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?
Continue reading “The Valhalla Murders – Episodes 7 & 8”