Series / The Serpent

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The Serpent is a limited series developed by Mammoth Screen and commissioned by the BBC. It follows the life and crimes, and the eventual capture, of the French serial killer and fraudster Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) and his accomplice Marie Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman) as they are pursued by a mild-mannered Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle). It was originally released on BBC One on January 1, 2021 before streaming on Netflix in April of 2021.

The Serpent contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: To be expected with any piece of media drawing from real life events and people. While the real-life Charles Sobhraj was described as handsome in his younger years, he's played by the more classically handsome Tahar Rahim. Despite this, the majority of the actors do closely resemble their real-life counterparts.
• Amicable Exes: Angela and Herman end up divorcing, but they remain close enough of friends for Angela to check on him and keep him apprised of Charles's activity, knowing how deeply Herman is involved in the case.
• Anachronic Order: The series flips between time periods to build Charles's character and criminal history. The first episode in particular jumps between two and four months in the past to show exactly how the two tourists went missing, and the series continually bounces between various times to build tension and explain what Charles has been up to while Herman is hunting him down. Only in the last couple of episodes does the timeline maintain a linear order, with Charles and Marie-Andrée on the run.
• Artistic License – History: While the events depicted in the series are largely accurate, the order in which they took place was altered for the plot.
  • According to the lead writer, several aspects of Charles Sobhraj's schemes had to be downplayed because the creators felt the audience wouldn't believe they actually took place.
  • Angela Kane felt upon viewing the final product that the series had downplayed her role in the investigation, feeling it had depicted her as "the dutiful diplomat's wife" and not one of the people actively pursuing Sobhraj and his accomplices. Furthermore, the series heavily blames the downfall of their marriage on the investigation, when in real life they stayed married for thirteen years after Charles's arrest.
  • In real life, Ajay Chowdhury's last confirmed sighting was in Malaysia in 1976. It's speculated that Charles along with possibly Marie-Andrée might have actually murdered him.
  • How Dominique met Sobhraj and later escaped from him is entirely true. However, there was another Frenchman who was Adapted Out of the series who was in the same position as Dominique, and escaped with him.
  • In Real Life, it's believed that many of Charles' killed victims were in fact participants in many of his crimes and were murdered for eventually threatening to expose him, or for simply being loose ends. In the series the victims are all murdered either for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for declining being accomplices, or for seeing something that they shouldn't have seen. This was likely done out of respect for the families of the victims, and due to exact details being unknown.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Marie-Andrée and Juliette both fall for Charles, and maintain their relationships with him even after he's revealed to be a career criminal. (At least, initially.)
• Becoming the Mask: Played with. Marie-Andrée is initially shown to be horrified by Charles' criminality, but grows to be satisfied with robbing tourists and enjoying the lavish lifestyle and popularity that his pursuits bring her. However, his increasingly unpleasant actions — first shameless infidelity, and later murder — begin to unsettle her, and she notes in her diary that "Marie-Andrée" is terrified of the developments, but "Monique" must stay calm and collected, and she maintains a relationship with Charles due to his charisma or coercion as she persuades herself to remain unbothered by his actions. As the series progresses, she goes back and forth between being reluctant and voluntarily helping Charles and Ajay, even luring a couple in Nepal to Charles despite knowing what will happen t them. Though she does ultimately turn against Charles out of guilt and disillusionment because of his crimes and the killings of innocent people she had been forced to befriend, it's also telling that she started resenting him because of the loss of the very things that made her "Monique": she lost her luxurious lifestyle and spending habits while on the run and staying in filthy flophouses, Charles wastes the money they've stolen through gambling, and he had not only hidden the existence of his first wife and child, but he also failed to keep his promise of a rich and fabulous life in Paris for her.
• Best Served Cold: Charles is ultimately imprisoned thanks to testimony from the deceased Marie-Andrée, who gets her revenge on him from beyond the grave.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Due to several characters being French or French Canadian, multiple sections of dialog are entirely in French.
  • Dutch and Thai are also spoken in several instances in the series due to the place and the characters.
