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The Bridge Season Three Review
SPOILERS AHEAD
Bridge of No Return?
♦ Tripwire gave Contributing Writer ANDREW COLMAN the task of reviewing nordic thriller The Bridge Season Three, out now on DVD and Blu Ray
The Bridge Season Three
Produced: Lars Blomgren
Stars: Sofia Helin, Dag Malmberg and Thure Lindhardt
Scandinavia’s best crime drama returned to our screens late last year with many fans wondering whether the departure of Kim Bodnia from the series would undermine its quality. The series’ strength was predicated not just on razor sharp storytelling and noirish, tight direction but on the highly original interplay between the two polar opposites – the weather-beaten, sympathetic yet deeply flawed Martin Rohde, (Bodnia’s role), and Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) an introverted character devoid of conventional social skills, yet also deeply human.
Bodnia left the show due to disagreements over the direction his character was taking, but to the producer’s credit, the transition from series 2 to 3 is deftly handled, with series creator Hans Rosenfeldt correctly opting for a very different male lead in Henrik Sabroe (Thure Lindhardt), a man who is as much a troubled outsider as Saga. The producers also understood the need for another alteration in the format – this series focuses far more on Saga’s acrimonious, tangled backstory, and how it brings her journey to a head, along with conflating this strand with Henrik’s equally traumatic past. The unresolved guilt, not just with the death of her sister but her trusted confidant and friend, senior officer Hans Petterson (Dag Malmberg) hangs progressively heavier for Saga over the ten episodes, and it is to Sofia Helin’s credit that her super-detective is so utterly believable, such is her magnificent performance.
The somewhat cookie-cutter story is much more of a backdrop to these psychodramas, rather than its motor, as it was in series one. There’s no shortage of characters in this series, which occasionally muddies the waters, but within five episodes everything comes into focus – Emil Larsson (Adam Pålsson) plays the serial killer – an art gallery guide, who, it turns out, was once in a care home that Hans was connected with. His predictably gruesome-yet-kitsch, corpse-laden scenes of traditional family life implicates Freddie Holst (Nicolas Bro) a wealthy art collector, and his former partner Claes Sandberg (Reuben Sallmander), whose life he ruined. He kidnaps and eventually murders Hans early in the series, thus forcing the department to replace him with Linn Björkman (Maria Kulle), a demagogic senior officer who quickly develops into Saga’s nemesis. Meanwhile the sudden reappearance of Saga’s estranged mother, Marie-Louise (Ann Petrén) presents yet another problem for the embattled detective, not least due to her assertion that Saga is responsible for her sister’s suicide, which Saga claimed earlier was due to her mother’s Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
It is this sub-plot, plus Henrik Sabroe’s arrival as Saga’s new partner, that underpins the series so effectively. The twists and turns regarding Larsson’s capture (and the somewhat typically existential coda behind his actions) are now familiar fare, with several narrative dead-ends preventing the two leads from neutralizing the antagonist until they themselves are spent from all the demons within them. Sabroe’s private furies centre around the unexplained loss of his wife and children, leaving him a drug-dependent social itinerant who fantasizes them back into reality (an excellent if somewhat familiar trope). His relationship with Saga is of a very different dynamic to the one she had with Rohde, but it is no less credible, as they are ultimately similar creatures with mutual needs.
To be fair there are excellent turns from several of the supporting actors, not least Freddie Holst’s mercenary art-gallery owner, so desperate to have a child that he goes to absurd lengths to make it happen, as well as Reuben Sallmander’s stone-hearted self-help guru and Louise Peterhoff’s (as Annika Melander) crazed stalker. There are few ciphers here, and along with the traditional bleak cityscapes and harsh trailing shots of the bridge and its icy environs, all is present and correct. The forensic side and overall plot of the stories may have been superior in the first two series, but this run works mainly due to Saga and Henrik’s engulfing woes, the grinding politics within the police station and the chemistry between the two leads, which almost matches Saga and Martin’s. You have to wonder what mileage is left in Saga’s saga, and whether Henrik’s forlorn quest is enough to warrant a fourth series. Everything, particularly in the finale when Saga is forced to confront her buried issues, is top-draw here, but this exemplary show does seem spent. We shall wait to see if the producers can find a way to make another series work, but it would be understandable if it didn’t appear.
ANDREW COLMAN
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