Hotel Beau Séjour (or simply Beau Séjour) is a Dutch-language Belgian supernatural crime drama, created by Bert Van Dael, Sanne Nuyens and Benjamin Sprengers, and directed by Nathalie Basteyns and Kaat Beels. It first aired in Europe in early 2017 and Netflix in March 2017.
In a village near the Belgian-Dutch border, teenager Kato Hoeven wakes up covered in blood in the Hotel Beau Séjour and finds a body in the bathtub - her own. Stumbling out of Room 108, she eventually finds her way home only to discover that no one can see or hear her except for a select few: her father Luc, her step-sister Sofia, her friend Ines, Police Chief Alexander Vinken, and the Chief's son Charlie.
A second season was confirmed in November 2017 featuring a new story and cast with the hope of creating an Anthology series.
In 2022, the first season of the show was adapted by British Cable Network Creator/Sky with a miniseries called The Rising.
Despite the name and subject matter of the series, this is not an example of the Hell Hotel trope.
This show provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Alexander treats his son, Charlie, like he is vermin; and never takes any responsibility for the latter’s mental illness. To pour salt in the wound, he is shameless about expressing his favoritism to his nephew, Leon.
- Taken to the next level with Marcus.
- Arrested for Heroism: Alexander provides crucial information leading to the murderer finally being caught, but he still goes to jail due to working with a drug lord and then sabotaging the investigation to cover that up.
- Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Among others, Ines, Sofia, Luc, and Alexander all did something bad on the night of Kato's murder that they are trying to cover up. Lampshaded when Kato notices a pattern and explicitly asks them if they are hiding anything from her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kato's murderer (as well as the murderer of Claudia DeWitt, Sofia Otten, and Leon Vinken), Marcus Otten, is found and brought to justice - but, as expected, this leads to Kato's 'ghost' fading from existence. The events of the series have also destroyed a number of lives - Melanie has lost her son and is likely going to prison for tampering with evidence, Alexander is likely going to prison (or at the very least, being drummed out of the police force in disgrace) for being on Vanderkirk's payroll, and Cyril has not only lost his sister and his step-sister, but now knows his father was their murderer and is going to prison. Charlie is free again, but given that he's starting to hallucinate Kato, it seems that his already tenuous grip on sanity is slipping away. On the bright side, Ines gets to leave town with the money Kato's grandmother, Renee, made from working with Vanderkirk, so she'll be able to provide for her soon-to-be-born child.
- British Brevity: Each season is only 10 episodes in length.
- Buried Alive: Kato is buried alive near the climax, although it is unclear whether the villain did this deliberately, or whether he tried to kill her first and she just got better.
- Averted Common Tongue: in the original, all characters speak Belgian Dutch, except for a few conversations between policewoman Marion and her mother, who are the German-speaking Belgians, and speak their German dialect when alone together. The same policewoman follows a lead beyond the Dutch border, and the characters she interacts with speak Dutch to her (which any person speaking the Belgian version of Dutch understands).
- Dirty Cop: Alexander, and to a lesser extent, Bakki.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: When Kato is buried alive, she is discovered due to the strange behavior of the nearby horses.
- Glad You Thought of It: Charlie tells Jefke the true location of Kato's murder while making him believe that he discovered it by himself with his (nonexistent) psychic powers.
- Hot for Teacher: Ines and Luc.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Invoked by Charlie. When he falsely confesses to the murders, he includes details that were not released to the public so the police would believe him. Unfortunately, the police didn't count on him stealing the notebook of a ghost who was spying on the investigation.
- Karma Houdini: Bakki never gets in trouble for trying to meet underage girls.
- Nerves of Steel: mixed with
Fridge Logic. When Kato' murdrerer is revealed, we also realize the character had been seeing her all along, and managed to never, ever, freak out in the presence of the ghost of the girl he killed. - Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Varderkerk, a notorious drug dealer, is the only character to insist on a lawyer when being questioned by the police.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Kato eats, sleeps, and feels pain, and can only be seen by people connected to her death. She also creates ghost copies of items she uses, like her motorbike, on which she rides around after her death.
- The Reveal:
- Hannes Vanderkerk can also see Kato’s ghost.
- Ines and Luc have been in an affair for some time.
- Charlie once tried to murder Leon with a nylon cord out of jealousy from Alexander’s favoritism.
- Marcus is the murderer.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Kristel's ex-husband Luc tells her that he can see the ghost of their daughter Kato and convinces her that Kato wants them to go out together. Kristel's current husband Marcus naturally accuses Luc of lying about seeing Kato in order to manipulate Kristel into getting back together with him. In fact, Luc actually can see Kato's ghost, but he was lying about it to manipulate Kristel into getting back together with him, because the real Kato doesn't care much about him and has more important things on her mind.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: A lot of focus is given to the fact that Melanie's DNA sample won't be tested for several weeks, and Alexander's preparations to infiltrate the lab and sabotage the sample before it can be tested. However, he ultimately doesn't go through with it, and the sample gets tested and Melanie arrested anyway.
- Undeath Always Ends: Kato fades away after her murderer is caught.
- Wham Shot:
- The naked corpses of Leon and Sophia hanging from trees.
- Marcus staring right at Kato.
- Whodunnit to Me?: The premise of the show.
- You Should Have Died Instead: Alexander tells Charlie he is more upset over his nephew Leon's death than he would have been if it was Charlie that was murdered.
