I watched it all but was bitterly disappointed. Season One was just about OK, but Season Two was just a farrago of nonsense. And honestly? I'm getting a bit fed up with Rolf Laasgard who plays Erik Bäckström and who is so typecast he doesn't bring anything new to any role he takes now.
Here he is once more, the lonely maverick who is convinced he's right and everyone is wrong. It doesn't matter that he IS right; the problem is that it's absurd that in the face of the clearest of evidence everyone else is on the wrong trail.
I'm going to talk mainly about he second season in this review as it's the one freshest in my mind.
The stubbornness of his nephew Peter, in particular, is unconvincing and the hatred of the rest of the small town is overblown as is the behaviour of the putative murderer. It's clear in episode three who the baddies really are. That the ending is contrived in such a way that the town can continue in its slumbers and prejudices seems to be a total cop out. I don't believe for a second in the decision that Bäckström took regarding his nephew. That such an upstanding and dedicated warrior for truth and justice took the course that he did when Internal Affairs intervened is simply not possible having regard to his character and personality. In any case, there were witnesses outside the police force who could have contradicted his version of events, upstanding members of the public.
But wait! There's an epilogue. And here only an oldie like me is going to understand what I am talking about. Who remembers Perry Mason played by Raymond Burr? Well, at the end of each episode Perry would demolish the DA's case so convincingly that someone in the audience in the courtroom would always be moved to cry out, so forceful and piercing were the words of that famous defence attorney, "I did it" and then proceed to explain why. Bäckström must have been reading up on this old series, or at least the scriptwriters were, because that's exactly what happens here except it is done in a bar amongst a load of drunks. This isn't a spoiler because we know from the beginning that the accused isn't the guilty one. It's utterly ridiculous.
OK, as it was Swedish, I watched till the end therefore three stars. No way is it worth more.
