The political thread runs deeply and cynically throughout the season, with lines between the ones to like or dislike shifting and blurring constantly. We meet a slew of civilians affected by the tragedy and watch how lives crumble in various ways due to grief, suspicions and frustrations as each seeming explanation gets debunked by some other revelation. The script is highly intelligent, juggling more characters and plot lines than usual for the genre. And just for another layer of confusion, this might be the work of a yet-undiscovered serial killer. Perhaps it was a crime of passion there’s a strong chance of some political connection, greatly complicating the hotly-contested mayor election in process throughout the investigation. Suspects rise and fall like a game of whack-a-mole, as each new bit of evidence points the “J’accuse” finger at a different suspect, often seeming to exonerate the last one. This is quite upsetting to both her family and colleagues – especially Meyer, who is something of a jerk, resenting her hands keeping the reins at his expense. The body of the young woman they find shows such prolonged and brutal treatment that Lund just can’t let it go, staying on the job much longer than planned. She’s assigned to one last crime scene to break in her replacement, Detective Meyer (Soren Maling). Sara Lund (Sofie Grabol) is a Copenhagen detective on her last day before moving to Sweden with her beau and son.

It runs 20 hours of a single, extremely complicated homicide, compared to the norm of solving such cases in an 8 – 10 episode season. Their fictional cops just don’t get into as many fights and shootouts as our made-up heroes. Like most European crime series, this one is more cerebral than visceral. This subtitled Danish TV crime drama series “The Killing”(original title “Forbrydelsen”) will impress you as either riveting or tedious, depending on how much time you want to spend on this binge. A scene from the Danish TV series “The Killing.” Photo courtesy of Topic Entertainment.

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