Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin was a thief who won with charm instead of force, and Omar Sy‘s Assane Diop has spent four parts proving that the trick still travels. The new season’s second week on Netflix makes the case again, but the interesting part is the map rather than the ranking: the fourth part of Lupin now leads the platform in France and Germany, in Brazil and Morocco, across the Gulf and in Guadeloupe and Réunion, while it is missing from the American chart altogether.

That gap matters because the season did not peak on arrival. It grew. Viewing rose in the second week, the list of countries where it sits at the top roughly doubled, and the three older parts climbed back into the global chart alongside it. That is word of mouth in a form you can measure, and it makes this a catalogue story as much as a launch story.

The figures come from Netflix’s own Top 10 data for the week ending Nov. 1. Lupin: Part 4 was No. 1 on the global non-English TV list with 10.8 million views and 65 million hours viewed, No. 1 in 46 countries and in the top 10 of 90. No title on either of Netflix’s two TV lists drew more views that week; the English-language leader, the documentary series The One About Matthew Perry, had 9.5 million.

The first week looked smaller because it was short. The eight episodes arrived on Friday, Oct. 23, leaving three days in a tracking week that closed on Sunday the 25th. In those three days the season drew 6.4 million views, ranked No. 1 in 22 countries and entered the top 10 in 75. After two weeks it stands at 17.2 million views.

Then there is the back catalogue. “Fans also revisited earlier episodes of the acclaimed French series,” Netflix wrote on Tudum: Part 1 sits at No. 2 with 5.2 million views, Part 2 at No. 6 with 3.2 million and Part 3 at No. 8 with 3 million. Four of the ten places on the non-English TV list belong to one show. In France, the price-comparison site JeChange noted, the same four-part sweep had already happened in the opening week. Variety reported that the season was conceived as a reboot so that newcomers could follow it. The data cannot say whether those Part 1 views come from newcomers or from returning fans; either way, the new season sent people back to the beginning.

Smaller than Part 3, and absent in America

Measured against its own ancestor, the new season is a smaller hit. Part 3, released on a Thursday in October 2023, drew 11.6 million views in its first four days and 14.1 million in its first full week. Part 4’s first full week came in at 10.8 million. JeChange put its opening pace at about a quarter below Part 3’s on a per-day basis.

The sharpest difference is in the United States. In October 2023, Part 3 ranked No. 5 on the American TV chart in each of its first two weeks. Part 4 has not appeared in the US top 10 at all. It is No. 4 in the UK and Canada and No. 6 in Australia, so English-speaking audiences are watching; the American chart is where it dropped out. It is also outside the top 10 in Japan and South Korea.

Elsewhere the rankings are consistent. Part 4 is No. 1 in Italy, Portugal and Romania as well as France, Germany and Brazil; No. 2 in Spain, Poland and Turkey; No. 3 in Mexico, Sweden and Denmark; No. 4 in Norway; No. 5 in Vietnam; No. 6 in India; and No. 10 in Taiwan.

A French superhero who travels

The premise explains part of the reach. As The Nightly summarises it, Assane is a Frenchman of Senegalese heritage who devoured Leblanc’s books as a child and, as an adult, borrowed the gentleman thief’s persona to seek justice from the wealthy family that framed his father, Babakar, decades earlier. Sy has been explicit about the ambition. “We wanted to have a French superhero, first thing, and, of course, to have a Black superhero, that was very important to me,” he told the Australian outlet, adding that the show’s international success means “we can show that France is diverse.” He also recalled that in the Middle East, where Arabic has no letter P, fans tell him how much they love “Lubin.” Part 4 is No. 1 in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as in Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya; the chart has caught up with the anecdote.

The season is also a reset. It jumps four years, during which Assane has been in prison, and pits him against an imitator using his methods. Sy told the French magazine Diverto that the new foe “uses new technologies to create falsehoods and take over the identity of Assane/Lupin,” with deepfakes and hacking in the mix: “It’s a little bit old school versus new school.” Creator George Kay left after Part 3, and Sy now co-runs the show with Louis Leterrier. He told Variety the season “is moving a little further away from Maurice Leblanc.” That is the lineage question this season raises: a show built on a century-old source steps away from it and still sends viewers back to its own first chapter.

The reception is less unanimous than the chart. Journal du Geek found Sy’s take on the character as convincing as ever and singled out Théo Christine, the recast Raoul, but called the twists “fairly predictable” and sensed the franchise is starting to be stretched too far. JeChange noted a split on Rotten Tomatoes when it reported: all six critics’ reviews were positive, while the audience score stood at 20% on about fifty ratings. Views went up in the second week anyway.

Four slots, and the case for a Part 5

For Netflix, the useful number is not the 46 countries but the four slots. A season that sends viewers back to Parts 1 to 3 makes the whole series earn again, and that is the strongest argument for a Part 5. Journal du Geek reports that the writers are working on one, set up by the new season’s cliffhanger, although Netflix has not officially ordered it. MCM covered Part 4 when it premiered; two weeks on, this is how it has landed.

The season is about a copycat trying to steal Assane’s name. Its closest rival on Netflix’s non-English TV chart this week was Lupin: Part 1.