There is a particular problem with a show whose protagonist is famous for always having a plan. After a while, the audience begins to suspect that every setback is merely another piece of a scheme we haven't been allowed to see yet. A locked door becomes an opportunity. An arrest becomes an elaborate distraction. Even the most impossible escape starts to feel inevitable when Assane Diop is involved. Lupin has made a considerable amount of entertainment out of this trick, and Omar Sy has the charisma to sell it. But after three previous parts built around the same fundamental pleasure, the series faces a difficult question: how do you surprise viewers who have come to expect the surprise?
Part 4 finds an interesting answer by putting Assane on the wrong side of his own reputation. He has surrendered, accepted his imprisonment, and apparently decided that his life as Lupin has run its course. His remaining ambition is refreshingly ordinary. He wants to keep his promise to his son, Raoul, and spend time with his family without another criminal escapade threatening to pull them apart. The prospect of Assane voluntarily abandoning the identity that has defined his adult life gives the new season a more personal starting point than another robbery would have. Of course, peace was never going to last very long.
A mysterious announcement bearing the Lupin name warns of simultaneous museum robberies across Paris. The crimes take place despite heightened security, and the evidence points towards a man who is supposed to be behind bars. Assane's claim of innocence does little to help him. A camera places him at one of the museums during a robbery in which Captain Sofia Belkacem is seriously injured. With the evidence stacked against him, he has to escape prison and identify the person who has managed to turn his own methods against him. It is a strong premise because it attacks the very thing that has always made Assane so difficult to catch. His reputation is built on the assumption that he can get into almost anywhere, assume almost any identity, and leave investigators wondering how they were fooled. That reputation has now become a liability. When a crime carries the Lupin signature, the authorities already have a suspect in mind. Assane's talent for controlling a story has left him vulnerable to someone who understands exactly how the public and the police perceive him.
I like this shift in the balance of power. Assane has spent much of the series manipulating other people's expectations, often using their confidence in what they think they know against them. Here, somebody is doing the same to him. He cannot simply rely on being the cleverest person in the room because the person setting the trap appears to have studied his methods. For once, Assane has to consider the possibility that somebody else has anticipated his next move.
The series touches on another uncomfortable dimension of this problem through the way Assane's race affects how he is perceived. His ability to move through Paris unnoticed has often depended on other people making assumptions about who he is and what he might be doing. Those same assumptions become dangerous when investigators begin looking for a suspect. His reputation as a master thief makes the accusation seem plausible before the facts have been properly examined.
This is one of the more compelling directions the show takes because it gives the mystery a social dimension without requiring Assane to deliver a speech about injustice. He understands how people see him. He has used that knowledge to his advantage, sometimes with extraordinary success. But there is a difference between choosing to exploit somebody else's assumptions and having those assumptions used to determine your guilt. The latter leaves him with considerably less control.
Omar Sy remains the series' greatest asset. Assane requires an actor who can make elaborate deception look almost effortless without reducing the character to a smug genius who always knows better than everyone else. Sy has that ability. His physical presence, comic timing, and easy confidence make even the more extravagant sequences enjoyable, and he can shift into a more vulnerable register when the story turns towards his family. What I appreciate most about his performance is that Assane's charm never entirely conceals his exhaustion. His desire to leave the Lupin persona behind feels credible because it is not simply a declaration that he has grown tired of crime. He wants to stop making his family pay for the consequences of his choices.
That conflict has always been central to Assane's character, but Part 4 gives it renewed urgency. His plans are usually motivated by some version of protecting his family, correcting an injustice, or getting ahead of an enemy. He can escape a prison cell, outwit a security system, and fool an entire team of investigators, yet none of those accomplishments guarantees that Claire or Raoul will be safe from the fallout. The question of whether Assane can actually leave his old life behind is therefore more interesting than whether he can pull off another spectacular heist. His relationship with Raoul, in particular, gives the story something to lose. The promise of a future in Senegal represents a chance to build a life that is not constantly dictated by the next emergency. If Assane cannot stop being Lupin, his son may never get the father he has been promised.
