Season 2 of the series The Replacement on TF1 changes setting and casting, at the risk of sometimes going a little too hard…
Replacing, the flagship TF1 series starring JoeyStarr, makes its big return to screens in May with a season 2 full of new features and major changes in its cast. This second season, impatiently awaited, promises twists and turns and a significant evolution both in production and in narrative content.
After a fanfare start in April 2021, which captured the attention of more than 8 million viewers, Replacing had seen its audience decline over the episodes. Despite this decline, the channel has renewed its confidence in the project, carried in particular by JoeyStarr in the main role, by ordering a second season which was scheduled from Monday May 27, at 9:10 p.m., with two new episodes each evening.
This new season is distinguished by several major changes. Nicolas Valeyre, the strong-willed French teacher, played by JoeyStarr, leaves the Paris region to teach in a vocational high school in Landes this time. This change of scenery is accompanied by an almost complete renewal of the cast and the production team. Stéphanie Murat takes the reins of direction, bringing new life to the series.
Radical and controversial casting changes
One of the most notable upheavals is the unexpected ousting of Helena Noguerra, who played Isabelle, the protagonist’s ex-wife. “No one warned me. I learned about it from the press,” the actress told Télé 7 Jours, marking a notable point of friction with the production. “These are the fine manners of modern life. Maybe I wasn’t available. Let’s put it like that…”, she added. The former model has since appeared in a new series on M6. Exit also Stéphane Guillon, who played Xavier Meilleur, Nicolas Valeyre’s devious colleague on screen, as Barbara Schulzalias Agnès Letourneur, the female character essential to the eternal “do you want-or-do-you-don’t-?”, followed by the traditional “je-t-aime-moi-non-plus” of this type of program .
Alongside the pillars that are JoeyStarr, who continues to carry the series, and Sébastien Chassage, one of the only survivors of season 1, the new season on the other hand welcomes Clémentine Célarié in the role of the director of the high school who will welcome our “replacement “. “I fell in love with Joeystarr,” she said, promising a complicity that will enrich their interaction on screen.
Other very significant new features
Besides the casting, the decision to move the action to the provinces is not insignificant. JoeyStarr himself underlines this desire to “get out of Paris, break this thing that ‘Replacing‘, it’s Parisianism. The world is big, we want that to be known.” This season, filmed in Hossegor for three months, is therefore an attempt to broaden the series’ horizons, both geographical and narrative.
The Replacement, which had captured the public imagination thanks to its original approach to teaching and its atypical protagonist, therefore seems ready to reinvent itself. It remains to be seen whether this new formula will meet with the expected success and whether it will make it possible to win back an audience which had been somewhat burned by the last episodes of the first season.
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Synopsis – Nicolas Valeyre (Joey Starr) is a substitute French teacher. His gruff demeanor and his original methods make him a teacher as much feared by his colleagues and his superiors as respected by his students. He is willing to do anything to help them figure out what they can do with their future.
TF1 broadcast the pilot of Substituteconsisting of two episodes, on April 12, 2021. However, Replacing was designed as a series: the audiences being there during the first burst of broadcasting, the first channel decided to renew the series. This was entitled to a season 2 broadcast every Monday evening from May 27, 2024 on TF1.
Joey Starr (Didier Morville) plays Nicolas Valeyre in the series Replacing. It was also the actor who had the idea for this role, as he recalled in an interview with TF1, upon discovering that the recruitment criteria for teachers were broadening. “This idea came to me when I heard on the news that National Education was short of staff and that the conditions for being able to teach were being extended to high school graduates who just had to complete their training with an internship. I said to myself that this opened the door to different teachers,” he explained.
From this postulate, this intrigue was born in a school environment around a gruff French teacher, unaccustomed to the school world and the straitjacket of National Education which imposes its original methods in a high school, ignoring its hierarchy and of the administration to help students find their way.
Joey Starr This is not his first role on television, since a few weeks before the broadcast of the first two episodes of The Replacement, we were able to see him in the TF1 production “Gloria”.
- JoeyStarr: Nicolas Valeyre.
- Clémentine Célarié: Maylis Vidal.
- Sébastien Chassagne: Antoine Maclou.
- Louise Monot: Laure Delgado.
- Lyes Salem: Farid Rahmoun.
- Olivier Chantreau: Martin Kit.
- Mikaël Halimi: Louis.
- Dana Fiaque: Angela Diallo.
- Bruno Lochet: mother of Roxane
- Emmanuelle Rivière: mother of Roxane
- Barbara Schulz as Agnès Letourneur
- Helena Noguerra as Isabelle
- Armelle: Geneviève
- Stéphane Guillon: Xavier Meilleur
- Céline Duhamel: Fabienne, the head of the CDI
- Nadia Roz: Nadia, the CPE
- Laure-Kenza Aazizou as Judith
- Alexander Ferrario as Erwan
- Mahia Zrouki as Celia
- Wonder Nsombi: Abou
- Iliès Kadri: Hakim
- Sylvie Filloux as Elsa
- Noé Besin as Gabin
- Tanguy Stradivari: Mr. Richet, the academy inspector
Replacing is broadcast on TF1. Also note that the episodes are posted online in replay and in streaming on the TF1+ site, after broadcast on the first channel. It can be accessed via computer, tablets, smartphone or Smart TV.