• Blatant Lies: Charles is incredibly good at manipulating others with bold lies. When a shaken Marie-Andrée begs him to swear on the head of his daughter that he didn't murder a couple and orphan their young daughter, he willingly does so, even though the audience knows that he had indeed killed the victims.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Willem and Helena are poisoned to the point of being too weak to fight back against Charles and Ajay, and are later burned alive.
• Death by Irony: Marie-Andrée dies of ovarian cancer. After her diagnosis, she muses about the irony to Charles, noting how badly she had wanted to have a baby with him.
• Distant Finale: The latter half of the final episode jumps forwards two decades for Charles's final arrest.
• Domestic Abuse: By the time Marie-Andrée leaves Quebec to be with Charles, the latter almost immediately starts showing red flags of an abusive partner. Said red flags include him ignoring Marie-Andrée at first for a week, before showering her with gifts once she complains, and then clearly manipulating her when she ends committing her first crime with him. This isn't even scratching the surface of his abusive behavior later in the series.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Dominique manages to survive a torturous existence with Charles and narrowly avoids being murdered, escaping home into the loving arms of his relieved parents.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Ajay is a willing accomplice in Charles’ various crimes, but doesn’t seem to show that much enthusiasm when it comes to murder, even being visibly disturbed by it on more than one occasion. Not enough stop him from participating in the actual killing though.
• Evil Feels Good: Though she tends to draw a line at murder, Marie-Andrée is fairly lax when it comes to Charles's criminality, and even admits to Nadine that she wouldn't want him to change. After she participates unwittingly in her first robbery with Charles, she is shaken, but ultimately confesses that she was just happy to be included in someone else's plans and would have willingly gone along with the scheme in the first place if he had just asked her. When they finally end their relationship, Marie-Andrée tries to argue that she hasn't done anything wrong in comparison to him, but Charles points out that she always knew what was going on and never complained.
• Everybody Smokes: Unsurprisingly, given the time period. In particular, Herman seems to smoke almost constantly, and Marie Andrée and Nadine frequently light up as well.
• Fame Through Infamy: Implied by the series to be why Charles Sobhraj decides to return to Nepal, knowing that he'll be arrested once the authorities realize he's in the country. Knippenberg even states that he revels in the notoriety his crimes have given him.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • Charles. He uses a carefully constructed facade of a well-spoken and kind gem dealer and party host to take advantage of multiple people, mostly Western tourists traveling to Bangkok along the hippie trail.
  • Charles' accomplices Ajay and Marie-Andrée/Monique, though not to the same extent, as both display some semblance of humanity unlike Sobhraj.
• Fish Out of Water: Herman Knippenberg is a clean cut, junior diplomat for the Dutch embassy in Thailand who's having to be a novice detective to track down a murderer in a city famous for police corruption and crime, and it shows.
• Foreshadowing: Invoked. Marie-Andrée witnesses the Kumari Devi while in Nepal, where it's remarked that she is able to live like a goddess for only a short time, before being cast out and treated as an untouchable for the rest of her life, never to marry. Marie-Andrée quietly realizes that this might be her own fate with Charles, though it doesn't provoke her to leave the dangerous path she's on. Sure enough, she's eventually knocked off the pedestal and becomes an imprisoned pariah, dying without ever being with another man.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Charles is rarely seen without his glasses and is a complete sociopath.
• Friendless Background: Marie-Andrée admits that nobody back home gives a damn about her, and the "boyfriend" she'd brought on the same holiday where she met Charles was simply an ex and the only person who would agree to go on a trip together. Part of the reason she agrees to be an accomplice to Charles's schemes is because his wealth allows her to live like a queen, surrounded by adoring partygoers who compete for her attention.
• From Bad to Worse: Charles and Marie-Andrée's blissful Paris escape lasts only briefly before their faces are plastered everywhere and police come searching for them. They're forced to make an accomplice out of a complete stranger, who ends up bolting with the last of their money after realizing how dangerous they are. Stuck living in a skid row flophouse in India, Marie-Andrée is so disgusted with the situation that she practically welcomes the police when they finally show up.
