REVIEW: The Bridge (S4 E3/8)

Last week’s episode of The Bridge was, really, all about Saga. Her heroic return to police work and her subsequent mini-meltdown thrust her back into our consciousness with a jolt, but here, in episode three it was all about Henrik.

Which was good to see, because – yes – Saga is our key character and one that we love and root for dearly, but Henrik has always felt like a slightly peripheral character, often designed to act as a counterpoint to Saga. But here, in this episode, there was real character development and a type of development that didn’t bode well for he and Saga’s relationship.

It’s just a hunch so far, but you felt that there were cracks beginning to show.

But we’ll come to Saga and Henrik later.

As ever, there was a lot going on in this episode.

Dan the nasty cab driver – the last person to see Margrethe Thormod alive and Sofie’s abusive ex-husband – was hijacked by a group of armed men on the way to Malmö from Denmark. Now, at the end of the last episode, we saw Patrik – poor, electrocuted Patrik – working in a hospital as a clown to entertain the sick kids. He was told to leave a private room by a father who said that his daughter was scared of clowns. This father – William – turned out to be Dan’s boss, and he took out the person who betrayed him and carried out the hijacking with a bullet (or three). Make no mistake: William is an arms dealer and a very bad man.

Who just happens to have a sick daughter in the hospital.

Elsewhere, Richard was eliminated from enquiries after it was revealed it was that he who was behind Red October – a fictional activist group, created for publicity. And, in The Village (as we’ll call it for now), there was a burglary, which sent some of the locals into a bit of a mild panic. Christoffer was revealed to be the person who did the stealing, but he and Astrid’s friendship showed signs of developing. I got a real feeling something is going to kick off here in The Village, but it wasn’t in this episode.

The most intriguing thread throughout this instalment was family.

After teenage urchins Julia and Ida were picked up by the cops, Henrik took a shine to them and ended up taking them home with him to look after them. This did not impress Saga and she was immediately uncomfortable (she had started seeing a therapist, and, as you would imagine, was very straightforward in listing all the awful things that had happened to her), but Henrik was really enjoying having two kids – living kids – back in his home. He joked with them, fed them spaghetti and all those latent parenting skills spilled out. You got the impression that as Saga watched on she didn’t feel at home with Henrik anymore, that he had changed, and became someone she didn’t recognise.

(And Henrik answered a question we might have been asking: were Julia and Ida his missing children. No, he answered Saga, they weren’t.)

Their relationship was further complicated when Saga dropped the bombshell – in her usual, matter-of-fact way – that she was pregnant. When Henrik expressed surprise – they had been using contraception – Saga replied, bluntly, “I’ve only sex with myself and you for the past two years.”

She intended to terminate the pregnancy, while Henrik wasn’t quite so clear-cut. Another wedge between these two, perhaps.

In terms of the investigation, there was also movement. They let Taariq go (Henrik pretended to let him escape custody and his impending deportation) but they had bugged his watch and tracked him. Whenever any police force undertake a secret bugging plan like this in any crime drama it always goes wrong and, sure, enough Taariq pawned his watch to buy a gun. They had lost him, and now he was on his way to meet Morgan Sonner. Whoever he is.

Finally, there was action at the hospital – another clown made an appearance, tasered Sarah’s mother outside her room and burst in, scaring the living bejesus out of the sick girl and looking like he was going to abduct her. So… are the murders all connected to William, Sarah’s dodgy arms-dealing dad? Saga and co had been working on the assumption that Patrik – a clown at the hospital – was a case of mistaken identity. What if Patrik was the intended victim? And, if so, why?

Questions, questions, questions. And, really Hans Rosenfeldt, damn you – an evil clown just before bedtime? We know that you like your scary tableaux and imagery, but this was one step too far, surely.

Paul Hirons
@Son_Of_Ray

FOR OUR EPISODE ONE REVIEW CLICK HERE

FOR OUR EPISODE TWO REVIEW CLICK HERE

 

Truth and fiction: The controversy of Picnic At Hanging Rock

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Netflix picks up Polish series, Ultraviolet

It seems that not a day goes by when global, series-devouring streaming network Netflix – now rivalling Disney as the biggest media company in the US – has acquired some sort of new series. Not only does it produce its own US series and documentaries, it has cast its net far and wide and signed up non-English-language series to stream on its service. Germany, Denmark, Italy, France… you name it, it’s all on Netflix.

Now, we hear news that it has picked up Polish crime drama, Ultraviolet.

Via The Medium Is Not Enough, Wirtualnemedia and Filmneweurope report that:

The series is inspired by the book The Skeleton Crew written by Deborah Halber and infused with the personal story of Wendy West. The series follows the life of a thirty-year-old woman (Ola Serafin) who is forced by circumstances to leave her husband and London, and return to her hometown of Łódź. While driving her car one night, she witnesses a dramatic situation which looks like suicide, but which she finds highly suspicious. The police seem to be indifferent to the case. Desperate, Ola looks for help on the Internet, where she finds a group of amateur detectives that solve criminal cases the police are unable to.

The all-star cast of Polish actors includes Marta Nieradkiewicz in the lead, accompanied by Sebastian Fabijański, Bartłomiej Topa, Agata Kulesza, Marek Kalita, Michał Żurawski and Magdalena Czerwińska.

Here’s a trailer. It’s in Polish and without subtitles, but it gives you a flavourooney.

Expect this to surface later this year.

Sounds really intriguing.

Miss Fisher movie greenlit

Australian series, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (shown on Alibi in the UK), is one of our favourite staples – it’s full of Golden Age style and substance, and, well, old-fashioned fun. And, in Essie Davis, the series has an engaging and brilliant star.

There have been three, hugely watchable series on the small screen, but its future always seemed up in the air. As Davis’s star grew – she landed a role in Game Of Thrones, The Last Post and The White Princess for instance – the show’s future became ever more tricky.

There was talk of a movie version.

According to Kera Tellyspotting:

You may remember last Fall when the producers of the brilliant Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries took to Kickstarter with a goal of AU$ 250,000 in support of bringing the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher to the big screen for a proposed standalone theatrical release. When the dust finally settled at the end of the campaign, an astonishing AU$ 733,000+ was raised from over 7700 fans worldwide. Each new target goal (and there were plenty) allowed producers to add international locations, visual effects, production design, and the glamorous costumes that only Miss Fisher is accustomed to.

Now, it appears, the Miss Fisher movie has been greenlit, acquiring the title Miss Fisher And The Crypt Of Tears, which will begin filming in October.

Series regulars Jonathan Page, Miriam Margolyes and Ashleigh Cummings are set to return, although there’s no word on where this film will be seen.

More news as we get it.

FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH ESSIE DAVIS CLICK HERE