Careme Episode 2 recap: Bailey’s brutal interrogation

Episode 2 of Careme serves up a rich dish of political drama, scandal, and survival, seasoned heavily with ambition and garnished with cruelty. Set in post-revolutionary France, the story plunges us deeper into Antonin Kareem’s world, where the kitchen is only one battlefield among many.

After a failed bombing attempt on Napoleon Bonaparte, the city of Paris is buzzing with fear and suspicion. The pressure to find the culprits is intense, and Bonaparte demands immediate action. Enter Joseph Fouché, the cold-blooded police minister, known as the “Butcher of Lyon.” His methods are terrifying.

Fouche arrests 122 Jacobins even though he knows they’re likely innocent. His goal? To show he’s doing something. He questions Sylvane Bailey, Antonin’s adoptive father, and casually asks if he’s left or right-handed.

When Bailey answers, Fouché tells him to place his left hand on the table… then crushes it with a hammer. The moment is horrifying. It’s meant to scare, control, and send a message: no one is safe.

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Antonin’s kitchen struggles and rise

Back in the kitchen, Antonin’s talents shine. He earns a promotion for pointing out a mistake in how the meat was rested. But just as he takes charge, he realizes there’s no meat left for the day’s service. Instead of panicking, he improvises and steps up as a leader.

When the kitchen staff resists, only one person, Lilianne, stays. She warns him, “You’ll end up leaving, kid.” But Antonin doesn’t flinch. “Not me,” he replies. His confidence is sharp, but it’s making enemies.

While delivering herbs, Antonin meets a little girl named Charlotte and immediately notices she looks a lot like Talleyrand, Bonaparte’s foreign minister. Turns out, she’s his secret daughter with his mistress, Catherine. The revelation is dangerous, especially because Talleyrand used to be a bishop. A love child could destroy his political career.

Antonin, desperate to save his father, spills the secret to Fouché. He hopes to gain some leverage. But this backfires in a big way.

Napoleon isn’t just angry, he’s furious. His values, ironically conservative, clash with the revelation. He threatens to remove Talleyrand unless he marries Catherine. Talleyrand is livid, not just because of the scandal, but because this jeopardizes his push to protect divorce in the new civil code.

Yes, even divorce is on the chopping block, thanks to Josephine’s fear that Bonaparte will leave her since she can’t bear children.

Antonin proposes a wild idea to fix things: host a grand engagement party for Talleyrand and Catherine. He’ll use the occasion to convince Josephine to support keeping divorce legal. When asked how he’ll do that, Antonin smirks, “She has a weakness for me.”

Talleyrand rolls his eyes. “Your cooking saved the peace, and now you think it can save a divorce?” Still, they go ahead.

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Behind the menu

To pull off the party, Antonin calls on Agathe, a sharp and skilled cook. Their menu is clever: every dish contains alcohol, from rum baba to venison with honey cider, scallops in yellow wine, and crayfish with anis liqueur. The alcohol’s not just for flavor, it’s to lower inhibitions and help Antonin pull off his next political trick.

At the party, men serve women, a symbolic reversal meant to soften the public view of the scandalous marriage. Catherine holds her own in witty banter. Talleyrand might have met his match. Even Bonaparte’s mother can’t resist showing up for the drama.

Here’s the twist: Antonin doesn’t seduce Josephine. Instead, he tricks her daughter, Hortense, and Bonaparte’s brother Louis into a compromising situation, pretending to show them fruits that help with fertility. Then he catches them in the act and uses it as blackmail.

His words? “Save your marriage. Save divorce.” It works. Josephine later tells Talleyrand, dripping with sarcasm, “You would have condemned millions to unhappy marriages just to save yours.”

The plan works. Talleyrand keeps his position. Josephine backs divorce. Antonin is back in the minister’s good graces.

But trouble isn’t over. Anti-Bonaparte pamphlets show up at the party. “Down with the tyrant,” they read. Suspicion quickly falls on Germaine de Staël, a real-life figure known for speaking out against Napoleon. Fouché begins handwriting comparisons. Someone else is about to get interrogated, and we already know what that means: “Lefty or righty?”

Antonin has gone from a hopeful chef to a political operator. He’s made questionable choices, including blackmail and betrayal. But he’s done it to save his father and secure his future. Still, he never lets go of his love for good food or his commitment to perfection in the kitchen.

At one point, someone asks Antonin what he thinks of the new France. He says, “It has much in common with the old one.” That line says it all.

Despite revolutions, new laws, and shifting power, the same games are still being played, just with new players. The food may look different, but it’s cooked in the same kind of kitchen.

Episode 2 of Careme is intense, layered, and brilliantly written. It mixes historical truth with fictional drama, showing how food, love, and politics all blend into one messy, flavorful dish. Antonin may be rising in the culinary world, but the political stakes around him are growing just as fast.

The show leaves us with a simple but powerful truth: in any era, power corrupts, survival demands compromise, and even revolution can taste a lot like the past.

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