The Valhalla Murders – Episodes 7 & 8

Here we are already at episode 7 and we have a lot of ground to cover! Grab a drink and settle in. Suddenly we’re getting the whole story but this is an avalanche of information. It’s not great storytelling that we’ve had to wait this long for answers and suddenly we’re submerged in new information.

We begin in the most silent and boring barber shop in all of Iceland. There’s opera playing, dark panelled walls and I guess it smells of rich mahogany. In another room there’s probably many leather-bound books. Magnus is hanging out with the rich and influential, angling for a bigger budget and more power thanks to his success solving the case. But the past is about to catch up to him big-time. A elderly press photographer shows the police a photograph of Magnus in uniform when he was part of Thomas’s search party. Only now is it coming clear who Maggie is, the name that Tryggvi dropped at the end of episode six. Is this the fault of the subtitling or the script? Had it had been clear it would have made for a much better cliff-hanger. As we’ve seen, everyone in Iceland knows each other and people are only spoken about using their first name, or nicknames. Unfortunately this rather confuses the rest of us.

Kata and Hakon decide they will try to open an investigation into Magnus. Hakon says “If we are wrong both our careers are over”. The big question is was Magnus the rapist at the Valhalla home? This series has been so bleak and yet these episodes manage to get bleaker. Poor young Fannar is dead, in what seems to be a very bloody suicide. Arnar sees that has the same scar in the same place as the Valhalla boys. This abuse is not a historical problem. The rapist is still at work. It’s a real shock to see our steely Milk Tray man cry, whimpering alone in his car. There’s another terrible question to answer – was Thor pimping out his own son? Remember how he’d come into a lot of money just before he died?

There’s no mystery for Kata – she’s sure. In her mind Magnus has been tried and convicted. But is this evidence or a personal vendetta against a senior police officer who has placed her on leave after the death of Tommi’s father? Kata and Arnar meets in Iceland’s least popular restaurant (I wonder if it’s next door to the barbershop?). Without saying a great deal, Arnar basically implies that Kata is nuts. He’s got personal history with Magnus. Can he see past that and be objective?

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'Trapped: Series 2' – Episodes 1 & 2

This is a full review of episodes 1 and 2 of Trapped so don’t read on unless you’re up to date.
Trapped Series 1 was an extraordinary bit of television, the first ever Icelandic drama broadcast on British TV. The first series was the highest rated series ever on RUV, watched by 86% of TV households in Iceland. In the UK it passed 1.2 million viewers on BBC Four. Safe to say then that series 2 has quite a bit to live up to. I’m hoping it’s worth getting excited about.
Bearded man-mountain Ólafur Darri Ólafsson reprises his role as chief police inspector Andri now back in Reykjavik when he is entrusted with an extremely high-profile case. In classic nasty Scandi style we have an immediately gripping immolation opener which is fascinating even as you recoil in horror. Gisli an impoverished sheep farmer from the Icelandic Highlands sets himself on fire in front of the government building, trying to kill the Minister of Economic Affairs who just happens to be his twin sister. Andri is back on top again – a rise so meteoric I’m surprised he doesn’t have a nosebleed. From zero to hero thanks to his hard work and persistence in Series 1. In the first five minutes he’s already chatting to Iceland’s Prime Minister who cuts right to the heart of all Scandi noir motivations – was this attack personal or political?
Vikingur (early contender for best name of the series) is Gisli’s son, working at the controversial aluminium plant up north. As in the first series we get a break from subtitles thanks to the international element here in this industry; something that right-wing Icelanders like the Hammer of Thor group are protesting against – who profits from the devastation this plant causes to their landscape and their livestock? Vikingur already has a lot on his plate before his father’s horrible suicide – he’s in a relationship with Ebo, a black colleague who seems like he’s in the country illegally.
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'Sacred Games' – Netflix