The returning cast helps maintain the personal connections that prevent the show from becoming an endless succession of robberies. Ludivine Sagnier returns as Claire, Assane's longtime partner and Raoul's mother, while Antoine Gouy reprises his role as Benjamin Férel, Assane's closest friend and trusted accomplice. Soufiane Guerrab is back as Youssef Guédira, the detective whose knowledge of Arsène Lupin's adventures has helped him understand Assane's methods. Shirine Boutella also returns as Sofia Belkacem, whose serious injury during one of the copycat's robberies gives the new mystery a more immediate human cost.
Raoul is now played by Théo Christine, replacing Etan Simon after the four-year time jump. The recasting makes sense given the character's age, and it allows the series to explore his relationship with his father at a different stage of his life. Raoul is no longer simply a child caught in the consequences of Assane's decisions. He is growing up, and the question of whether his father can genuinely change becomes harder to avoid.
I would have liked even more room for these relationships. The series has a habit of treating emotional developments as brief pauses between major plot turns, when some of its most affecting moments come from the people who have to live with Assane's decisions. His intelligence may be extraordinary, but the people around him cannot be expected to keep adapting indefinitely to a life in which every promise of stability is followed by another crisis.
The expanded eight-episode season also gives the writers more space to develop the mystery. There is room to explore the history behind the new threat and the reasons someone would want to turn Assane's own legend against him. The use of technology adds another dimension to the cat-and-mouse game, particularly when the copycat's methods make it harder to distinguish genuine evidence from carefully manufactured appearances. At the same time, a longer season creates more opportunities for the plot to overcomplicate itself.
Part 4 pushes its action towards blockbuster territory. The production is bigger, the set pieces more ambitious, and technology plays a greater role in the crimes. There is certainly pleasure in watching the series attempt something on a larger scale. Paris remains an excellent setting for a story about a thief who treats public spaces, famous institutions and ordinary routines as opportunities for deception. Still, I have always found the cleverness of Lupin more appealing than its spectacle. The most satisfying moments in the earlier parts often came from watching Assane exploit a small oversight or recognise an assumption that everyone else had accepted without question. A disguise worked because somebody failed to look closely enough. A robbery succeeded because the apparent sequence of events was not the actual one. These details made his victories feel earned, even when the schemes themselves were implausible.
By the time Part 4 arrives, the question is no longer whether Lupin can produce another entertaining series of robberies. It has already demonstrated that it can. The more pressing question is whether Assane's story can develop beyond the familiar cycle of trouble, ingenuity and escape. His attempt to leave the Lupin identity behind offers a promising route forward because it forces him to confront the consequences of a life he has spent romanticising through the adventures of a fictional thief. That is where I hope the season places its emphasis. Assane's intelligence is a pleasure to watch, but his inability to stop using it in ways that endanger his family is a more compelling flaw than any locked door or security system. He can fool the police, mislead his enemies, and construct an entirely new identity in a matter of minutes. Changing the habits that have defined his life is another challenge altogether.
Part 4 has enough going for it to justify the return. Omar Sy remains magnetic, the copycat premise gives the mystery a personal edge, and the connection to Assane's father brings the story back to the injustice that started it all. The larger production occasionally threatens to overwhelm the smaller details, and the increasingly elaborate twists risk losing the impact the series intends. But there is still something satisfying about watching Assane attempt to outthink a person who has learned to play by his rules. I am less convinced that the show needs to keep getting bigger. What made Lupin distinctive was never simply the size of its robberies or the number of disguises Assane could invent. It was the pleasure of watching him notice what everyone else had overlooked. Part 4 is at its best when it remembers that distinction.
Final Score- [8/10]
Reviewed by - Anjali Sharma
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Publisher at Midgard Times