The last episode of season 4 of “Red Bracelets”, broadcast this Monday September 25 on TF1, ends with the inevitable death of one of the characters. The actor Léo Lorléac’h and the writers of the series talk about this tragic ending.
Warning, this article contains spoilers on the last episode of season 4 of Bracelets rouge, broadcast this evening on TF1. If you don’t want to know anything, don’t read what follows!
After only three weeks of broadcast, the new season 4 of the series Les Bracelets rouge ended this Monday evening on TF1 with the broadcast of the last two episodes, particularly moving.
Presented as the “heart” of the little band of Red Bracelets, Benji (Léo Lorléac’h), who has little time left to live, announces to his friends that he is going to leave the hospital to return home. Faced with this news, Gabriel (Noé Wodecki), Emma (Kali Boisson) and the others decide to do everything they can to make his very last wish come true.
Unfortunately, in the very last minutes of the finale of this fourth season, viewers, like the characters, learn of Benji’s death. A very sad conclusion but not really surprising since, from the start, the public knew that Benji was doomed because of his degenerative disease.
The writers talk about the plot around Benji
“We really wanted to tell this story”explains Cécile Berger, one of the screenwriters of this season 4 in the form of a reboot, which features a new group of teenagers. “Of course, we questioned ourselves a lot, we went back and forth, we hesitated. But we said to ourselves that by going all the way and making Benji die, we had a plan that was different from previous seasons. We went further”.
The writers of the series still hesitated to postpone the death of their hero until later, in season 5 or 6. Before making the rather daring choice of staging his death in this fourth salvo. “Of course, we hesitated. In season 1, there was Sarah who died. It was a surprise, it was super strong. There, we take a character who he knows is not like the others, who have cancer but still have a chance of getting out of it. It’s a different journey”.
“There was also the questioning of how to embody him, because once we said to ourselves “We are starting with a character who knows he is going to die”, we have to tell a story around that, otherwise it is not interesting”continues Solenn le Priol, who is also one of the writers of this new season of Red Bracelets.
“On the other hand, a character who makes a list of things he wants to do before he dies, a character who receives an armchair, which means that overall he has six months to live, a character who falls in love when he was thinking that it was no longer possible, that’s very powerful and very interesting to tell”.
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Léo Lorléac’h reacts to the death of his character
Met last spring as part of the Séries Mania Festival, Léo Lorléac’h, the interpreter of Benji, told us that he had been aware since the beginning of the upcoming death of his character at the end of season 4. And that he was finally happy that it was happening at that time.
“We all knew it. I know that there were debates at one point between the writers, to know if he was really going to die, especially between episode 3 and episode 4. But I think it was the best decision”explains the young actor seen at the cinema in King.
“I would have been a little disappointed if he hadn’t died”continues Léo Lorléac’h. “Obviously, it would have been nice for me to come back in season 5. But deep down I prefer it to be that way. I think it’s well done and it’s logical. He had to die, it was inevitable , we knew it. That was the whole message of the season. And at the same time, we say it from the start so as not to dwell on it too much either. What matters is everything else, its relationships with others, what it brings them”.
A feeling shared by Kali Boisson, her playing partner who plays Emma in the series: “Alexandre Manneville, one of the screenwriters, told me: ‘Benji had to die because, otherwise, it’s not a game if in the series we don’t make people die whereas in real life they die.’.”
It remains to be seen whether Benji will still appear, in one way or another, in season 5 of Red Bracelets, which has already been filming for several months.
Through flashbacks or “appearances” in the form of ghosts or dreams, like at the very end of season 4? Answer during the year 2024, when this fifth batch of episodes will arrive on the air on TF1.