• Girl Friday: Lawana, Herman's secretary, is loyal and hardworking, and frequently assists him in his investigations, such as providing him with crime scene photographs before the police can get to them, knowing they might mishandle or withhold the evidence.
• Gone Horribly Right: Charles's final, desperate gambit while on the run is to poison a bunch of German tourists and steal their luggage while it is unguarded. Unfortunately, the poison works a little too well and early, causing the group to vomit violently while still at dinner, and he's unable to escape the hotel in time before being caught by police.
• Go-to Alias: Alain Gautier for Sobhraj, Monique for Marie-Andrée, either using Gautier or Leclerc as her surname.
• Has a Type: Judging from Marie Andrée, Juliette, Suda, Nadine, and Teresa (though he only has a sexual relationship with the first two), Charles is particularly attracted to brunettes, especially French brunettes. Herman's wife, Angela, is blonde instead.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Marie Andrée eventually turns on Charles when she finally realizes he doesn't love her and repents for her crimes in prison.
• Hypocrite: Charles keeps a Thai mistress to aid his criminal enterprise, and expects Marie-Andrée to put up with the disrespect of the brazen affair as the mistress means nothing to him emotionally. When Marie-Andrée merely dances flirtatiously with another man at a party, however, Charles is quick to poison him out of jealousy.
• Karma Houdini: Even after all the crimes Sobhraj has perpetrated, from fraud to robbery to at least a dozen murders, he's still able to use his cunning to avoid being extradited to Thailand (thereby avoiding his inevitable execution in that country), and by 2000s, is a free man living in France. The only reason he's imprisoned by 2003, and the end of the series, is because he decided to return to the one country that still had murder charges on him.
• Manipulative Bastard: Charles easily manipulates everyone around him for personal gain, to the extent that he's always doing so or at least trying to do so with every person he interacts with.
• Narcissist: Charles ticks many of the boxes, especially later in the series as his ego starts to grow bigger. It's implied in the series that he deliberately returned to Nepal (one place where he could still be arrested) in 2003 because he was fading out of the public eye, and wanted the spotlight back on him. It's explicitly stated in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue that this was for dramatization purposes, and in Real Life the true reason is known only to Charles himself.
• Never Mess with Granny: Charles's is one of the only people who can tell Charles off and get away with it, telling him to his face that he was hard to love and his plans aren't going to go his way. Having been fed up with him ever since he convinced his brother to take his place in prison, she immediately tells the police about his activity once they come knocking on her door.
• Nice Girl: Nadine. She's sweet and caring, and over the series goes through great lengths to thwart Sobhraj's sinister actions. She helps Dominique escape back to France after months of being poisoned and manipulated by Charles, and puts her life at risk collecting evidence against him and his accomplices.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Charles is a very dangerous serial killer, owing to his knowledge of drugs and poisons, charisma, abilities of cunning and deception, and complete lack of a moral compass. Although he's shown to have a relatively muscular physique thanks to Adaptational Attractiveness and is shown exercising on a punchbag, the only time's he's shown physically overpowering anybody is due to his opponent/victim being heavily drugged, as well as having assistance from Ajay. He's completely outmatched by police officers and doesn't even bother putting up a fight whenever they show up to arrest him, surrendering immediately if escape isn't an option.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: While one would assume that an embassy would go to every effort to rescue a missing national, the Dutch ambassador considers virtually any pursuit of the disappearance to be an overreach and an inappropriate use of diplomatic resources, forcing Knippenberg to go behind his superior's back in order to investigate. The ambassador himself prefers to sit on his laurels and enjoy country club meetings, and other officials do little more than indulge in local vices, refusing to risk their careers by sticking their necks out to search for a couple of hippies. This is an unfortunate case of Truth in Television, as many beleaguered travelers have horror stories of foreign embassies that do little more than contact the police in missing persons cases unless faced with extreme and consistent pressure from families.
