By transposing the plot of “This Is Us” which saw Jack joining the army against the backdrop of the Algerian war, did the screenwriters of “I promise you” commit an inconsistency with the character of Paul (Hugo Becker)? Who would have died at over 60?
By transposing the plot of This Is Us for the needs of their French adaptation, did the screenwriters of I promise you make a timing error? In any case, this is what season 2 seems to suggest, which makes an inconsistency linked to the character of Paul Gallo, played by Hugo Becker, a little more obvious.
While TF1 will offer the last two episodes of this second season tomorrow evening, which will see the heroes celebrate the marriage of Maud (Marilou Berry) and Tanguy (Marc Riso), a possible season 3 should, like that of This Is Us, take an interest in Paul’s past and his relationship with his younger brother against the backdrop of the Algerian war.
Already teased in the first two seasons of I promise you, since we learn there in particular that Paul has been accused of desertion, it is precisely this plot and its implication on the age of the character that poses a problem for us.
Because if we assume that Paul enlisted in the French army and went to Algeria to find his brother in the 1950s, that would mean that he would have been over 60 at the time of his death in 1999. Which has obviously never been mentioned until now.
As a reminder, the Algerian war took place from 1954 to 1962. If no precise date has yet been given in I promise you concerning Paul’s departure for Algeria, we can imagine that he be rendered between 1954 and 1960. Thus, the character portrayed by Hugo Becker would certainly have been born between 1934 and 1940 to have been at least around 18-20 years old at that time. Even if, in This Is Us, Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia) was actually 26 when he joined the army in 1970.
Doing the math, Paul would therefore have been around 45 years old when the triplets were born in 1981 and around 63 when he died in 1999. Are we therefore to believe that Florence (Camille Lou) was over 80 when she is embodied by Nathalie Roussel in the present? And that it is the same for José, interpreted by Lionel Astier? This all seems rather unlikely.
Authentic Prod/TF1
In This Is Us, Jack was born in 1944 and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) in 1950, which means they are only five years apart. Perhaps the screenwriters of I promise you, Brigitte Bémol and Julien Simonet, decided that Paul and Florence were between 15 and 20 years apart. But again, this was never mentioned on the show. And that doesn’t make much sense compared to everything that’s been told so far.
In addition, a flashback sequence from season 1 of I promise you which quickly showed Paul’s childhood seemed to suggest, by its decorations and especially the clothing of the characters, a crazing in the 50s or 60s. But if Paul is born before 1940, he obviously would not have been only a few years old then.
Due to the specifications that the production and TF1 must respect, and which prevents them from deviating too much from what is told in This Is Us season after season, the authors were obliged to incorporate the war into their story. And to transpose the Vietnam War, which took place from 1955 to 1975, the only possible option for a series taking place in France from the 1950s to the present day was of course the Algerian War.
However, if the wars in Algeria and Vietnam began almost the same year, they did not have the same duration. And the screenwriters of I promise you seem to have forgotten that Jack did not enlist until 1970, that is to say towards the end of the armed conflict.
Unless we learn in season 3 that Paul was much older than Florence and that he was already nearly 50 years old when his children were born, we really find it hard to believe that he could have died at a later date. 60 years old. But maybe the rest of the series will prove us wrong.