Assane Diop, who idolized Arsene Lupin, had been able to get the better of his enemies in the previous season of Lupin, and he had proven to the world that his father wasn’t a criminal. Hubert Pellegrini had been put behind bars, and Assane had gone into hiding, believing that once things settled down, he would come back to meet his family. But the media and society in general made the lives of Claire and Raoul a living hell. That’s when Assane realized that he would have to do something about the situation so that his people could live peacefully. So, let’s find out what happens when the infamous gentleman burglar makes a return and if he is able to achieve what he set out for.

Spoiler Alert

Why Did Assane Fake His Own Death?

For the longest time, after Hubert Pellegrini was taken into custody, Assane went into hiding, and he didn’t know when he would be able to return to his wife and kid. He missed them, and he wanted to meet them, but he knew that he couldn’t risk their safety by doing that. But this forced exile wasn’t able to go on for long, and Assane, after seeing the news and realizing the kind of trouble his family was in, decided that he would have to go back to Paris. Assane was branded as a fugitive on the run by the media even after he had proven that whatever he had done was to establish his father’s innocence. But still, the man had broken laws, and whatever the circumstances might have been, the fact was that he had done a lot of illegal things since a very young age. Assane realized that unless and until these people knew that he was dead, they wouldn’t let his family, i.e., Claire and Raoul, live in peace.

Assane had a plan in mind, and once again, he leaned on the stories of gentleman burglar, Arsene Lupin, to find a way out of this mess. Assane met Benjamin, and he told him that the plan he had in mind was very dangerous and that the chances of it going wrong were too high, but he had realized that it was the only way forward, and he would have to take the risk if he wanted that desired outcome. Assane had decided to steal a black pearl, a priceless artifact that had great historical relevance, and the interesting thing was that he had tried to do so in the past and failed. The pearl was kept in the Place Vendome museum, and Assane himself went and delivered a letter to the manager, Mr. Imbert, telling him the date and time of the robbery. Now, this was an audacious act, even by Assane’s standards, and from Sofia to Guedira, who himself adored Lupin, nobody knew how he was going to do it. But Assane had everything in place already. He had told his friend Bruno to pose as a SWAT agent, to go and meet the police officers and the manager of the museum, and to get all the information about the kind of security installations they had there.

Assane, Benjamin, and Bruno, masked in a SWAT hood and helmet, entered the museum amidst the huge crowd that had gathered outside the gate to cheer for their Robin Hood. The crowd was also called by Assane, as he knew that commotion and chaos would help him escape easily from there. At the specified time, Assane stole the black pearl and escaped from the museum. He climbed on the roof of the buildings, and he was trying to escape when his legs slipped, and he fell from a great height. Twenty-seven people were witnesses to that fall, and they saw that Assane was gravely injured. He was taken to the hospital, where the doctors pronounced him dead. Later, we came to know that everything was staged by Benjamin and Assane to deceive the people into believing what they wanted to show. Assane was still pretty much alive, and the next day, in the newspaper, The Objector, the news of his death was published. Assane’s mission was successful, and he knew that now his family could lead their lives without being troubled by the media.

What Did The Kidnappers Want From Assane?

Assane had gone earlier to the graveyard and found out that there was a way to escape from the coffin through the underground tunnels. It was Courbet, the man who had helped him with Hubert, who posed as the doctor and gave a false autopsy report. Assane had an airbag underneath his clothes, which is why he didn’t get hurt from the fall, and then quickly Benjamin came to the scene and spilled his blood, so that the police didn’t have any sort of suspicion. Once the coffin was on the ground, Assane opened the bolts and escaped via the tunnel. If Arsene Lupin had been a real-life figure, he would have been proud of what Asanne had been able to achieve. Even Claire and Raoul were not told that Assane was alive, though there were already theories that the gentleman burglar had faked his death. Youssef Guedira was also among those conspiracy theorists who, even after seeing Assane lying in a coffin, wasn’t ready to believe that he was dead.

Assane got out, and he thought that his problems were over, but just then, he saw something written in the newspaper, which made him realize that his mother was in trouble and that she was asking for help from him. Only his mother used to call him Sanni, and that was the word that was mentioned in the classified advertisement. Somebody had kidnapped Mariama, Assane’s mother, and surprisingly, they knew that he was alive. They asked him to give them the black pearl and also the famous painting named Chez Tortoni, which had been stolen 30 years ago. The painting was kept in the house of a local gang leader named Cisco, and Assane risked his life, duped the entire gang, and took the painting from them. He gave the painting to the kidnappers, still not knowing what they wanted from him.

The second task the kidnappers gave him was to steal a sapphire bracelet owned by Tera Xang, who was the wife of a real estate developer, Max Moller. But this time, the kidnappers not only wanted Assane to steal the priceless sapphire bracelet but also make a sacrifice that would weigh heavy on his conscience. The kidnappers wanted to know how far Assane could go to save his mother. They obviously knew him from before, and that’s why they were hitting his weak points. He had already risked his life with the entire operation that he ran with Cisco, and now, again, he was asked to do something that was probably the most difficult thing that he had ever done in his life.

