The Bridge: Episode Two

"Do you want to have sex at my place?"

"Yes, definitely!"

"Good, let's go."

Two episodes in, and I can already tell apart the words for "no" in both Danish and Swedish. Saga certainly says it a lot. It's also becoming clear that this is really good telly. Really, really good telly. Spiral and The Wire good telly. The plot's rather slow burn, and it's easier to spend these reviews talking about themes and characters, but it's unfolding very nicely indeed.

This time the mysterious Stefan has another woman to "save", the strange and homeless Sonja. He also has an office full of underlings who are helping him with Veronika. He also has a scene naked where we see his penis, which seems rather fair, given how much we see of Sonja's boobs. There's a twist, though… Sonja is his sister. And there's another twist at the end, as six homeless people turn up poisoned, apparently by the murderer. Sonja seems ill, too, and Stefan speaks of a mysterious someone who wishes her harm. What does this do to his status as red herring, then?

As I mentioned last episode, I still have no idea whether Stefan and Sonja are Danish or Swedish, and this clearly isn't meant to be unclear- perhaps the subtitles could have pointed it out? The same is true of the murderer's recording, although at least we learn that it was recorded, on behalf of a mysterious client, by an actor speaking "standard Swedish".

The murder seems to have a political agenda, and the first of his five "issues" is the inequality of access to justice. Certainly Monique, the Danish prostitute, has not had the access to justice that Swedish politician Kerstin Ekwall has, er, enjoyed. Martin is appalled and upset to discover that the investigation of the previous year did not even stretch as far as to look at the missing girl's diary, and he's visibly upset by reading it. He's very much a "people person", if you'll excuse the awful phrase, and his empathy and instinct are clearly intended as a neat contrast with Saga. His instinct to go with a hunch and assume that Ferbé has drugs in his flat is such a massive contrast with anything she would do.

The funniest scene is, of course, our look at Saga's very direct pulling technique, the way she post-coitally just turns away from the man she's just shagged without a word and is cluelessly rude to him in the morning. The last thing she says to him is "Thanks!" There are some interesting contrasts here, most obviously with Martin's family life, current sexual inability and habit of confiding with his wife, but also between Saga using a stranger for sex while Martin feels deep empathy with prostitutes. Interesting, too, that each of them is displaying traits more often associated with the opposite gender, whether in relationships or personal traits.

The theme of whether or not to have children, so important last episode, is brought into sharp focus as Charlotte tries to convince the father of a boy on life support to let her husband have the brain-dead son's heart. There are all sorts of ethical agonies inherent in this, but Charlotte is "not interested in hypotheticals". And yet her husband survives only to dump her, and then die. Her selfishness has brought her only pain. Still, it's not yet clear what her role is other than to echo themes.

More of this on Monday: it's back to Buffy next…