Apple TV+ series Drops of God, about two wine experts competing to win a priceless cellar and their dead father figure’s favor, takes a trip down memory lane this week.
Alexandre and Marianne Léger relive their first tribulations, as well as their decision to move to Japan. And Issei’s mother remembers her first encounter with Alexandre, and how he ended up changing her life.
It’s a bit of a letdown that the episode, entitled “Foundation,” drifts from the show’s main action. However, this beautifully acted and well-directed detour proves very good nevertheless.
Drops of God recap: ‘Foundation’
Season 1, episode 4: As the episode starts, Issei Tomine (played by Tomohisa Yamashita) and Camille Léger (Fleur Geffrier) are preparing for a photo shoot to accompany a news coverage of their strange, sensational contest. They’re putting their knowledge of wine to the test, and whoever wins gets the fortune and private wine cellar of Camille’s father, Alexandre Léger (Stanley Weber).
The two competitors don’t know each other well at all, and haven’t spoken more than a few words in each other’s presence, but something happens that endears Camille to Issei. Speaking Japanese, Issei’s hairdresser starts talking about how embarrassing it must have been for Camille to lose the first challenge. And then Camille answers her in Japanese. The hairdresser didn’t know Camille understood the language. Issei smiles, but tries not to make a big show of it.
The two competitors speak frostily to each other during the photo shoot. Until recently, Issei didn’t know Camille existed, despite being one of the people closest to her father, Alexandre. Seems like if she meant something to the old man, Léger would have mentioned her. Maybe she was just a bad kid — ungrateful to her father, whom Issei saw as a genius and surrogate father.
Of course, because Alexandre and Camille were both under the mistaken impression that neither wanted anything to do with the other (due to a lie concocted by her mother), they didn’t speak for 20 years. Which of course means that Camille had no idea about Issei, either.
“What does your father think?” she sneers at him.
This contest has some history
Well … that’s tricky. Pressured by her own father, Noboru (Masane Tsukayama), Issei’s mother Honoka (Makiko Watanabe) sent her husband Hirokazu (Satoshi Nikaido) to dissuade Issei from taking part in the contest. It looked undignified for the heir of a diamond interest to go chasing a foreigner’s money.
Hirokazu obliged out of love for his wife, the most towering, intimidating presence in his life. When he failed, and Issei went ahead with the first challenge, she called Hirokazu and chewed him out. She said some very nasty things. Then Hirokazu put all his personal effects in an envelope and wandered off, presumably to kill himself.
Just as Hirokazu’s envelope arrives portending his death, Alexandre’s ashes turn up at his wife’s place. He asked for them to be spread at the vineyard owned by Philippe Chassangre (Gustave Kervern), where Alexandre worked for much of his life.
When the envelope arrives, it prompts a flashback to the 1990s, when the Tomines (now played by Nanami Kameda and Kotaro Uchiyama) first went to France and met Alexandre. Honoka was a hard case even then, but Alexandre pulled out something special — a bottle usually only opened on special occasions. She was so impressed she offered to buy 50 cases of the stuff. This won them an invitation to that night’s party at the vineyard.
Off to Tokyo …
Alexandre is, in short order, drummed out of the winemaking community in France after turning in a thesis paper lambasting the growing French wine market as a nest of vipers. He moves to Tokyo to start teaching, bringing Marianne (played by Margaux Chatelier in flashback).
In his first class, the Tomines show up. There are problems. The students have been told not to drink in class, so he can’t start them off sampling wine right away. Instead, he plans a clandestine meeting at a wine bar outside of class. Honoka is his first volunteer to do a blind smell test, and she passes with flying colors, which breaks the ice among the other students.
As Alexandre teaches Honoka more, they grow much closer than they intended to, all while the jealous Hirokazu watches pitifully from the sidelines. One night, he gets too drunk and passes out in the street and it gets back to the college, which cancels Alexandre’s class. He and Honoka begin an affair just as Marianne throws him a lifeline by getting him a publisher for his proposed wine guide, the one that will make his name.
Marianne also tells Alexandre that she’s pregnant with Camille. There’s trouble there … Honoka’s pregnant, too. She goes to Hirokazu to cry about it, and he agrees to marry her and raise the kid. That certainly throws a monkey wrench into the contest, doesn’t it?
I’m here for my inheritance
Photo: Apple TV+
It’s a bummer that we have to leave the main action of Drops of God for most of the hour, as I was just getting into the groove of the show. But having said that, this is still a respectable hour of television, with great atmospheric direction and the usual raft of committed performers.
The dynamic between young Honoka and Alexandre is quite nicely realized, with her cultural baggage initially stopping her from giving in to passion before her yearning takes over. This kind of a thing can very often succumb to shorthand and cliche, but the Drops of God writers, director Oded Ruskin, and the actors give it breathing room like any good wine. Still, I’ll be excited to get back to the show’s central drama next week.
★★★☆☆
Watch Drops of God on Apple TV+
New episodes of Drops of God arrive Fridays on Apple TV+.
Rated: TV-MA
Watch on: Apple TV+
Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper and But God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford in the 21st Century, the director of 25 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
