This is the review of the second season of
the Danish crime drama written by Søren Sveistrup, Forbrydelsen. If you haven't
watched the first season, I recommend you to not continue any further and the review
of the previous season is available here and whatever I’ve stated in my
previous review regarding how I review a drama applies to this review as well.
Ulrik Strange (Mikael Birkkjær) and Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl)
Getting back to the review, the second
season starts with the murder of a lawyer, Anne Dragsøhlm, who worked as a
legal adviser to the Danish army. After Jan Meyer’s demise and the sacking of
Lund from the homicide department, the chief Lennart Brix gets a new
subordinate, Ulrik Strange. Meanwhile, Sarah Lund’s union with her boyfriend
Bengt Rosling fails and she is back in Denmark, as part of the Passport police
in Gedser, southern Denmark. Brix drafts Sarah back into the homicide
department and from her side, although she was initially reluctant, she
eventually overcomes her dilemma and decides to investigate the case along with
Ulrik Strange. As the series progresses, the murders similar to that of Dragshølm
keep taking place – a serial killer is on the run.
Similar to the first season, there was also
a political sub-plot – but from local politics, it moved on to national
politics, with the newly appointed Justice Minister, Thomas Buch, being the lead in the sub-plot, who is put in
a situation which forces him to open a can of worms. Then there is Jens Peter
Raben, a suspended military officer who is now in a psychiatric ward over
mental issues and Raben, in some way has links to the murdered.
I don’t think I can give any further
details on the plot without spoiling the same. Coming to the story, it was
good, to say the least. Murders all over the place, and also, these murders
also had political impact. Lund-Strange combination too, was really good, for a
change, Lund could actually cooperate with somebody and if I have to say
something good about Strange, I think he is the only one who was never annoyed
by any of Lund’s antics and supported her throughout. Adding more on the
characters, my favourite addition was the Justice Minister Thomas Buch – who,
despite not being a lawyer, was doing a good job, did not care about losing his
post for doing the right thing and also, his rhetoric was really good and
though I don’t understand more than ten words in Danish, I loved the way in
which he expressed himself and one the whole, Buch was by far the best addition
to the series (only as a character). The story also added dimensions, military
protocol, and the war in Afghanistan among several things. I love crime stories
which are to the point, without much digressions or needless sub-plots and
Season 2 of Forbrydelsen’s score certainly increases on my scoreline, for such
reasons.
From what I’ve read, season two is strongly
criticised for several reasons; that Lund was loved because of the complex
nature of her character, her workaholic personality, personal issues and
problems at work but in season two, she didn’t have any personal or
professional problems. Moreover, the next bone of contention was that the
personal aspect of a murder was completely ignored, that is, there was no focus
on the families of the bereaved. The last one was the size being halved,
compared to the twenty episodes of the previous season.
However, I never understood the reason for
such strong criticism. The first, regarding Sarah Lund being compromised, I
felt that Lund was the same as before, ever so confident, ever so assertive and
moreover, for me as a viewer, I enjoyed seeing Lund having someone as
cooperative (unlike Jan Meyer) as Ulrik Strange as her partner. The next being the personal aspects of a
murder, that is a reasonable criticism although, it wouldn’t have been
practically possible to do such a thing when the number of people murdered is
so high in number. Instead, even the impact of Jens’ absence on the Raben
family was portrayed quite well, which I think compensates for the lack of counterparts
to the Birk Larsen family. Regarding the size, it was quite a relief –
considering that the first season, beyond a certain point, was dragging on and
on for no particular reason.
However, I’d not say that Season 2 of
Forbrydelsen was perfect, far from it, with its own flaws. The first being,
although I praised Thomas Buch, as a character in the story, I however felt
that his presence and in fact, the entire political aspect of it to be quite
redundant. The politicians were hardly a part of the whole police investigation
and unlike Troels Hartmann, Thomas Buch meets Sarah Lund only once, that too
for less than ten seconds and it was in not in any way connected with the
investigation. The political side of the story was a plain repeat of the first
series and Sveistrup unnecessarily followed a template, that is, write a crime
story, and somehow link it to Danish politics. On a light note, Lund wearing
her famous Faroese jumper in the deserts of Afghanistan completely went over
the top. It is nearly impossible for a writer to cover up everything and there
were loose ends, some blatant ones but much less, as compared to the first
season.
I’d conclude this review by rating this
series and for rating crime stories; I’ve a rough checklist which I shall be
stating below. The story was good, satisfying the primary requirement, with
minimal deviations and had a good set of characters, adding flavour to the
story. Moreover, the more important aspects of a crime story are the
interesting twists and turns, red-herrings which it definitely had and finally
the most important of all, a fitting end, which Forbrydelsen’s second season
didn’t lack, either. On the whole, I’d give this an eight on ten.
Have a nice day,
Andy
No comments:
Post a Comment