During his time operating outside the law, Assane Diop (Omar Sy) has given the police plenty of reason to assume he’s guilty, but in Lupin Part 4, the master thief is earnest when he proclaims his innocence — someone else is burglarizing museums in his name. And Assane has a good alibi: He’s actually behind bars when the crimes take place. Lupin’s fourth season begins when Assane has only a few days of his sentence left to serve. He’s hoping to leave heists behind and visit family in Senegal with his son, Raoul (Théo Christine).
But the arrival of the impostor jeopardizes this plan and throws Assane back into a crazy life of disguises and narrow escapes. While trying to discover who’s behind the burglaries, Assane must also navigate relationship changes with his loved ones, who’ve spent four years waiting for him to be released from prison.
Let’s go back to the beginning of this wild ride to break down the heists, reunions, chases, and betrayals that lead up to the conclusion of Lupin Part 4.
When the season begins, Assane is in prison, and his old acquaintance and archenemy Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre) is in a neighboring cell. Pellegrini ended up behind bars after our beloved French thief discovered that the millionaire had been embezzling funds from his own charitable organization.
During his four years in prison, Assane seems to have become close with his rival, and he plots an escape supposedly intended to take Pellegrini to Argentina. But it’s a bait and switch. Assane’s actual destination is Malaysia, where Pellegrini ends up behind bars again. Assane may have gotten rid of his prison mate, but other troubles soon emerge.
While in prison, Assane resolves to leave his life of heists and disguises behind. With the end of his sentence approaching, he promises Raoul they’ll visit their family in Senegal as soon as he gets out. But that plan is interrupted when a mysterious message signed “Lupin” is issued in France. It announces the simultaneous burglary of several museums. Security is beefed up, but the crimes occur just as promised, and suspicion falls squarely on Assane — even though he was surrounded by fellow inmates and prison guards at the time of the burglaries.
We know he’s innocent. However, some video footage surfaces that appears to show Assane in two museums during a burglary that leaves police captain Sofia Belkacem (Shirine Boutella) seriously injured. To unmask the impostor, Assane must escape from prison and return to the very life he was determined to leave behind. With the promised trip postponed indefinitely, Raoul feels let down again and his resentment continues to grow.
With the help of his trusted sidekick Benjamin (Antoine Gouy), Assane tracks down the impostor and discovers her identity — Adèle Kapoor (Laïka Blanc-Francard), a young hacker. She combines Lupin-inspired antics with methods that deviate from Assane’s — the heists involve deepfakes, drones, holograms, and system hacking. The security camera footage featuring Assane is part of an attempt to incriminate him.
Adèle mimics Lupin to get Assane’s attention, because she needs his help for a new mission — stealing France’s crown jewels from a group of wealthy people who are known as the Guardians of the Jewels. However, even though Adèle is putting the plan into action, its mastermind is Juliette Pellegrini (Clotilde Hesme), the daughter of Assane’s rival, Hubert Pellegrini, who longs to snatch the jewels from their hands. As for the connection between Juliette and Adèle? It’s actually a family tie — Juliette is Adèle’s mother, and Assane is her father.
Juliette and Assane have had an on-and-off relationship. After she became pregnant with Assane’s child, her father, Hubert, sent the baby to an orphanage in England. Once she reached adulthood, Adèle decided to search for her biological family. At the beginning of Part 4, Assane’s quest to discover who’s usurping his identity leads him to meet his daughter. Assane, Juliette, and Adèle combine forces to search for the jewels, but the Guardians of the Jewels catch on and go after Assane. Once they figure out that Adèle is his daughter, the young woman finds herself in grave danger.
After escaping from prison, Assane is shocked to find out that his estranged wife, Claire (Ludivine Sagnier), and his closest friend, Benjamin, are in love and living together. He sees the couple but hides and pretends to be unaware. It’s only toward the end of Part 4 that he confronts his friend. Ben admits that he’s loved Claire since the first time he saw her, long ago. Although Ben and Assane come to an understanding and remain allies, the jewel thief still seems heartbroken. As much as Assane tries to have a happy reunion with his family, the time he spent apart from them has been too much to reconcile — their lives all moved forward without him.
It was Raoul. The revelation comes after Belkacem awakens from the coma caused by her fall during the museum burglary in the first episode. Upon regaining consciousness, the captain insists that her colleague and companion Youssef Guédira (Soufiane Guerrab) help her to reconstruct the events.
As they reenact the scene, they find a footprint that leads them to Raoul. The young man was at the museum trying to discover who was impersonating his father. When he saw Belkacem pointing the gun at the fake Lupin, he acted on impulse and pushed her, thinking he was protecting Assane.
The discovery creates yet another worry for Assane. If his son were to be caught, the Guardians of the Jewels could track him down in prison in order to strike at Assane.
After countless stunning revelations, a wild escapade at the Eiffel Tower, chases — including one on horseback — across Paris, and the theft of the French crown jewels, Raoul and Adèle find themselves at the mercy of the Guardians. Assane’s children will only be released if the treasure is returned, so Assane agrees to drive a truck carrying the precious cargo to the designated place.
But once he’s there, Assane finds out that his son was not actually kidnapped — he only pretended to have been captured, along with his sister, in order to lure his father into a trap. In fact, Raoul’s new ally is none other than Hubert Pellegrini, who managed to escape from prison in Malaysia and join the Guardians. The man Assane sent to the end of the world is back — and he’s teamed up with Assane’s own son.
Raoul feels abandoned by his father, and Assane’s instantly close relationship with Adèle only makes things worse. During a big confrontation between father and son, Raoul explains that he saw Assane and Adèle experience moments of love that he never had with his dad. It’s this resentment that leads Raoul to be part of the setup. After saying all that’s on his mind to his father, Raoul turns his back on Assane, gets in the helicopter with Pellegrini, and flies away.
The police arrive at the scene and take aim at the helicopter carrying Raoul. Assane moves into the line of fire in an effort to protect his son. Lupin Part 4 draws to a close with Assane taking a bullet for the son he loves so dearly. Claire, Ben, Adèle, and Juliette try to help Assane, but the series ends abruptly — Assane’s fate remains unknown.
