazzlingly astute and refreshingly average. Viewers assume they could not race an Aston Martin through the streets of Monte Carlo – à la James Bond – but maybe, if they paid just a little more attention, they could solve a case.
In addition to their sharp investigative skills, consulting detectives possess a second core tenet: although they attend to the scene of a crime, they are devoted to justice, rather than the law. They are there to solve the case, not prosecute the crime, thereby setting themselves further apart from their professional police counterparts. This results in a tension where the police grudgingly allow the consulting detective to proceed with their investigation, but all parties are aware that they are not necessarily in pursuit of the same objectives. This is also important to the viewer because policing is a closed, fraternal profession; the viewer is allowed into the case alongside the consulting detective. As the case unfolds, the consulting detective is pulled according to the same moral compass as the audience; they are unconcerned by the details of the law and procedure if it interferes with the ‘correct’ outcome.
Blanc stands out in the current media landscape because, in recent years, the concept of the consulting detective has been co-opted by traditional police procedural TV shows. Television networks, having explored the gritty, ‘authentic’ side of policing in shows like Hill Street Blues and Southland, have latched onto the consulting detective archetype as a vehicle to create episodic dramedies that audiences crave. Characters such as Castle’s Richard Castle and The Mentalist’s Patrick Jane1 have all the hallmarks of a consulting detective – brilliant outsiders who run circles around their hapless colleagues – yet each episode ends with a simplistic, ethically-uncomplicated arrest of the bad guy. These charming, leading men are not forced to grapple with the inherent inequality and unfairness of the legal system because that’s too much drama and not enough comedy.2 They are allowed to exist in a best-of-both-worlds fantasy in which the legal system always brings the right person to justice – everyone’s hands are clean at all times.
In this context, Benoit Blanc is a stunning throwback, tailor-made for the twenty-first century, as he pushes back against the tide of copaganda in mainstream media. As Zito Madu so aptly put it: 3
In all of the movies, Blanc is on the side of the most vulnerable individual, even if at first it seems like they’re the guilty ones. He immediately recognizes that the structure of the case and the world is built to condemn the one that seems most obvious. He uses his skills, and the notion of truth, to counterbalance power and money. The fun of these movies isn’t in figuring out who the real killer is, that one is made pretty obvious and always comes to no surprise, it is about how Blanc is going to undo the construct that protects the one who did it while shielding the one that is being condemned.
The success of the Knives Out movies lies not only in the filmmaking, but Rian Johnson’s understanding and appreciation of the consulting detective’s commitment to justice. It has been a long time since North American audiences have seen that type of detective on their screens. Unlike other crime-based movies, the inciting incidents of the Knives Out movies have fairly low stakes – an elderly man dies by suicide, a rich degenerate poisons a colleague, and an unlikeable preacher at a small, irrelevant church is killed – hardly on the level of Ocean’s Eleven or even Murder on the Orient Express. The stakes lie in the humanity of the protagonists and the movies are compelling because of Blanc’s willingness to attack the balance of power; to shield the most vulnerable who would be victimized by the system, willing to lie, misdirect, and generally bamboozle the police as he pursues justice.
Blanc's commitment to justice is reflected in the fact that only one arrest takes place across the three movies: Hugh Ransom Drysdale is arrested at the end of Knives Out, not for the initial crime, but for a secondary murder committed to conceal his actions. The discovery of his crime is simply a means to the end of absolving Marta Cabrera of any wrongdoing. In Glass Onion, the viewer might infer that Miles Bron will be arrested for the murders of Andi Brand and Duke Cody, but what is important is what occurs on-screen, which is the group of hangers-on turning against Bron in favour of Helen Brand. Finally, in Wake Up Dead Man, there is nobody left to arrest, as Martha Delacroix dies by suicide, having confessed to her role in the murders, thereby absolving Jud Duplenticy of any culpability.
Wake Up Dead Man is also the first of the three movies that lacks overt class commentary. While Blanc’s antipathy towards the Catholic Church is clear, it is not the institution that is at issue. While Duplenticy embodies a more progressive view of Christian theology than Jefferson Wicks, Duplenticy nevertheless voluntarily and ardently represents the Church. The central issue of the movie is the way in which social power is wielded, first against the long-since deceased Grace Wicks, and then against Duplenticy and the congregation as a whole. The lack of an overriding class commentary brings the question of power and, by extension, Blanc's pursuit of justice into sharper focus.
The profound unfairness of the world has never been so glaringly obvious as it is presently. The legal system is the enforcement arm of that imbalance, and we are confronted with the evidence of that reality every day: children shot and killed in the street by police officers, wrongfully-convicted individuals freed after decades of imprisonment – lives stolen. Despite this reality, our television screens are filled with brilliant cop-adjacent detectives who never put a foot wrong, never prosecute the wrong person, and never have to grapple with the consequences of the system in which they operate. Every long-running police procedural involves the protagonist detectives matching wits with a serial killer who eludes them over a period of years through brilliant cunning. Yet the reality of our world is far less glamorous: the police can’t even recognize a serial killer, never mind bring him to justice.4 That doesn’t stop studios from churning out police procedurals because, amongst other reasons, people love to watch them.
Against the cold backdrop of increased police militarization in support of late capitalism, Benoit Blanc is a salve to our desire for a more ethical, just world. Blanc recognizes that while societies will always have bad actors, wrongs are to be righted in service of the common good, rather than meting out punishment “pour encourager les autres”. The viewer is alerted to that fact from the moment he appears in the background: no professional police detective would be seen working in a tweed suit with a pocket square, much less in a striped linen bathing costume – it would leave them with nowhere to hide their taser. In that and in every way, Blanc is a throwback to the genesis of the consulting detective: leading the audience in a spirited whodunit, not at the point of a gun but with care and compassion for the most vulnerable amongst us.
As viewers, who vote with both our dollar and hours of streaming time, we can not only embrace Benoit Blanc but reject the poor substitutes forced upon us by television producers. We can demand more clever tricks and just outcomes and fewer shootouts and handcuffs. The truth about propaganda is that it is effective, which is why studios have been manufacturing consent for the unsustainable militarization of the police for decades. So, why not demand propaganda that envisions a gentler, more just future? Demand more Benoit Blanc.
1. This also applies to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where the characterization of both Jake Peralta and Raymond Holt is clearly influenced by the tradition of the consulting detective. This creates a cognitive dissonance which is most evident in the show’s worst episodes, wherein they attempt to grapple with serious themes like misogyny, racism, and police brutality. In these moments, the entire conceit of the show falls apart.
2. In the rare episodes where the just outcome conflicts with the legal outcome, these detectives charm, cajole, or blackmail their police colleagues into looking the other way. As if real-life police officers would risk their careers (and in some cases, their freedom) to enforce the just outcome within the strictures of the North American legal system.
3. This piece is inspired by Zito's terrific writing and everyone should go and read his piece here.
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