The hero of Netflix’s first Indian drama is Sartaj Singh (played by Saif Ali Khan) who cuts a rather lonely figure. He’s a honest and honorable detective who refuses to be intimidated by his corrupt colleagues in Mumbai’s police force. Probably because he refuses to tow the line he’s never landed a big case. He’s trapped in a corrupt system with no way out. In good cop show style, he’s unhappily divorced, scarred, gaining weight and taking medication for anxiety. No wonder as he’s under immense pressure from his station chief to lie under oath about a unarmed teenager shot down right in front of him.
This seems like more than enough to be dealing with, but no. Right from the outset Sacred Games is a game to be played by two. His opponent is Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a notorious gangster and a fugitive in hiding for 15 years. He makes contact with Sartaj out of the blue seemingly to spill his guts about his extraordinary life.  He also has a cryptic warning. Mubai’s time is numbered – there’s 25 days until the whole city is destroyed. Is he threatening the city both men say they love or is he tipping Sartaj off in the hope of saving them all? His personal god complex is clear; his first words to Sartaj are “Do you believe in God?”, but after all he’s been through he thinks he might really be immortal. And the way the show sets him up, he really could be.
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'The Bridge' – Series 4, Episode 3

This is a full review of The Bridge: Series 4, Episode 3. Catch up with episode 1  and episode 2. Don’t read on unless you’re completely up-to-date on the BBC2 schedule!
Episode 3 was a classic where not very much happens. Characters willfully impede the investigation and every plot point feels like a dead end, until a frantic final three minutes which leaves you shaking your head and softly repeating the word “What?” to yourself over and over.
Our heros
“I’m not well” says Saga in typical matter-of-fact style. If only it was always so easy to acknowledge your own mental health problems and ask for help. She then lists a devastating catalogue of personal disasters. “We’ve got a bit to work with” says the unflappable therapist, surely in the running for Understatement of the Year 2018.  We hope with help Saga will turn the corner and apply her logical, analytical brain to her own situation, but Mummy is messing with her delicate mental state from beyond the grave – having her lawyer send childhood mementos to Saga’s workplace. Don’t open the box Saga! It’ll be about as much fun as Brad Pitt’s surprise gift in Seven.
The Danish sister from episode two,  christened by the internet Öliver and Dødger, were such a perfect fit for a hole we’re desperate to be filled. Like a Choir of (Young) Believers the internet sang out in one voice “They could be Henrik’s daughters!” And he gets them home a lot faster than I’d have ever imagined, but now in context of their old bedroom he would recognise them, right? He seems to be the only person not swept up in the idea that they’re his long lost children. But one night at Henrik’s Hotel turns into two as these resourceful Tracy Beakers refuse to be sent off to any dumping ground.
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Eurovision 2018 – the Grand Final

Well I told you it’d be a vintage year and well worth tuning in for, but I did not expect that. What a night! Let’s try to put some of the craziness in context. I’m not even sure where to begin.
So Eurovision 2018 gave us a huge variety of music with many genres represented. In my lifetime I never thought I’d see anyone stage dive at Eurovision! The way the initial jury voting went the field wide open with any of 6 or 7 songs that could have won. There was pop, metal, dance, ballads, opera and loads of different languages on show, mainly by people who all looked the same. So much for diversity, but baby steps. We also had four female presenters, none of them particularly gifted in comedy or the essential schmoozy green-room chat, but fully female-fronted is a big deal. This was especially obvious as creep after creep giving the jury votes commented on their appearance, hilariously the Portuguese man was the absolute worst. He made my ovaries cringe and shrivel up inside me. Ick.
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'The Team'

People have been getting very excited about this new euro drama, picked up by MHz Choice in America, Walter Presents of Channel 4 and out now on DVD in the UK. It’s designed very much with the new and surprisingly ravenous appetite for Euro drama in mind, bringing us together like happy clappy Eurovision. It’s supported by about 9 production companies and the ‘with thanks’ list is in big letters at the very start, and is very long. It’s an entire European industrial zone.
The Team of the title is the Europol network, bringing detectives together from Denmark, Belgium, Germany. The lead is Harald Bjorn, played by Lars Mikkelsen who is familiar to viewers as mayoral candidate Troels Hartmann in The Killing, and a sinister villain in a pretty poor Sherlock episode.
Right-wing losers the UK Independence Party don’t like it, which is reason enough for me to give it a try. Also, who knew UKIP had a culture spokesman? You would have thought they were very anti-culture, what with so many foreigners mixed up in it. Wasn’t culture  invented in ancient Greece? It’s enough to make a racist shudder.
Well The Team ought to suit those who distrust foreigners; when it comes to language skills it’s not exactly taxing. It’s entry-level subtitles with plenty of spoken English to break up all that reading. Everyone we come across, from brothels to board rooms, speaks an enviable variety of European languages.
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'Witnesses' – Series 2

