Fatal Crossing: Anatomy of a Serial Killer

[Big Spoilers ahead ... ]

I've heard -- in television shows and movies about serial killers, I've never done any research into them myself -- that female serial killers are very rare.  Fatal Crossing, the latest Nordic Noir TV series from Kristine Berg and Arne Berggren, does a masterful job of portraying one, and how she came to be.

The villain, Lisbeth/Jyte, tells her interrogator, the journalist Nora Sand, that she's not afraid of being abandoned, she's afraid of being forgotten.  That's as an astute a statement of the obsession with fame that I've come across.  As part of Lisbeth's quest for fame, she likes to be quoted.  I hope this fictional character appreciates that I've at least paraphrased her.

Fortunately, most people who value fame and enjoy a bit of it, including me, don't achieve it and seek to maintain it by killing people.  Lisbeth discovers how much killing attractive young women really appeals to her when she and her best friend Lulu are kidnapped by a man with a taste for harming young women himself, and Lisbeth turns the tables on him, not killing him, but running him and Lulu in support of satisfying her own deadly needs.

We follow the path to discovering this depraved menage a trois via the central character, Nora Sand, an intrepid journalist with her own backpack of emotional baggage.  She's played in compelling detail by Marie Sandø Jondal, whom I've never seen before on the screen.  Indeed, I've never seen a searcher for serial killers portrayed with quite the range of emotional valence Sand brings to the part.

Berg and Bergson deserve a lot of credit for this, as does Lone Theils, herself a Danish journalist and author of the novel of the same name from which this TV series was adapted.  Fatal Crossing is itself the first in a series of novels, and I very much look forward to seeing more of this Nordic Noir with a twist from this team.

See also my reviews of these other Berg and Berggren TV series:  Catch and Release and Outlier

And my 2022 interview with Berg and Berggren:

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Catch and Release 1.2-1.8: Not about Fish and Much More than You Think

Back with a review of the rest of Catch and Release (I reviewed the first episode at the end of this past November), the new freezing-sleaze Nordic Noir series by Kristine Berg and Arne Berggren.  It's on Norwegian and Australian television, not yet here in the United States.  But I'm sure it will be, and when it is, I'd say catch it whenever you're in the mood for an eight-episode ride through snow, complex police interactions, revenge, and murder.

[Some mild spoilers ahead ...]

Let's begin where I left off, after watching and reviewing the first episode.  I said the protagonist was Irja (well played by Anitta Suikkari), an elderly cop or detective who left the police because she only has weeks to live (terminal cancer), but comes back to work to investigate the murder of an old guy who was shot when he was fishing.  I was wrong about a bunch of things in that characterization:  Irja is not the only protagonist, and her reason for coming back to work is not what I thought and said.  She does have major role, though, and be sure to watch all eight episodes to see what that is, and how it turns out.

The other protagonist is also a policewoman, as young and fresh as Irja is old and worn.  But Filippa (excellent performance by Mathilde Sofie Henriksen) has a sharp, analytic mind and able to do her work through a continuing barrage of insults, snubs, and old-fashioned male chauvinism.  She's so good at her work that I'd say her character could well have some more cases to investigate, which I'd definitely look forward to seeing.   (I also liked Jesper Malm as Detective Anders Ødegård.)

The case at hand involves several murders in addition to the first, as well as a group of men who take advantage of high-school-aged young women.  The countryside of northern Norway is beautiful and beckoning, but it disguises the kind of sexual predation that we associate with big cities.   "Catch and Release" refers to the practice of fishermen, who catch fish and release them, so other fishermen can catch and release, etc.  But in this at-times harrowing series, it's vulnerable young women who are caught and released, to be caught and released again and again.

I'll be interviewing Kristine Berg and Arne Berggren -- writers, directors, and creators of this memorable series -- next Wednesday.  Check back here for the YouTube video and Light On Light Through (my audio podcast) links.

See also Catch and Release 1.1: Nordic Noir in the Twilight of Life

Catch and Release 1.1: Nordic Noir in the Twilight of Life

 

I just saw the first episode of Catch and Release, a new Norwegian Nordic noir series by Kristine Berg and Arne Berggren, the team who made Outlier, which I saw on Acorn via Prime Video and very much liked and reviewed here this past August.   Catch and Release is currently airing in Norway, and should be up on Acorn in 2022.  I'll definitely watch and review the rest of the series as soon as that happens.

Like Outlier, it's a very different kind of suspense thriller.  The protagonist is an elderly former police woman, Irja Lantto, who has left the force because she has only weeks or a month of so left to live.  In fact, she's putting a gun to head, to end her life right there and then, when she hears the sirens of a police car.  They're on the way to investigate the murder of a man who was fishing in the clear waters of Norway.

Of course, the current police would rather Irja go home and rest (i.e., die) rather than be troubled by her investigating the murder, but she'll have none of that.  And in this first episode, we see there is plenty to investigate, including people with all kinds of problems in all kinds of situations.   Near the end, we also learn that there's a man who lives deep in the woods, who tells Irja that there's some kind of inchoate evil afoot.

The last TV series about an elderly investigator that I recall was Barnaby Jones, in which Buddy Ebsen played Barnaby from 1973-1980 on CBS.  That show was one of the pillars of my "defective detective" theory of television back then, in which I noticed that just about every detective on television had some kind of physical problem:  Barnaby was old, Longstreet was blind, Ironside was in a wheelchair, etc.  The hero (or anti-hero, still a little early to tell) of Catch and Release would fit right in with that group, and in fact Irja will likely give a more profound accounting of herself.

I'll be back here with a review of rest, as soon as I see it.

See also Catch and Release 1.2-1.8:  Not about Fish, and Much More than You Think

Outlier: Nordic Noir, Criminal Minds Style

Well, there's no team of FBI profilers working the case in Outlier, in fact no FBI and not much of a team at all,  but Maya Angell, a doctoral student in London who goes back to her hometown in northern Norway to investigate the killing of a young woman, would fit right in with the BAU.

She begins her work in Norway by telling the incompetent police chief that the man he has locked up for the crime couldn't be the killer, because he acts on his emotions too quickly.  The killer, Maya quickly realizes, is a serial killer, who operates much more carefully.

And then things get really interesting, as Maya realizes that some kind of sexual attack she experienced as a child, but can't quite remember, may in some way be connected to this serial killer.  Meanwhile, we get to meet him.  He's married, with two kids, a family man who gets his kicks by kidnapping and killing women when he's out on his job, installing video equipment in peoples' homes.

Maya is an intelligent, resilient, though deeply wounded character, and we get to slowly see how she wound up that way as she pursues the case.  Good acting in this role by Hanne Mathisen Haga, and the northern scenery is vivid and convincing.  The other characters range from interesting to ok.  I found her London fiance who doesn't want Maya to pursue this case to be annoying.  But Hanne's performance brings this definitely not-ensenble series home to a powerful and somewhat surprising ending.

This was just the first season of Outlier.  Will there be a second season?  I hope so.  But whatever happens, hats off to Arne Berggren, who wrote, directed, and executive produced this off-beat nordic noir series, which makes especially fine viewing on a few hot August evenings.