• Opposites Attract: The mousy, reserved Marie-Andrée catches the eye of the roguish, free-spirited, handsome Charles, who immediately sees the strength and sex appeal underneath her conservative clothing and demure attitude. Furthermore, Marie-Andrée comes from a religious background and overbearing parents who chide her for abandoning a secure but boring life to run off to a foreign country with Charles — which is part of the reason she refuses to give up on him after their uncertain start.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Frequently goes on between Charles and Paul due to differing opinions on how to handle Charles. Ultimately, they always make up and work together again.
• Poison Is Evil: Sobhraj's M.O. almost always consists of slipping toxic or sedative substances in his victims' food or drinks.
• Police Are Useless: As a diplomat, Knippenberg's sole approved resource is to report the missing tourists to the local police, only to find out that they treat the crime flippantly and go on holiday for days at a time and leave the police station closed. When he eventually manages to get an audience with them, the police admit that they simply don't have the resources to investigate the crime, even at the risk of their tourism reputation, and advise him to simply continue investigating on his own, despite acknowledging that he doesn't have the resources or authority to do so properly. Fortunately, at the series goes on and his investigation gets more traction, he encounters more competent task forces who are far more capable of handling the case and do end up pursuing and apprehending Charles.
• Politically Correct Villain: Subverted. Charles frequently uses his mixed racial heritage and experiences of discrimination in Europe as another manipulation tactic and way to justify his usual targeting of Western tourists in Asia, and initially acts offended by Marie-Andrée/Monique calling Ajay "a little brown thug." He then proceeds to call Ajay the exact same thing later.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Herman's tireless work leads to Charles's arrest and imprisonment, at the cost of his marriage and professional standing. Ultimately subverted, as he does eventually end up happily remarried and with a successful diplomatic career.
• Redemption Equals Death: Marie-Andrée comes to reject Charles by the very end of the series, and fully accepts what a monstrous psychopath he is and that she complicit in his crimes and thus goes to prison along with him in India. She develops ovarian cancer, however, and is given an early release to die back in Quebec.
• Refuge in Audacity: Charles travels to Nepal in 2003, the only country in the world that still has a warrant for his arrest due to the murder of two tourists in 1976 as a now world-famous criminal, and makes a photographer take a picture of him in front of a sign that would mark him as being in Kathmandu.
• Replacement Goldfish: Charles outright tells Juliette that he dated Marie-Andrée because she reminded him of her.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Charles occasionally veers into this territory. While his methods of killing are mostly pragmatic, there's no doubt he does derive pleasure from making his victims suffer in several instances.
• The Sociopath: Charles manages to tick off every box that defines antisocial personality disorder. He's a con-man who eventually escalates to murdering people, indicating a staggering lack of remorse or empathy. He regularly manipulates everyone around him, and is strongly implied to be incapable of anything more than a very superficial attachment to someone. He's shown to be promiscuous and womanizing, and he also engages in several thrill-seeking or reckless behaviors (His failed jewel heist in India and his subsequent prison escapes come to mind.)
• Too Dumb to Live: Unfortunately, the naïve, thrill-seeking, and trusting nature that defines many of the hippies indulging in 70s Bangkok makes them prime targets for Charles, who has a keen eye for which tourists will become easy targets.
• Wall Bang Her: Marie-Andrée and Charles consummate their relationship by making love against a wall of Kanit House.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After Charles cuts ties with Ajay and abandons him on the side of a road in Pakistan, he never appears in the series again. While Ajay Chowdhury is reported to have been sighted in Germany in 1985 (which is mentioned in the Where Are They Now epilogue), it's speculated that Charles Sobhraj may have in fact murdered Ajay sometime in 1976.
• Would Hit a Girl: Charles, having correctly suspected that Nadine aided with Charles's escape and furious at her over it, punches her in the stomach under the guise of a friendly fight, and would have likely murdered her in an upstairs room had Paul not arrived minutes later.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: While in prison in India, Charles had faked appendicitis so convincingly that he had his appendix removed, and had used the opportunity afterwards to escape.
• Villain Protagonist: The series' plot is split into following Charles Sobhraj and following Herman Knippenberg as he attempts to bring Sobhraj to justice. As a result, both characters switch between acting as the protagonist and as the antagonist.