As you may have noticed I’m still waiting on the next big Euro drama to cross my path. All the Scandi stuff recently has me feeling a bit flat, with fairly promising starts leading to confused middles and ‘meh’ endings. It’s fine to have a beautiful backdrop of lakes and mountains, but you need to populate it with original characters leading interesting lives. The story needs to be multi-layered, but not too complicated; zoning out and playing with your phone is the absolute death knell for a subtitled drama. Both the good guys and the bad guys need to have clear motivations that we can relate to.
So with a Gallic shrug it might well be time to bid au revoir to the northernmost corners of Europe and see what France might have to offer; after all, the daddy of the noir resurgence in the past decade has been the Emmy award-winning and much loved Spiral. The most memorable dramas I’ve watched recently have been French, or part French; the balls-out action heros in Braquo, stylish super spies in The Bureau and the best character in Midnight Sun was the deeply troubled French detective.
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'Black Lake' – BBC4

There’s a new Swedish thriller in the all-important Saturday night BBC4 slot which launched our national obsession with all things dark and Scandi, but this is Scandi with a twist, as, if you’ll pardon the pun, all the detective stuff has been done to death. This is Black Lake originally released as Svartsjön in Sweden and Denmark in October 2016. We’re in creepy territory from the start with the classic X-Files text wipe and tappity-tap keyboard noise. We see confused events in a cellar in 1996, just enough to pique our interest, but in no way giving us any plot points, other than it all looks pretty scary.
So 20 years later we have a bunch of wealthy-looking young people in very nice 4x4s drive off into the mountains for a ski trip. Johan (Filip Berg) is thinking of buying this abandoned ski lodge and running it as a business. His gang of mates are his guinea pigs to check it out and see if it’s worth buying. These kids are not short of cash and this is reflected  in the opening sequences. It looks like an expensive car advert, with staggeringly beautiful cinematic wide shots of the perfect christmas card landscape.
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'I Know Who You Are' – Episodes 1&2

I Know Who You Are is a Spanish language thriller, unusual for BBC4  who seem to cover Scandinavia and France with their Saturday night detective drama slot. This was a hugely popular series with fans and critics. So just what is all the fuss about?
The first shot is almost zombie film imagery – a lone survivor of some nameless horror stumbling along the highway. This is Juan Elias (Francesc Garrido),a notorious and brutal lawyer, academic and general legal eagle. He’s the husband to a high court judge with all the right connections, and dad to two kids. Elias (confusingly everyone calls him by his middle name) finds all this out at the same speed as the viewer. He has what seems to be almost total amnesia after a car accident. Only he wasn’t alone in the car. His niece Ana has gone missing and there’s forensic evidence linking her to the crash. She’s missing and he hasn’t a clue what’s happened, or so he says.
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'Public Enemy'

Sky Atlantic are really stepping up when it comes to interesting Euro imports, and really competing with the big boys Walter Presents on Channel 4 and good old BBC4. Midnight Sun from Sweden was seriously amazing. Their latest offering is a dark drama that was hugely successful in its home territory of Belgium, and it soon becomes clear why.  When a convicted child killer Guy Beranger (Angelo Bison) is released from prison on probation, the monks of Vielsart Abbey offer him sanctuary in a small village in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest. Creepy Guy is placed under the protection of a young Federal Police inspector, Chloé Muller (Stéphanie Blanchoud), who is herself haunted by nightmares of childhood trauma. Despite clearly not being mentally fit enough for this duty young Chloé is to be his babysitter.
Creepy Guy was convicted of five murders in 1990s. These were extremely high profile killings, mainly it seems of children, and he’s not been forgotten. On the way into the up into the forest we’re greeted with angry protests from Vielsart villagers and quite a few of the abbey monks. Father Abbot is on side, all about the Christian charity and forgiveness. Even among his own brothers he’s not made a popular decision. Will he be ousted because of this or will he teach his brothers that forgiveness isn’t easy but is always necessary?
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