How Did Claire Find Out That Assane Was Alive?

Assane, in Lupin season 3, made a detailed plan like always, and together with Benjamin, he breached the castle where the elites were going to have a get-together. Assane dropped the bracelet while taking it from Tera Xang’s hand, and it was surprising as his sleight of hand was nothing but impressive. Later, in Lupin season 3, we came to know that he had done it intentionally, as he wanted Benjamin to be caught by the law enforcement authorities. That was the price that the kidnappers wanted him to pay, apart from taking the risk of stealing the priceless bracelet. Assane was feeling burdened with guilt, and he broke down while sitting in his car, not knowing if his friend would ever forgive him.

Meanwhile, Claire had realized that Assane was not dead and that her son and Youssef were not wrong in believing so. Assane changed his appearance completely using prosthetics and joined Raoul’s school as a basketball coach. By doing so, he could meet Claire every day, be around Raoul, and see him playing. Firstly, Claire came to know that the name of the doctor who had conducted the autopsy was not on the list of employees of the hospital. She then did her own research, read “Edith Swan-neck, The Confession of Arsene Lupin, “and came to know that Assane had staged his death. Later, she went to meet Benjamin in prison, and all her doubts were cleared. She told Benjamin that she knew everything about what Assane had done, and the latter bought it because she spoke about details that only he knew about. Claire had read the book, so she just took a chance, and Benjamin took the bait. After that, it didn’t take her long to figure out that the coach, Alex, was Asaane. Assane also realized that there was no point in hiding now, and he went and met Claire and Raoul and told them why he had faked his death and also about the kidnapping of his mother.

Why Did Jean-Luc Keller Want Assane?

Jean Luc Keller, back in 1998, ran a sports complex, and a lot of children who didn’t have parents or whose parents were not there with them went to him for help. Now, he gave them a space to live and provided them with all the resources, but in return, he controlled their lives and made them commit crimes. During one such heist, he made Bruno and Assane rob a store. The boys didn’t want to do it, but Keller threatened them by saying that he would ask the social services to take them away the next time they came for inspection. A police officer started chasing them, and Keller forced Bruno to shoot him down.

Keller got distracted in the chaos, and their car met with an accident. Fortunately, Bruno and Assane were able to escape from there, and Keller was caught by the police officers and he was convicted by the court and sent to prison for 25 years. Keller wanted to take revenge on Assane for the years he had spent rotting in prison, and that is why he had kidnapped Mariana and was coercing Assane to do all those tasks. Mariana was able to escape from Keller’s hideout, and she went straight to meet her son. The mother and son reunited after years, as Mariama hadn’t met Assane for the longest time since she was in prison and she also thought that her presence would have a bad influence on her son. Assane met Manon, Keller’s daughter, and convinced her to go against her father.

Manon had always liked Assane, and she knew that whatever her father was doing was not right. She made a call to Keller and asked him to come and meet her at a specified location with the black pearl. Keller was shocked when he saw that instead of Manon, it was Assane who was waiting for him there. Assane, before coming there, had called Sofia and Youssef and told them that they could arrest both him and Keller from the scene. Assane told Keller that he could walk free if he handed over the black pearl to him, as the police didn’t have anything on him, but he was bluffing. He knew that the police had enough evidence to prove that Keller had killed one of his associates, Ferdinand Marchal. Sofia and her team caught Keller and put him behind bars, whereas Youssef Guedira arrested Assane, though he couldn’t believe that the conman didn’t have any tricks up his sleeve. Before Youssef arrived to handcuff him, Assane had hidden the black pearl in a flower and given it to a woman. Then later, Bruno came and found that woman and took the flower from her. So, now Assane had the black pearl, but he was put behind bars without any hope of getting released in the near future.

Will Assane Be Able To Come Out Of Prison?

During Lupin season 3’s ending, Assane tells Youssef that he would let himself be arrested if he promised that Benjamin would be released from prison. Youssef would have agreed to anything that he would have asked at that time because he knew how much he could benefit professionally if the nation got to know that he was the one who had put the most wanted criminal behind bars. Now Assane had gotten some dirt, with the help of his mother, on the interior minister, Thierry Floron. He had a phone in his possession that belonged to the minister, and it had the contacts of all sorts of criminals fed into it. It was enough to prove what the minister had been up to, and Assane was in a position to ask him for a favor. Earlier, we had thought that he would ask the minister to get Benjamin released, but now that Youssef was only ready to do the needful, we think that Assane will take the minister’s help to escape from prison.

Lupin season 3 leaves us on a cliffhanger as we get to know that Hubert Pellegrini was in the cell next to Assane’s. He sent a cryptic message to Assane, making sure he knew that he had not forgotten what had happened to him in the past. Hubert Pellegrini’s presence in the prison was a curveball thrown at Assane, and he was probably not prepared for something of that sort to happen. Assane would now have to reassess the situation and improvise, keeping in mind that Hubert was not going to let him live peacefully. Mariana, Claire, Raoul, and Benjamin were safe, but Assane still had a lot of obstacles in front of him, as he had made some powerful enemies who were not going to let go of things so easily.