The series was an entry at the 18th Festival de la fiction de La Rochelle in September 2016 where it won Best Series. It was first broadcast on 10 January 2017 on the French TV channel M6. It became available for streaming in Australia on SBS On Demand in August 2017 and released worldwide on Netflix starting 1 January 2018.
A horrific discovery in a small town nestled high in the French Pyrenees begins to unravel a dark mystery that has been hidden for years. Commandant Martin Servaz (Charles Berling) starts investigating and soon discovers a dark story of madness and revenge.
Glacé / The Frozen Dead provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affably Evil: Hirtmann is soft-spoken and well-mannered; he still scares the shit out of people.
- Amoral Attorney: Hirtmann, and it's more like Amoral Prosecutor, but you get the idea.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Hirtmann manages to escape at the very end.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Eric Lombard, and Dr. Elisabeth Ferney; who are killing off the men that abused them as teenagers.
- Driven to Suicide: Hirtmann would convince his victims that death was a way out and then they would basically consent to get killed by him.
- Expy: Hirtmann is basically a French Hannibal Lecter.
- Frame-Up: The mystery starts when DNA evidence is found next to a dead horse that implicates Hirtmann, which should be impossible given that he's been in jail since his capture.
- My Greatest Failure: Servaz feels this way about Hirtmann: friend, colleague, his daughter's godfather, and a serial killer; feeling that he should have figured out sooner before Hirtmann killed as many victims as he did.
- Morton's Fork: Hirtmann gave one to Servaz when he got caught. Release him and he'd disclose the location of his last victim, Fabienne Carlier, or keep him and the location would be lost forever, knowing that maybe, just maybe, Carlier woulda been rescued in time.
- Never Found the Body: Fabienne Carlier, Hirtmann's last known victim before he got caught.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ziegler, mostly due to poor communication with Servaz. Not only she knew the link between Gaurady and Hirtmann, but then came across evidence linking the suicide of three teens 15 years prior to not only Gaurady, but to Perrot and Chaperon, and also going after Perrot and Chaperon on her own resulted in both getting killed — all because one of the teens had been her girlfriend as a teen.
- Nom de Mom: Helene Carlier, sister to Hirtmann's last known victim, starts going by her middle name and her stepfather's surname to get access to him as Dr. Diane Berg
- Right Under Their Noses: The reason why Servaz and d'Hummieres beat themselves a lot regarding Hirtmann; he was their close friend and associate, while also being a serial killer.
- Scenery Porn: Even in the dead of winter, the French Pyrenees provide gorgeous landscapes.
- The Chessmaster: Hirtmann. Despite being in an assylum, he has strings everywhere, including over a Judge and even some of the people in charge of the asylum.
- The Film of the Book: Based on a novel by the same name.
- The Man Behind the Man: Lombard and Ferney are behind the murders, but Hirtmann is the one that pushed Lombard and Ferney to commit the murders as a way to seek revenge on their abusers.
- The Shrink: Dr. Berg, at the asylum where Hirtmann is incarcerated.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Three teens were found hanging death at a summer camp 15 years prior, and ruled suicide — after being the victims of abuse.
