Murder and mystery are just two of the guests at ‘Paradise Motel’ (2024)

There are many different ways to uncover clues to a mystery. For Jen Paradis (Nahéma Ricci), it involves a near-fatal – well, technically fatal, she was dead for a few minutes – car crash. It’s probably not an approach most detectives would recommend, but in her case it worked: after the crash, during that brief gap between life and death, she had a series of visions featuring people from her past and (more impressively) people she hadn’t met yet.

Most importantly, she saw her 14-year-old sister Noémie (Vivi-Anne Riel), who went missing three years ago. The police assumed it was suicide by drowning and sent divers down to search for the body. But when Jen saw her sister, she had dirt pouring out her sleeves, standing in a bus filled with earth. For her, the message is clear: her sister was murdered, and both her body and the killer are still out there.

One of the other people she saw in her vision (somewhat disturbingly, he was lifelessly falling to the ground) was Alain Renaud (Stéphane Gagnon), the police officer in charge of the investigation into her sister’s death. When she turns up on his doorstep, he understandably wants to know how she found out where he lives; she has no idea.

There are two sides to the mystery in Paradise Motel. One has Jen tangled up in its grasp. She’s seeing visions, she’s driven by mysterious forces, there’s practically a dark cloud hanging over her as she struggles to deal with her guilt. She’s come back from the brink of death tainted by the paranormal; finding out what happened to her sister is all about putting demons to rest.

For Renaud, it’s just as personal. After Jen leaves, it’s clear her visit has stirred things up he’d rather leave settled. He talked to her like he was still a cop, but when he returned to headquarters it’s clear that he’s retired – or been retired. There’s a desk job if he wants it, but his days of doing field investigations are over, let alone getting a three-year-old cold case reopened when there’s no new leads. As far as the force is concerned, those fancy golf clubs left by his door are his future.

If Jen is the supernatural side of the story, then Renaud is the more traditional investigator, using the case as a way to hold his life together. They never found the body, nobody called into the police tip line with clues. For him, that all points to a crime the locals didn’t want solved. Maybe he’s too involved – it turns out that Noémie’s disappearance was the crime that trashed his career and ruined his marriage – but he can’t let it go.

So he follows Jen to her home town of Val-Paradis, and they begin their work in earnest. Fans of scenic, picturesque small towns may want to look away, because this place is – to put it nicely – a creepy dump. Most of the action centres around the local convenience store, with a bar close by. How bad is the bar? The front door is one of those glass sliding patio doors you see on people’s holiday homes.

The Hotel Paradis (in English, the Paradise Motel) is not exactly a five-star resort either. It’s where our intrepid duo hole up: it’s also the home of Jen’s unbalanced mother Brigitte (Isabelle Guérard). The good news is, she’s stopped drinking. But even sober she’s just one of the many colourful characters that populate the region.

If you’re Renaud and you’re looking for suspects, there’s no shortage of them hanging around. Beyond Brigitte there’s the shady falconer Polo (Larissa Corriveau), real estate agent Julie (Dominique Quesnel), laid back cop Pat Nelson (Martin Dubreuil), and hard-partying musician Carl (Eric Robidoux) amongst many others. There’s a real community here, a web of lives that are intertwined – and none of them are all that happy to have Renaud back in town snooping around.

What follows is like two series mingled into one. Jen’s search is an emotional one, looking back into the mysteries of her past and the nightmares of the present. There’s more than a few flashbacks to keep track of. The trick is to keep an eye on her neck tattoo (her younger self doesn’t have one).

For Renaud, things are more clear cut: there’s a crime to be solved and he’s determined to get to the bottom of things. Problem is, he has no idea just how far down that bottom will turn out to be.